New Copyright Laws

Today a law came into place about parody music videos so the artist is not discriminated against or made fun of. This will not affect us as our chosen song doen't currently have a video.

Another law about adding age restrictions to music videos was also announced, for UK labels. This will not affect our song choice or artist as she is with an American label, however it will affect our chosen genre. Pop videos have a very wide range of explicit-y. Some pop videos contain nudity to a certain extent, also swearing, sexual images and smoking/drinking could be a factor that would need to be considered in pop videos. This law means that video producers will be much more careful as if they had a higher age restriction it could reduce the number of views, especially for pop as a lot of pop views are under 15 or 18.

The Killers-Mr. Brightside

This video is good to look at for camera use and lyrics & narrative, as it is an indie video but with elements of rock and pop genre. There are a lot of close ups and tracking in to the lead singers face, whilst lip syncing the lyrics that are being described in the narrative. The narrative is lead by the lyrics of the song and is literal to what is happening in the video. 

There is a lot of performance with the characters, this makes the video seem very more general. When the audience in the video integrates with the band, the video becomes more real and suggests he is actually singing to people and not being ignored.

There is a lot of cross cutting from the narrative (dancers) to performance (band) this emphasises the fact the whole scene is in one room and they are all together in the video.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

This is Goodwin's theory of music genre, we learnt it in todays lesson.

• The visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.
• Genres often have their own music style/iconography.
• Close-ups should always be included.
• The artist/band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image.
• Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos.
• Intertextual references are also popular.
• Goodwin also argues that female performers are often objectified for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star.

Genre Types

As we have been learning about Genre, I have learnt that there are three types of genre categories.

Cross-genre

A cross-genre is where there are two or more genres crossing and overlapping with each other to create a new sound or genre. An example of a cross-genre is Pop Rock.

Hybrid Genre

This is where there is one genre and can clearly only be identified as one genre and has clear conventions. 

Sub-Genre

A Sub-genre is where there is a different type of one particular genre. These are very popular and most genres have sub-genres. An example would be stadium rock.

Genre Conventions

In class we discussed how many different genres of music there is. This is a list of the different genres I wrote down:
Pop
R&B
Rock
Indie
Soul
Hip Hop
Dubstep
Drum and Bass
Rap
Punk
Electronic
House
Jazz
Pop Rock
Metal
Classical
Dance
Boy Band
Pop Princess
Reggae

Within all of these genres there are many sub-genres, for example for rock there's; pop rock, punk rock, stadium rock, psychedelic rock and many more.

These are the conventions of the music videos of my three favourite music genres. I have used a few brief words just to get a basic idea of the conventions.

Pop-Dance choreography, many enhanced colours, girls, fast cutting rate, close-ups, artist centre of attention.
R&B-Storyline, dancing, blue or golden colour filter, emphasis on clothes, street, house or party scene, close-ups.
Indie-Guitar, instruments, acoustic, not always showing the artist

Target Audience for Pop Music Genre

The first step to finding out what the target audience is for this genre, I Googled 'who listens to pop music?' 

Overall, most people listen to pop music as it is everywhere; TV, Radio, Bars etc. Pop was originally made for children to listen to before their music taste matures. However this taste in music can carry on into adulthood as pop music is over-played. The main reason adults/teenagers listen to pop music is because it is heavily influenced by celebrities and radio DJ's saying that this music is good and we as an audience automatically like this music passively. 

In my opinion, I think that the target audience for Pop music would be an age group of about 10-15 year olds. However, I do believe that this taste carry's on all the way to mature adults as we hear pop music all around us and passively choose to like it. 

Pop Music Analysis-Taylor Swift

is a Pop artist who was first established as a country artist but as she has evolved, along with her image she has gone over more to the pop genre. She has been in the public eye since she was about 16 as her debut album was released in 2006. 

A lot of Taylor's songs are about boyfriends, ex-boyfriends and break ups. This is a typical convention for pop music. Her latest released album 'Red', the fourth album from Taylor Swift, had many hit single on it that were in the charts worldwide. This is a typical pop album, the songs feature themes of relationships, being young, family and love.

This video could be seen as a very typical pop music video. It contains a variety of colours, dance choreography, and the artist is centre of attention. These are all typical conventions of a pop music video. It is also a good representation of a pop video as it is all pretend with Taylor in all the different costumes and contains a slight storyline then cuts back to Tylor Swift singing as her normal self. Another typical convention of a pop video is that there is many different shots of the same person (the artist) and dance to enhance the audience's viewing. These shots have a very fast cutting rate, usually with the beat of the song. This music video is a very feel-good video and makes you just want to dance, this is also typical of pop music.

Target Audience for R&B Music Genre

Again, I goggled what the target audience for the R&B music genre was so I could get a better idea of what our target audience would be, with the pop target audience also.

The target audience for R&B music is usually younger people aged between about 16-25. This may be due to the fact they often use explicit lyrics and also lyrics that are very relatable. The target audience is usually also women as the songs are normally about relationships which young women can relate to very easily.

R&B is a very popular music genre as it crosses over with other genres at the same time for example pop and hip hop. It is also often on the radio and TV so is herd in quite a lot of places.

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.