Thursday 11 September 2014

R&B Music Analysis-Beyonce


is an R&B artist who has been in the music industry since her early teens, starting with her girl group 'Girl's Tyme' which was later changed to the name 'Destiny's Child'. Throughout her whole life Beyonce has portrayed herself as a 'strong, independent woman' which is the main theme across her songs.


Throughout her professional career, Beyonce has changed a lot, especially with her new album 'Beyonce', which was released in December 2013. This album was produced with the idea that her fans had now grown up, along with her, and wanted to express her sexuality and exaggerating the idea of feminism and that females are strong and can lead and be powerful. This is probably shown mostly through her song 'Run the World', on Beyonce's 4th album '4', suggesting that women are dominating the world and we can lead. However, on this song 'Pretty Hurts', sexuality, feminism, race etc are all expressed on an extreme level.

We can see the pain on the girls as they attempt many ways to be stick thin and to look perfect. Everyone is prejudiced against Beyonce and turn their nose up at her because she is not stick thin, perhaps even because she's black. This video shows the view of society, everyone thinking you need to be perfect, and shows how people can be upset and even depressed about it.

Towards the end of the video you can see her gain power and confidence and realise that noone actually needs to be perfect. This is a typical convention throughout Beyonce's videos she naturally brings a lot of power and confidence through her music. 




Another music video of Beyonce's that represents all of these conventions but in a totally different way is 'Run the World (Girls)'. The video represents feminism, by a large group of women coming together and standing off the group of men. This also shows that women can be very powerful if they know how to be and, as the title says, girls can be leaders.

In contrast to 'Pretty Hurts' the video shows that women are strong and confident right from the beginning. They don't care what they look like and they become one, unlike the self-conscious, lonely women in 'Pretty Hurts'.




I believe that both videos give off a similar message of feminism, power and beauty but in completely different ways. This is very typical of R&B music and these themes are typical conventions.

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