University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations May 2015 Balancing Business and Art in Music: Gazing into the Star Texts of Michelle Branch and Regina Spektor Max Neibaur University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons, and the Music Commons Recommended Citation Neibaur, Max, "Balancing Business and Art in Music: Gazing into the Star Texts of Michelle Branch and Regina Spektor" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. Paper 823. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. BALANCING BUSINESS AND ART IN MUSIC: GAZING INTO THE STAR TEXTS OF MICHELLE BRANCH AND REGINA SPEKTOR by Max Neibaur A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee May 2015 ABSTRACT BALANCING BUSINESS AND ART IN MUSIC: GAZING INT O THE STAR TEXTS OF MICHELLE BRANCH AND REGINA SPEKTOR by Max Neibaur The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015 Under the Supervision of Professor Michael Newman This research builds on literature presenting ideas on the tension between business and art in the music industry and literature defining what a star is by analyzing star texts. Specifically, it looks at how business and art is balanced in the star texts of Michelle Branch and Regina Spektor and what tension this balancing creates.