Madeon's real name is Hugo Pierre Leclercq and was born on the 30th of May 1994. He first started composing music at the age of 11 and made a name for himself after he won a competition in 2010 by remixing 'The Island' by the drum and bass band Pendulum. He went on to remix various other artists' songs, most notably his song 'Pop Culture' (video below) which consisted of 39 tracks, some of which are:
Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
Raise Your Weapon - Deadmau5
Aerodynamic - Daft Punk
Deadmau5 and Daft Punk have been said to be very inspirational artists to Madeon and it seems fitting that he would use them in the song that got him over 14 million hits on Youtube. A notable point in this video is his use of the 'Novation Launchpad', an incredible piece of technology which he used entirely to create 'Pop Culture'. Comprising of 64 buttons it enables the user to remix an song with endless combinations.
His first live performance was in Paris in April 2011, where he was a support act to fellow french artist Yelle. His UK debut was at The Nest in London on August 19th 2011 where he performed alongside the french DJ Jacques Lu Cont. He has done numerous live performances since as well as his songs becoming increasingly popular; his song 'Icarus' featured in the US show 'So you think you can dance?' in May 2012, as well as 'Finale' featuring in EA Sports' extremely popular football game: FIFA 13 and in a Sony PlayStation Vita advert. These are all signs of his rapidly increasingly popularity, the fact that companies are using his songs in popular forms of media demonstrates his rising fame - at the age of only 18, he is set to perform many live concerts (image below) across Belgium, Germany, Holland, France, England and Scotland, me and my partners are attending the London date at the Electric Ballroom.
Although he is French, it is interesting that he should play so many gigs around England, which is most likely down to his music being largely in English - e.g. the songs 'Finale' and 'The City' are in English. It is also possibly due to his music being quite advanced in the sense that he is ahead of other music producers in France, England being more advanced in music than France; new, English sung artists are continuously coming up with new and advancing genres, e.g. Foster the People with their unique alternative rock/dance music that is unlike any other band.
Below is his discography. Although he hasn't done many singles and songs entirely of his own content, this can be put down to him being quite young and not having been on the music market scene for that long, only composing 3 songs throughout the whole of 2012. However he has done 11 remixes and mash-ups in total, since this is a lot me convenient for a DJ to do than doing a song used entirely from user-created content; many DJs remix and mash-up other songs as a way to gain popularity and to show how they can creatively turn preexisting songs into their own version of that song. A good example of this is Madeon's remix of Deadmau5's 'Raise Your Weapon' and Pendulum's 'The Island', these are largely how Madeon grew to fame, not forgetting his most popular mash-up on Youtube: 'Pop Culture'.
My partner, James, received an email back from Madeon on 20th October saying that we
could use his song for our music video, providing it would be used in an
educational context, he also said he hoped James enjoy the London show
coming up, which he is planning on going to.
To help us with the planning of our initial pitch we decided to make a
step by step guide for the video we were planning. This would then help
us when we come to present our pitch to our media studies teacher and
peers, keeping it simple and easy to follow our ideas. Below you can see
the initial ideas that we came up with.
0:00 – 0:22
Guy browsing shop – acting slyly like a thief.
Being watched through CCTV system by two anonymous characters wearing masks.
0:22 – guy takes object and runs – we see anonymous characters leaving their seats.
0:22 – 1:04
The guy is seen running thinking he has got away with stealing the object – does not know he is being followed.
See brief shots of the anonymous characters running after the guy.
He enters an underground car park and starts hiding – thinks he has got away with the theft.
1:04 – 1:58
Anonymous characters seen either side of pillar in background and guy looks worried.
Slow motion of him looking round the pillar realising that the anonymous characters are getting closer to him.
Since we needed the permission of the song owner to use the song we wanted, my partner, James, sent an email to Madeon's manager and Madeon himself requesting permission of the song: Finale. Below is a copy of the email.
The last video analysis I have done is the music video 'The City' by Madeon, the chosen artist for my music video. I deemed it appropriate to analyse in detail a video done by the artist whose song I am doing to get a real sense of what his style and image is. Therefore, when I film my music video along with my partners, we will have some ideas of what to do when it comes to planning the video. Below is the music video for The City.
Upon first viewing, I instantly liked this video. The song alone creates a sense of having a good time and the video helps to emphasise this. There is a constant presence of the major key throughout this song, as well as other voices that join in with the main singer in places for added effect.
Music
In terms of the music relating to the video, I believe there to be a significant link between the style of the music and the style of the video. A lot of Electro House music videos generally have lots of people in them having a good time which is what this genre of music is mostly used for. Seeing people having fun whilst listening to this song will influence the way the audience views this song. I listened to the song without watching the video and although it sounded great and did indeed portray the sense of fun and partying. This only furthered my belief when I listened to the song again whilst watching the video. The actual video is a paint war where one side is trying to rescue a hostage from the other team. It has a sense of seriousness about it but the idea of paint being used instead of lethal weapons destroys this image. The vibrant colours in the clothing, paint and the bright urban landscape emphasises that this is not a deadly, fatal environment but more of a competitive one, similar to that of paintball; the serious attitude is there but without the deadly consequences, which captures the exciting nature of the game and the song combined.
As with many music videos, the editing is driven by the song since a lot of cuts and transitions are made to directly correspond with the song; since there is a distinctive beat to the song it is clearly evident throughout the video. This is most prominent from the video below:
As the song reaches its climax (0.58) the beat is clear and the video reflects this with quick cuts with the camera bouncing around to emphasise the people running, thus creating the sense of an action video. There are many cuts that last only a fraction of a second until 1.11 where the song slows down, the singing stops and what is seen in the video also slows down, making use of slow-motion to emphasise this (where the man raises the bazooka to the building). At 1.14 the singing comes back and relatively quick cuts (albeit not as fast as before) are seen. This proceeds with the people on the floor below being attacked by paint from those upstairs, with many closeups of the people and the paintballs shown to accentuate the battle between the two groups, such as the serious expressions shown by the people above and the fear by the people below.
An extremely important point in the relationship between the video and the music is at 1.42 where the music dies down for a few seconds and is brought back to life by the line "so here we go" which can be seen as the signal for the beat at 1.44 which directly links in with the shot of the bazooka, striking the building and bursting into a colourful cloud of orange dust. This launches the video into the same fast sequence to match the chorus with short quick cuts. More people appear as the battle ensues into a raging conflict with many paints being thrown. This continues until 1.58 when the song slows down with few significant beats, apart from those that accompany the cuts from each closeup. This brief sequence could be to portray the emotions shown by the participants and the progress of the battle at that time; the sternness of their expression is matched by their faces covered with paint, indicating that the battle has been going on for some time and are in the main stage of it, perhaps inclining that the song is also in the main part.
Lyrics
Although there are no evident direct links between the visuals and the lyrics at first glances, when looked at in more depth you can see that there are some subtle meanings behind the lyrics and even the title. "I can feel the city crumbling around me"
does relate to the video, the setting being an urban city with unused
buildings, "crumbling around me" did possibly have an influence on the
location since the whole video is filmed within and around unused and
derelict buildings (image left)."But I can see a bright light calling through the dark night" could also be a reference to the brightly coloured paints that being thrown throughout the video, considering the paints to light up and colour the desolate landscape. This is also reflected and directly influenced in the title for the song (image below), with the background being a blank canvas which is brought to life by the vibrantly coloured title with bright and contrasting colours that stand out against the background, which can be seen as having a direct correlation with the video; the paints lighting up the city, actually sharing the same colours and, if you look closely, you can see that the title has the texture of the dry paints used in the video.
"There is a place in the distance, A place that I’ve been dreaming of, No more time and space don’t exist there, We can dance like there’s no tomorrow, There is a place, no time in space". The opening lyrics here could be descriptive of the derelict buildings, and how this place exists in the singer's dreams, which he is going to make come to life as seen in the video. "We can dance like there's no tomorrow" I believe relates to the nature of the paint war; the dance is their fight and they will fight like they know they won't live to see another day, they will give it their all. "There is a place, no time in space" can be seen as the deserted area in which the buildings are situated, the fantastical place has no time and space and could merely be a creation of the singer's mind, a place to retreat into, or even his idea of a heaven in which exists his ideal world with no physics that can represent the real world.
"I can feel the heartbeat underneath the concrete, Just like a kick drum plays, Running in a straight line guided by the street lights, Pushing the dark away". The "heartbeat underneath the concrete" line could represent the life of the people in the video that bring the city to life, just as they are the people "running in a straight line guided by the street lights, pushing the dark away"; they are one with the city and they need each other to survive.
There is a place in the distance
A place that I’ve been dreaming of
No more time and space don’t exist there
We can dance like there’s no tomorrow
There is a place, no time in space
I’ve got tomorrow to
I’ve got to go all the way
I’ve got tomorrow to
I’ve got to go all the way
I’ve got tomorrow to
I’ve got to go all the way
I’ve got tomorrow to
I can feel the city crumbling around me
I can’t seem to find my way
But I can see a bright light calling through dark night
Hoping I’ll find my way
Yeah I had what I wanted
It went away so fast fast
Yeah I got to let go
We can dance like there’s no tomorrow
So here we go
I’ve got tomorrow to
I’ve got to go all the way
I’ve got tomorrow to
I’ve got to go all the way
I’ve got tomorrow to
I’ve got to go all the way
I’ve got tomorrow to
I can feel the heartbeat underneath the concrete
Just like a kick drum plays
Running in a straight line guided by the street lights
Pushing the dark away
Yeah I had what I wanted
It went away so fast fast
Yeah I got to let go
We can dance like there’s no tomorrow
There is a place in the distance
A place that I’ve been dreaming of
No oh time and space don’t exist there
We can dance like there’s no tomorrow
There is a place, no time in space
There is a place in the distance
A place that I’ve been dreaming of
No more time and space
We can dance like there’s no tomorrow
Oh oh oh!
I’ve got tomorrow to
I’ve got to go all the way
I’ve got tomorrow to
I’ve got to go all the way
I’ve got tomorrow to
I’ve got to go all the way
I’ve got tomorrow to
Tomorrow
Tomorrow
We can dance
Concept
A
very important concept I picked up when watching this video was that
this video relates heavily relates to the Hindu festival: Holi, the
festival of colours (video below).
Holi
is the celebration of colours and a new season, and as you can see from
the video, the participants are having lots of fun, directly relating
to The City. It is celebrated by throwing paints and perfumes at each
other as a way of representing the new colours of the new season. This
can be seen as a way of representing Madeon's colourful and creative
personality.
For our video me and my partners, James and Luke decided that we wanted to do a song by a relatively unknown artist, so their image wouldn't play in with how we were going to shoot the video. We also decided to base our video largely on narrative instead of performance as we found narrative type of videos much more interesting than simple performance ones. This also ties in with popular culture as artists are constantly going for more and more narrative type videos, seeing narrative music videos as a way for them to express their image, style and creativity.
The song we have decided to choose is 'Finale' by the fantastic new 18 year old French Electro House/Pop artist: Madeon.
We
are thinking of basing our location for shooting in London so we can
have a good looking, urban landscape. You can actually see from his name
logo that it is the Sydney cityscape, which was one of our main
influences when deciding on our location.
Lyrics
(Aahoo hoo hoo)
Brace yourselfBrace yourself
(Whoo hoo hoo)
Your last chance,
last summer,
your last dance,
to beat to your own drummer.
Go out fighting.
Go out young.
A flash of lighting.
Clips the Sun.
(2x)
Brace yourself, braceyourself.
Brace yourself, brace yourself.
(Brace yourself for the grand finale!)
Your last chance,
last summer,
your last dance,
to beat to your own drummer.
Go out fighting.
Go out young.
A flash of lighting.
Clips the Sun.
Brace yourself,
brace yourself
The second video I have chosen for my video analysis is 'Houdini' by the Indie Rock band: Foster the People. I have referenced this song and video in my past posts as I find it to be an extremely good video. I have included a video below of me detailing particular aspects of the video which I found particularly good. Below the video is my more detailed analysis of the music video.
Music Since most of the video is narrative, there are only a few performance point of views but during the performance sections there is a strong relationship between the music and visuals, which we first see when the main riff of the song comes in. This is when the band members are crushed by the stage lighting (image right).
One thing that I picked up on here was one of the crew members holding the lead singer (image left), which is quite a common theme in films where a tragedy has just occurred, and the band's death is seen as a tragedy since they are meant to play a concert tomorrow (image below).
The verse is filled with the narrative section, and in the first verse we see the band's boss/manager hear about the news (image left) at which the dead band members are promptly turned into puppets and acted out by puppeteers in the first chorus (images below).
When the instrumental kicks in the lights turn off and a black backdrop falls down; the band looks as if they are playing their instruments and then proceed to dance as directed by the puppeteers (image below).
In the next verse we see the band being turned into robots which leads up to the instrumental at which they are flung into the air to emphasise the chorus (image below right).
What I think is clever here is the use of overcranking just before the instrumental begins and it reverting back to normal speed to match the pace of the song. There is repeated use of overcranking again in places to emphasise the pace of this part of the song, as well as the lights flashing to hide cuts and keep with the beat of the song (image left).
During the bridge the band is playing at a live gig in front of an audience, the camera capturing the energy of the song and audience through slow-motion of shots of the audience (image right). The lights flashing in time with the beat of the song, the audience jumping up and down and the raised voice of the singer indicate that the song is drawing to a climax which is matched on screen.
As the band jumps up from their instruments the camera follows them and suddenly raises up again to emphasise them landing on the stage, at which they start their dance which has played a key part throughout the song (image left).
A lot of the bridge is filmed from behind the audience to try and make the watcher feel as though they are there in the audience watching the band (image right).
The camera again shows the band's clothes ripped off in slow motion to be replaced with white clothes (image left).
They are joined by more dancers and the camera pans to reveal the audience dancing in unison with the band (image right) which emphasises the audience's enjoyment, thus influencing how the watcher feels about the song.
The singers voice raising in tempo and sound to draw the bridge to a close at which point the band members are again with their instruments and confetti shoots into the air (image left).
The outro plays in with the visuals as one long shot is showing all the workers are celebrating, the song and video ending on the 3 band members lying on a sofa (we as the audience are to presume they have been shut down as they are robots) (clip below).
Lyrics Pre-chorus: Got shackles on, my words are tied / Fear can make you compromise / Fast enough it's hard to hide / Sometimes I want to disappear
"My words are tied / fear can make you compromise" means that no matter how much you prepare for a speech, or debate, or any other type of public speaking, when you stand up there for real, you experience distress and you suddenly forget everything you're about to say. And what do you do when you forget everything? You feel embarrassed, and you want to "disappear."
After the chorus is repeated for a second time, a second voice is added to the song, and I believe this is the person's subconsciousness telling them to stand up, and focus on their ability, what they've prepared so long for, and that they have nothing to fear. Bridge: "Gain again what they want to steal / Gain again what they want to steal / Gonna gain again what they want to steal / Gain again what they want to steal"
"They" are the audience. The people who mock the speaker for their lack of bravery. What they want to "steal" is his self-esteem- that is, they want to take his confidence away, and the presence of them makes the speaker gravely embarrassed. To "gain again" what they want to "steal" means to recover from the initial shock of standing in front of your peers, gather up your self-esteem again, and just do it.
There are certain points at which the lyrics tie in with the visuals, which we first see when the singer is being turned into a robot and the scientists are trying out his lips at pronouncing the words (image left).
I think the best representation of the lyrics however is the dance that keeps repeating, as the whole song is about ability, the band is showing their ability through the dance. The second voice keeps repeating ability in the bridge which directly relates to the band members being turned into robots, inclining at the fact that band managers want ability which is something that humans do not have but robot band members do.
Concept I reckon the song is called Houdini because he was an escape artist, and this shows that you can't escape from the music company`s hands, even if you die you will be used as a puppet in the music industry which is clearly illustrated throughout the video. I believe the actual song is centered around ability (which links to the robots having more ability than humans), and about standing up for yourself in spite of your peers using your ability. It addresses important aspects of the music industry revolving around companies and managers, that they will use people even when they are dead to get money. This video raises some important notions of the music business, especially from the point of view of the artist(s). Mark Foster (the band's lead singer and songwriter) is trying to express how sometimes the music industry and artists are controlled by the producers, and how they are willing to go to any lengths to make sure they get money out of the artist (as seen by the band's boss in the video).
Music channels play one of the most crucial roles in the distribution and promotion of music videos. Channels are generally classified into music genres to provide people with a choice with what genre they want to hear, as shown with MTV's many music channels:
MTV Music
MTV Rocks
MTV Dance
MTV Base
MTV Hits
MTV Classic
MTV launched all these channels in an attempt to expand their viewership to audience's of different genres. Although MTV today does not feature 24 hours of music videos like it used to when it started back in 1981, it is still a major station for music videos. It features programs other than music such as 'Beavis and Butthead', 'Jersey Shore' and 'The Fresh Prince of Bel Air' in an attempt to differentiate itself with other rival music channels including: 4Music and Box.
4music was set up in 2008 as part of Channel 4 to distribute chart music and music shows, however over the years it also hosts a number of other shows, particularly comedy shows such as '8 out of 10 cats' and 'Balls of Steel'. Their music shows include:
UKHot40 - a music video chart based on UK sales
Fresh Music Top 20 - a chart compiled by 4music of the biggest and best music videos of the week
UK Airplay Top 20 - the top 20 most played songs on commercial radio this week
As you can see, most of 4music shows are made up of chart music, making it different to MTV as it doesn't broadcast as many different genres, making it less diverse.
Kerrang! TV was launched in 2005 as a way for the Kerrang! magazine to integrate itself onto television. The station is dedicated to Heavy Metal and Punk-Rock, making it the only music channel that plays this genre of music. It is also different from other stations in that it plays requested music videos, similar to requests on a radio station. Popular shows include:
Music videos first came into pop culture in the 1960s, which were largely introduced by The Beatles in 1965 when they started making promotional clips in a effort to promote their music without having to feature in-person. This helped spread their music, particularly in the USA as well as Britain were their songs featured on Top of the Pops. These were simple, black and white videos of the band playing their instruments and singing rather than a particular narrative and rather just sticking to a performance point of view. These promotional clips began to grow in popularity among artists and their fans towards the late 60s and in the mid 70s music television started up, however the most important music television: MTV didn't start until 1981 which aired music videos 24 hours a day. This was the start of the music videos playing an important role in artist's music marketing.
MTV played a pinnacle role in the beginning of music videos as the station was the main way videos were broadcast and enabled people to watch artists' videos, which were hosted by someone known as a VJ (a video jockey), much like a radio presenter. Although MTV today does not feature 24 hours of music videos, it is still a major station for music videos. It features programs other than music such as 'Beavis and Butthead' 'Jersey Shore' in an attempt to differentiate itself with other rival music channels including: 4Music and Box. The first video shown on MTV was a song by the band: The Buggles called 'Video Killed the Radio Star', which could easily be a reference to how they believe music video stations would take over radio stations. MTV helped numerous artists achieve star status and the sale of their records, like how today we have to Charts Top 20 where the most popular bought songs are put in a Top 20 which massively helped the sale of their tracks. This is how No. 1 songs became very popular and ultimately helped artists and songwriters win awards at music awards such as the Grammys.
The iconic and thoroughly unique Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' (image right), which is widely considered to be the best music video of all time was filmed in 1983 and cost $500,000, a record for that time (the most expensive video ever costing 7 million dollar was Michael and Janet Jackson's 'Scream' video'. The iconic nature of the video is due toit being unlike any other,and due to its length it allows a short story to be created and is the only music video to this day that features dancing zombies. When the video was made zombie films were very popular and would have greatly interested people if they featured in a music video. The video relates a lot to zombie films and incorporated Jackson's unique dancing style, for which he was very popular - combining zombie films and his legendary dancing would be considered incredible at the time and even now, making it a timeless classic. An interesting thing about this video was that it was extremely popular with fans of all genres, however it did receive some critical reception from people saying it was too violent. Although the actual song is more Pop and R&B, because of the video it became very popular with people of all music genre tastes. I have posted a video of the dance below (play to see straight from the dance).
In 1985 MTV launched another TV channel called VH1 (Video Hits 1) which was aimed at an older age group which featured softer music which helped Bruce Springsteen's album 'Born in the USA' achieve the best selling album of the year. Since Hip Hop had started to boom in popularity, MTV released a show called 'Yo! MTV Raps' from which the group: Public Enemy launched their video 'Night of the Living Baseheads', which broke new ground in presenting music videos as a form of cultural expression for artists. Breaking into the 2000's the advent of applying music videos onto CDs gave a 33% growth for music videos across the world. Another important feature in the growth of music videos was the introduction of videos on iTunes, and after just 20 days over 1 million songs were downloaded. Perhaps the most important part of music video growth was the launch of youtube and several years after: Vevo. These video streaming sites were able to show and promote music videos across the world over the internet, enabling music artists such as Ok Go and Soulja Boy to see more success through people able to view their videos online. Below is the infamous video for Ok Go's 'Here it Goes again'
Without Youtube, this video would never have gained as many views and therefore been bought. Vevo was a part of Youtube launched in 2008 which posted and promoted videos through advertising on Youtube on the artist's behalf, which also enabled artist's to gain money through people viewing their videos online. People are made aware of new videos through related adverts next to the artist's video they are watching, e.g. if someone is watching an Indie Rock video like below the advert surrounding it will be promoting a new Indie Rock band's video. The advert in the video will gain money for Vevo (the video provider), Youtube (the video website) and the artist.
Perhaps the most important statistic in online video viewing is that in 2010, the number of videos viewed online reached 34 billion views with an estimated 183 million viewers. Today, online viewing is the most popular way of viewing music videos, free for the user, it also generates money for the artist and site. People will tend to prefer online music video viewing as they can choose what music they listen to as Music Television tends to only play popular chart music. Music videos on TV also remain popular but with the increasing amount of people online Music Television could die out completely, which could explain why MTV is trying to expand viewership through shows other than that concerning music.
Target Audience is a very important factor for companies to consider whenmaking a music video as different genres will have different looking videos, e.g. a heavy metal music video will look extremely different from an indie rock video. This is important to consider as fans of different genres can react badly to an artist's video if it doesn't fit in with the genre's particular style. However, videos can share particular concepts, popular themes being extreme anger and a loss of sanity, as well as death. These tend to be popular as they are interesting topics and engage the watcher, which can lead to it being watched over and over. A good example is the iconic and thoroughly unique Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' (image above), which is widely considered to be the best music video of all time. This is due to the video being unlike any other,and due to its length it allows a short story to be created and is the only music video to this day that features dancing zombies. When the video was made zombie films were very popular and would have greatly interested people if they featured in a music video. The video relates a lot to zombie films and incorporated Jackson's unique dancing style, for which he was very popular - combining zombie films and his legendary dancing would be considered incredible at the time and even now, making it a timeless classic. An interesting thing about this video was that it was extremely popular with fans of all genres, however it did receive some critical reception from people saying it was too violent. Although the actual song is more Pop and R&B, because of the video it became very popular with people of all music genre tastes. Music genres will tend to stay with either narrative or performance, e.g. a band such as Metallica (image right) will nearly always use a performance video instead of narrative since they are a Heavy Metal band. This is generally because a performance video will concentrate on the band members playing their instruments. Heavy Metal is largely appreciated with fans because of the skill it takes to play guitars and drums at such a high level (a guitar solo in a Rock song will be appreciated more than a simple beat in a Hip Hop song). Thus, videos will be centered on the instrument because this is what the fans want. Click on the video below to see a guitar solo in the Heavy Metal band Metallica's song: 'Enter Sandman'. Notice how the camera focuses on the band member and the guitar, as well as featuring the audience to show how much they are enjoying the solo, thus influencing how someone feels when they watch this particular solo.
Metalheads (or grungers, rockers) are the group of people who primarily listen to Heavy Metal music and little else. The tend to frown upon other music which they deem as being unskilled and share a deep hatred for Chavs and Rap music. Some of the bands they listen to are well known and established - Metallica, Slipknot - but a lot of their music derives from local, unknown bands, which is where their relatively heavy use of the internet comes into play (image left). Above is a picture of the typical Metalhead, mostly dark in apparel, usually with a band t-shirt with chains and other such jewellery.
On the other end of the spectrum, it is very rare to find a Rap music video in which the video is closely looking at the instruments. This relates to when Public Enemy launched their video for 'Night of the Living Baseheads' (image right). This was a pinnacle turning point in music videos as it allowed videos to present themselves as a form of cultural expression for Hip Hop artists. Therefore most Hip Hop and Rap artists will make use of their videos as a way to express themselves, a good example of this being 'Love the Way You Lie' by Eminem ft Rihanna which addresses a serious, relatively little-known-about topic: domestic abuse. Eminem and Rihanna use the video as a way to inform people about this, to which the video was received with great critical response. You can find this video on my post: 'Conventions of Music Videos'.
The
group who listen to Hip Hop are generally the Urban crew, young adults
with a fondness for tracksuits, bling and music. Some aspire to become
musicians while others try to make it big as fashion designers. They are
driven by money and like to show it off through their big name label
clothing and jewellery. As you can see from the image on the left, the
Urban group mainly uses TV as their media outlet, some radio and very
little use of magazines and newspapers. Above is a more modern look of an Urban person, still retaining the baseball cap, the coat has more of a mainstream, fashionable look.
One of my favourite genres purely for the music videos they serve up, Indie Rock is one of the most progressive genres for music videos as artists in this genre are constantly exploring new ways of presenting themselves in videos, which also adds to their unique style and image. Below are two examples of Indie Rock music videos. The first is 'Little Talks' by Of Monsters and Men. There are a few music videos that use animation but this one is rather unique as it uses an very particular animation technique using real-life images all in black and white apart from a vibrantly coloured supernatural woman who protects the male band members from monsters. Another interesting thing about this video that although it is mostly animation it uses the band members faces to express feelings and emotions
The next music video is completely different in terms of the actual video but the song shares the same genre as the last song. By Foster the People, the song is 'Houdini', and I found this video particularly interesting as I have never seen one like it before or since. As you can see from the video, it feature the band members who are killed in a stage accident and eventually turned into robots so they can carry on playing. This video raises some important notions of the music business, especially from the point of view of the artist(s). Here Mark Foster (the band's lead singer and songwriter) is trying to express how sometimes the music industry and artists are controlled by the producers, and how they are willing to go to any lengths to make sure they get money out of the artist (as seen by the band's boss in the video)
A reasonably popular group, this type of music is home to the Alternatives, teenagers and young adults trying to be different in tastes of music, clothing and other such things. As you can see from their media consumption (image left) they are heavily dependent on the internet and on magazines such as NME and KERRANG! Below is the typical image of an Alternative teenager. Skinny jeans, long styled hair and a print t-shirt are among the most popular forms of fashion amongst this group.
The last group (or tribe) I am going to talk about is the 'Ravers', the main target audience that the song for my music video is aimed at. These people are all about the club atmosphere, with tribal icons such as Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers and Armin Van Buren, Ravers are a relatively rare tribe, clubbing is the centre of their life and go out to various venues at least fortnightly, mostly every week. They also enjoy mainstream music festivals such as the Wireless, iTunes and V Festival. Below is the typical image of a Raver or Clubber. For guys its graphic t-shirts and jeans, for girls either dresses or t-shirts or tank tops, sometimes adorned with neon lights and accessories.
