Keith Negus - Organic & Synthertic ideologies

This is about different ways of promoting artists in the way they appear to the audience and how their career is developed to appeal to target audiences. Negus divides music acts into two parts:

• Organic acts
• Synthetic acts

Organic:-

The idea of an organic act has a more 'naturalistic' approach; their music is more pure and not manufactured by effects. Their success comes from themselves, and their image is a clear reflection of their actual personality, the record company only influence and tweek the act in order to increase audience appeal. The audience for an organic act are usually more sophisticated.

An example of an organic act is Adele:

Adele has a pure, natural, amazing voice, which is never enhanced by computer effects. She never tries to be someone she is not, and she doesn't give over the top extravagant performances, they usually consits of Adele, a mic and a piano. This way all the focus on the organic sound of her voice and her talent.
Below is Adele's performance at the Britt awards 2011 which is a prime example of her organic, simplistic, enjoyable style.

Synthetic:-
A synthetic act is more of a constructed act, an artist is created in a certain way that targets a particular audience. There music and style rarely matches their true personalities and their voices are often computer edited, hence they appear to be fake or synthetic. These kind of acts tend to be enjoyed by less sophisticated audiences like teens and young kids. The also focus more on single-sales as opposed to album-sales.

An example of a synthetic act is Will.i.am:

Will.i.am's music sounds both robotic and hugely edited, relying heavily on computer editing, changing the style of his voice in order to target a certain audience. He has been manufactured to appeal to the audience with unusual hairstyles and clothing. When in concert he makes a huge show to make the piece more thrilling and exciting and less about the music.
Below is Will.i.am performing on a chat show, you can see he puts on a big show with crazy lights and techno effects, making the performance synthetic.