Analysis of a star -Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montanna.

Miley Cyrus is my case study for how artists change throughout their career, Miley Cyrus is especially good as she changes in such quick succession to the start of her career- by the end of this essay I would like to argue to see if the changes were too soon and have become counterproductive. From the beginning of her career she has been stereotyped as a pop artist, that creates gimmicky songs with catchy tunes, this is partially through her route to fame as she appeared on a children's t.v program on the Disney channel, 'Hannah Montana' aged 11. Through her appearances on the Disney channel Cyrus developed a fan base that developed into her target audience-Young females that had a likening for America or lived in America. She also simultaneously targeted those who live in the city and those who live in the country through the characters dual heritage in the show for the best part of her career to date she has maintained the same target audience. Because of the prior relationship before she was a singer Cyrus had a good understanding of the wants and needs of her audience. She was able to provide the audience with what they wanted which strengthened the relationship between herself and the target audience and improved her popularity. Cyrus now late teens has outgrown the stereotype and the age group of her fans and has tried to re-market herself to a new audience. This new audience is more diverse and socially rebellious as seen in the video 'Can't be tamed'. Cyrus' new image also has characteristics that can conform to the conventions of the punk genre in the 80's and 90's with the dark colors and low key lighting.

The pop genre that Cyrus initially was placed in is a very demanding genre through mass audiences with a vast range of needs and wants, which could make Cyrus' attempt to attract the whole market very difficult. Also, the pop genre is very competitive with new artists entering every year replacing the  older artists that are no longer relevant to the audiences demands. What we can see with Cyrus changing her image is an attempt to become more niche and cater to a small market segment more effectively, a risky alteration that could have bettered the relationship between herself and her audience. My opinion is that the switch to a niche audience was an incorrect decision as shown in her sales and chart rankings, the song "Party in the USA" was ranked number two,in the most successful Miley Cyrus songs by the website top 10 charts and the song "Can't be tamed" was ranked number 2 by the same website for most unsuccessful. Also her album sales also represent this with her first album "Hannah Montana" selling over 3 million copies in the US and her most recent album "Can't be tamed" sold 500,000 copies. these figures show that whilst Cyrus was situated in the pop genre she outsold herself 6:1 to when she was in the pop rock/punk genre. We can also conclude that her change of genre was a wrong decision as seen in her most recent album. Cyrus loses all sense of being a role model in which was arguably the best aspect of her in the pop genre. She lost this as she wears "skimpy" outfits that leaves little to the imagination, some parents would question letting there child watch the videos because of this as it is not a good message to portray to the younger audiences.

An important thing to consider when comparing the changes in image of an artist is the values of the time. I will be comparing three videos one from 2006, one from 2009 and the other from 2011,despite only being 5 years apart  between the first and the last song  society and what was deemed acceptable varied greatly. In 2006, females were seen to be pure and innocent, especially in the music industry. Therefore the image of Cyrus being a school girl fitted with the "social norm". In 2009, still conforming to the expectations of society, Cyrus continued the pure image through the choice outfits i.e covering the majority of her body with everyday clothes and they were not provocative and by having know reports in the media to have a boyfriend or accept that she had any interest in males, this can link to her country Texan routes in which played a large part in her image, key aspects of the Texan image were religious, not-conformist and a closely knitted family  By this time there had been a break through in the industry in which females were becoming objectified, and the number of females showing more parts of their body increased. An example of this is Rihanna and her song 'Disturbia', in which there were many challenges of conventions and sexual suggestion. the break out of Rihanna's sexuality contrasted against Cyrus's pure image and made her look even more angelical and innocent. This pure image was supported by the parents of her fans as she was seen as a role model, having said that society was shifting towards a more tolerant level of feminine symbolism. By 2009, society had become frequently exposed to the growing number of females who would reveal body parts. Cyrus jumped on the hypothetical bandwagon completely radicalizing her image. Her new image was not revolutionary as a stand alone image as many artists had the same image, what made Cyrus different is that she had changed the furthest out of all the artists, from a pure innocent child to a overexposed, barely dressed women. The final change saw Cyrus neglect her responsibility as a child's role model, outraging parents of fans to the extent of losing fans because they were banned from watching her.

The first video of Cyrus’ career is ‘the best of both worlds’. The song is stereotypical of the pop genre, with a high percentage of performance in the video. The video has a feel as if she is performing live to a live audience, showing a level of extraordinary skills that can reflect Paradox 1 of Richard Dyer’s Star theory. Also by being a young female, Cyrus fits into the expectation s of the audience in the genre. The song feels as if it is marketed solely towards children, with the karaoke esq feel to the lyrics and the way that they are performed. This target audience can also explain for the image that Cyrus wants to be perceived as. She is marketed as if she is a school girl with a country / western background; this method allows the audience to relate to her as she is perceived as ordinary, by attending school like the audience do.  Cyrus’ target audience is reinforced by the route taken to release her track. Cyrus has an alter ego, Hannah Montana [another aspect of Cyrus that the fans can perceive to be extraordinary], in which appears on the Disney channel show, Hannah Montana. The song features as the theme tune to the programme and as only children are expected to see the show her image was constructed to fit the market. Characteristics of her Image are being; Sweet, kind, cute, young, humorous, witty and relatable all of which are expected of a young female. within this video there is a strong sense of the notion of looking as it is entirely performance based- therefore Cyrus knows the audience will be looking at her. As she at the time of this song was a new artist she would have wanted the video to establish her as the artist to form a bond between the herself and her audience to encourage sales of other products; such as her t.v show. But also create a cloak of fame around her making Cyrus look extraordinary in the audiences point of view.

The Second significant music video to the change of Cyrus’ image is ‘The climb’. Cyrus in this video looks mid-teens rather than the early teens of her first song; she appears in the video in jeans, a t-shirt, a guitar and minimal make-up. By the time of release Cyrus’ existing fans had grown up since her first album, in order for her fans to maintain their interest they need to still be able to relate to her therefore she changes her image. An example of this is the new maturity of her audience doesn’t want to support a child artist they want to watch someone who is relevant to them; therefore Cyrus wears more adult clothes and sings about more serious matters. The video from the first song to the second looks more professionally developed, than the homemade feel of the first. Cyrus’. From this video the new image created consists of; Maturity whilst still being youthful, independent/ self-reliant, talented, still sweet but more serious in her topics she talks about. From this song we can see the effects of Cyrus’ absence from the audience as her style returns more developed but still very similar, this fits into the paradox 2 of Dyer’s theory- the artist needs to be absent but also present to the audience. The message of the song is to work hard and keep trying; it’s not about when you achieve something it is more about the journey you take to get there. This change from the first song seemed to be beneficial as many of her fans wanted to consume more products that she provided as she seemed more relevant as an artist in her themes of the songs.

The third music video I will talk about is ‘Can’t be tamed’. This video revolutionises Cyrus’ image changing her from a child artist to an edgy artist that appeals to a target audience of young adults. In this video Cyrus takes on another alter ego of “the rare Cyrus bird”. This video is a lot darker than any of its predecessors, it is part of her transformation as an artist, the change of image signifies to change in audience that she wants to cater towards. from this video the target audience is seen to be older than the audience in the first two songs,  which could be females aged 18-24 with the possibility of attracting a small male audience as well from the sexiness in clothing and facial expression from the artist and the actors in the video. This change of image is a good example of Dyer's theory paradox 2. Cyrus was absent from producing music for a year or so, in which she had the time to develop new material and a new image to attract a new potentially bigger market. however this change proved to have negative effects on the popularity of Cyrus as her fans believed the change to be too extreme in contrast to the image they have grown to know and support.

Through a short period of 10 years Cyrus has changed her image 3 times, which is fast for a pop artist and is very risky bearing in mind that the pop genre is focused on making money and staying popular. the first image of Cyrus seemed to be a fan favourite, the second image improved in popularity with Cyrus able to attract an older audience- who have more disposable income potentially to buy her products. Both changes seemed to work in her favour, the final change was one change too far with Cyrus potentially having to change her image to something less radical to recall the support from the fans that use to support her.

Richard Dyer, a social analyst, suggested a theory of how a star creates an image known as "Dyers theory". He states that an Artist is not a real person but a created image using the media i.e music video, album artwork etc. If we accepted this theory to be accurate we would assume that despite appearing normal in her early music Cyrus was really a product of the genre, applying conventions when needed to construct an image that her target audience will relate to and consume her products. Dyer further develops this and states that there are two paradoxes that tan artist will use to create an appearance; Paradox 1 says that the artist appears ordinary and extraordinary simultaneously. Cyrus appears ordinary in the "Best of both worlds" as she is wearing school clothes in which a high proportion of her audience also wear, making Cyrus appear familiar bettering the chance of a lasting relationship. The second paradox explains that an needs to be present and absent to develop an image, the absent aspect of this paradox suggests that when an artist is absent they return with new material, for instance Eminem returning with the number 1 album "Recovery" in 2009 following the lack of popularity with his album "Curtain call" in 2006 . Paradox two can be related to Cyrus when there was a gap between "The Climb" and "Can't be tamed" in which she was absent for a year developing a new image, punk rock image and shifting her genre to a more rock lead style which could be considered alternative.