How to build a national music market

Yesterday a Carrefour hypermarket was launched in my city and of course, my wife just needed to be there, the same way she had to be there for the other 4-5 hypermarkets when they were launched. Of course, me and a friend of mine (his wife was there with mine) were angry like hell, we didn’t have where to park, I have never seen so many cars in one single place, cars parked on the sides of the highway, in curve, on every possible exit. At one moment, my friend had to stop and turn back because his car was too large to go on one street that had cars parked on the sides…Imagine that.

Now, in the middle of this parking hell, there was that stage installed where our local Shakin’ Stevens played his nationwide hits!No kiddin’, we have our own local Shakin’ Stevens the same way we have all kind of worldwide bands adapted to our local cultural environment.

I don’t speak about impersonators, no, I speak about artists that build their image taking as a model one artist or another from the “western” culture. It is very interesting to see how a musical market that started virtually with no “new” artist develops day by day by adding new “modeled” artists.

It is interesting because there is still room. You can look around, see what is not covered in Romania and build a new artist by a template borrowed from western markets. Why not, if it works and brings money? Plus that it kind of gives you a direction, a niche, your own place on this already crowded artistic world, right? Well, it is not that frequent anymore, at artist level, but at song level, I am still amused when I realize one song or another are composed to match some western artist style or sound…

I guess this process is very common on markets that are not yet well developed. As one of my band mates and long time friend, used to say, when a company does not know what to do, copies an other one. It works well in music too.

Well, don’t get me wrong, as any other “consumer”, I fall for this too, I like this guy’s music. His name is Stefan Banica Jr. He sings, dances, plays guitar and piano, but first he is a respected actor, a very known one here, he has a huge visibility, also due to his late father who was a very respected actor long before his son came to being, plus that he is the moderator of “So you think you can dance” franchised show here!

I was amused at first when I have seen his glowing stage outfits, seemed so aged to me(the costumes, not him, since he is around 40 yo),  but after a short while I realized it is part of a bigger image. He gathered around him great musicians, one of the best guitar players in Romania, Nicu Patoi, a big band, with trumpets and stuff…Whatever. Every year he has this big Christmas concert where women go nuts for him. And yes, he makes a lot of money, he is one of the best sold artists here. And he produces hits, which is always a desirable thing.

I am actually curious, did you observe in your corner of the world this kind of “modeled” development of the local music market?

Anyway, here’s one of the hits our local rock’n'roll artist used to break the hearts of so many women here…

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