My Music Consumption

How/where/when do you consume music?


I listen to music very regularly and frequently, as someone very passionate about it. Prior to owning a car and driving routinely, I listened to music on my phone or iPod on the bus, either from albums I own that are uploaded to my iTunes, songs/albums from artists downloaded from YouTube via a converter, or directly from YouTube using 3G internet and WiFi. When this was the case I could listen to relaxing hip-hop, slow/soft rock music or 'liquid' drum and bass.

Since owning a car I listen to radio far more, particularly in mornings where alongside music I can be updated on recent news. My car allows 6 radio stations to be saved, so for variety I have Absolute and XFM saved for a variety of rock music, Kiss for some popular house and garage music, Radio 1Xtra for urban genres such as grime and hip hop, Metro Love Radio for reggae and West Indian styles, and RadyoUmut for cultural music which I enjoy occasionally. However radio coverage limits the genres available to me which is the main downside apart from advertising every few songs.

Most nights I relax to music in bed as part of a sleep routine, to calmer songs with slower, more consistent tempos. Also but less often, I go to gigs (a few times a year) for the spectacle of witnessing artists I particularly appreciate, or out of recommendation by friends whose taste I trust. As well as this I sometimes go to clubs for the social side of enjoying music, but arguably the most enjoyable way to consume music (despite being the least frequent) is at a music festival, which I have had the pleasure of doing at Reading Festival for the past 3 years consecutively. 'Fesitval season' in the Summer fields a huge variety of music in many festivals across the UK, although I find myself limited to more commercial festivals due to the music taste of my main friendship group. However, Reading has increasingly become more diverse in genre content and audience in order to expand, which benefits me.



3 tracks that mean something to me:

From my childhood I have distinct memories of listening to Queen's first and second greatest hits albums on car journeys, and around aged 6 my dad bought me a Walkman, I think for my birthday. These were the first moments of listening to music with some independence - I could listen with headphones on my own and not just have to be in the car; I could enjoy music anywhere, which I absolutely loved. In those years my favourite song was 'I Want It All', during which I would unashamedly air guitar my way through the intro and guitar solo, perhaps due to not understanding the concept of dignity. I shared a love for the song with my best friend in primary school, and at eachother's houses we'd thrash around to it in our early appreciation of the rock music we grew up with through our parents.




Under The Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers became one of the most important songs to me in my early/mid teens, helping me get through tough times through sympathising with Anthony Kiedis' lyrics. I had always liked the number of songs I knew by the band, which I could count with my hands, but with curiosity that later inspired me to look much further into all artists I discovered all kinds of music ranging from psychadellic funk metal to softer, emotional acoustic music all from one band. Within days of exploration they became my favourite band and remain in that position. I bought Anthony's autobiography Scar Tissue which was one of the most influential, eventful reads I have ever experienced and really furthered my knowledge of musical history from the 60s to the early 00s. It taught me the inspirations and meanings to many of their songs, and I was particularly moved by Under The Bridge. Looking just beneath the surface of a band known for generally soft rock songs of their later work taught me that to many bands there is so much more worth knowing, a lesson that can be applied to all aspects of life. This band made music mean more to me than just an enjoyable listening experience.




A song that has become a recent favourite of mine is 'I Gave You Power' by Nas, from his second Album It Was Written. I was (am) in a phase of listening to more hip hop, exploring early influences and roots of the genre so Nas being one of the most important rap artists of all time was someone I wanted to get to know better. I fell in love with the chilled out, point of view focused music of his debut album Illmatic, which was clearly influenced by his father being a jazz musician, and was perhaps even more impressed with the direction of It Was Written as it lyrically became more of a social commentary, looking at issues in urban-American society. In 'I Gave You Power', Nas uses a powerful extended metaphor in portraying himself as a gun. It strongly impacted me in its insight into the violent ghettos of New York and its unconventional use of symbolic, autobiographical poetry.

Current Trends and Gaps in the Market

Producing something completely original in the music industry today is widely considered impossible, and rightly so. Previous decades' styles of music have been reinvented and marketed to new audiences or in new ways.

A trend I have noticed is bands with older members forming or reforming and releasing music videos as this media of music promotion was far less common in their early years or twenties. Red Fang are a good example of this, a heavy metal band comprised of middle-aged men only forming in 2009, unusually late in life for a band to enter the music scene or reinvent themselves. There is more scope for bands to find their audience and achieve recognition due to the exponentially broadening avenues to market their music, especially the creation of YouTube in 2005 which now hundreds of thousands of songs and music videos of all types can be found, those with even tens of millions of views easily in the thousands.

Middle aged audiences who are more likely to relate to and connect with bands with older members are one of the main target audiences for music festivals such as Glastonbury, where 'Dinosaur Jr' played in 2014. These festivals have become larger through the years achieving great commercial success, and particularly for ones like Glastonbury this can be attributed to their ability to target multiple audiences through a huge variety of styles and eras of music.
Dinosaur Jr were performing between 1984 and 1997 before reforming in 2005, now having access to promoting themselves via infinitely more platforms such as social media.



Despite this interesting trend I am unlikely to use it as major inspiration, simply because I have far less knowledge of the audience by growing up in a different era. Technology such as the ever expanding internet, web 2.0 and social media will still however play a huge role in promoting my artist in this project, but most likely for teenagers/young adults.


Hard rock has also made a huge comeback in the UK with bands like Drenge forming in 2011 Royal Blood in 2013, whose eponymous debut album reached number 1 in both UK and Ireland. I have also observed bands such as the Arctic Monkeys changing their style, either realising the changing trends in music popularity or contributing to them with their own enormous popularity. Their latest album, AM, released 2013 furthered their transition into the hard rock style, with flagship songs such as 'R U Mine' and 'Arabella'  moving away from their fast paced, garage/indie post punk rock roots.

These bands are closer to the potential artist I might create as part of this project, largely due to being in their core audience.





Despite US born music being immensely popular in the UK, for example mainstream artists like Eminem, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake, UK artists accounted for 60% of the Top 40 album sales and 80% of the Top 10, indicating our exports are successful enough to not be dominated by overseas competition. Promoters of music such as Simon Cowell play an important role in this with reality TV, in particular The X Factor, giving birth to Olly Murs, Sam Smith, and international pop sensations One Direction. Its involvement in popular culture today is undeniable, with 9 out of the 10 above artists having either been a contestant or performed on the show, the Arctic Monkeys being the anomaly, with lead singer Alex Turner slamming the show, saying it churns out "sh**y pop music". They break the mould in more ways than one, their past 5 albums (every album they have released) going straight to number 1, which has never been done before right from a debut album. AM  was the second fastest selling album of the year behind Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, selling 157,000 copies in its first week, making history as they fight for the place of independent artists in success.

As I would have expected, the 3 highest selling genres are currently dance, rock, and pop. I expect this due to what I observe people around me to be listening to. Although there is always a strong correlation however, most sales does not always show exactly what is the most popular - certain genres may be more likely to be illegally downloaded. Pop and rock are often more commercial in recent years whereas so much of dance music is quite underground despite this scene being huge. Some artists like Daft Punk have been huge in the dance genre but the increase in popularity shown by the table below could be down to artists like Duke Dumont and Disclosure breaking out into the mainstream recently. There is also a fine line between some dance and pop music, making analysis less simple than face value.

Semiotic Analysis

The View From The Afternoon - Arctic Monkeys

One of my all time favourite songs and music videos, which after research I rate even higher than before. I found out that it was based on the story of Buddha, who meditated under a tree for days while devils attempted to distract and seduce him, represented by a girl wearing devil horns and thuggish men threatening and intimidating him.
 



The video, shot in black and white, begins with a closeup on a shopping trolley wheel being pushed along a dirty street in a grey, lonely daytime, representing the world around as troubled and negative. Pushing the cart is shortly revealed to be by a young man - our protagonist.

His cart is filled with drum kit as we are shown a set of high rise council flats in wide angle extreme long shots to further display the dull, lifeless and seemingly unpleasant landscape. It cuts to a high angle MCU of the boy's drum kit, now set up in the middle of a circle of the high rise flats, as he wraps his hands in preparation to play. He takes a deep breath as his hooded face is unveiled and we cut to a symbolic shot of his head in looking up to the night sky, 'up to the heavens' perhaps. Cut back to the present and he begins. 

A series of slow fades and zooms, as well as a cut to the same setting at night clearly evidence that time is passing. Locals above watch from their houses as the boy is quite harshly lit by street lights, indicating the idea that he is being watched all around and in focus, giving an agoraphobic feel of the empty space around him. A fox passes, glancing at him as well as a teenage girl eating a chocolate bar and wearing devil horns, passing with a confused expression. These represent mischief and sin, as well as the thuggish, evil looking men who later attempt to intimidate him up close, throwing food at him and staring him down.  Although the boy appears fearful, he continues drumming intensely through the pain, and with emotional closeups such as him wiping sweat off his face and seeing the blood on this hands we are made to genuinely sympathise with his determined character. 

Ever more time passes - the moon is unveiled by moving clouds in the sky and a cut turns the shot to daytime again. Another young girl approaches, who feeds him milk after a shot of her in closeup displays her with bright like behind her in a saintly, angelic manner, and unlike the others who come to the boy she provides him with sustenance rather than being an obstacle. A shot of him relaxed further relates to the Buddha's story as it represents enlightenment and the cleansing of sin and the embrace of nature as he stops in the 'real world' to catch his breath. His final obstacle is a man with a baseball bat, possibly symbolising the devil himself as he looks up at the sky and the moon explodes, imagery that shows his destructive nature and removing all light as he becomes shrouded in shadow. He prepares to swing the bat but the boy looks up to the sky in the same shot as just before starting, maybe indicating the end of his journey either from some kind of full spiritual enlightenment or by sacrificing his life in dedication to faith, his face and closed eyes and embodiment peace and relaxation as he embraces heaven. 

Idea Inspirations

Here are some music videos I liked and as a result may influence the direction in which I take my A2 music video project. Both the songs and videos will be within the currently quite broad lines of styles and final products I would like to create. 



Enter Shikari are one of my favourite bands as they ambitiously mix genres of music. Their sense of humour as well as serious view of the world is displayed in this video.

Things I like about it:

- New/contemporary
- Mixture of band performance and acting with symbolism (things going wrong while acting as though all is well)
- Comic/parody style
- Uses costume unlike many normal videos
- Multiple genres in one song
- Revolution themed lyrics; "we'll take you down!" (in the bridge)
- Progressively goes from normal and sane to more erratic, with quick cutting, flashing lights and white noise/no signal TV effects on screen
- High energetic, quite insane male performance; I could picture myself in a similar role
- Achievable yet effective special effects

Difficulties:

- Multiple sets
- Sets in public locations






A recent video from a song I heard not too long ago through being on an advert, I really liked it and watched its music video to find it quite inspiring
Things I like about it:

- New/contemporary
- Powerful, moving music
- Simple yet powerful closeups
- All in one set
- Lyrics relatable to an audience I know and can use due to coming of age theme; people around my age
- Really strong symbolic concepts and imagery; struggling with life as it literally pulls him away, woman acting disproportionately unphased by boy's suffering but he cannot even hear her offering him help, she also eventually leaves him to his suffering
- Impacting but achievable effects such as slow motion

Difficulties:

- Shot in public
- Symbolic images like boy being pulled may be difficult to recreate. However I like the challenge of thinking of other ways of displaying symbolism






An all time favourite music video. This band have no limits too humiliating themselves for the sake of comedy and love of music.

Things I like:

- I'd love to create a similar ridiculousness and effect on my audience as this had on me
- Has some ambitious parts to use in an A2 piece but nowhere I can't take inspiration from or do similar
- Simple concept
- Plays with costume in a way that I would consider doing for a comic effect
- Unique type of performance; not a standard 'band trying to be cool' video

Difficulties:

- Some expletives and inappropriate parts
- Minor pyrotechnics and physical effects
- I really like the concept of an audience who become in awe and hysterics but having to cast multiple people can be problematic
- A similar bar&stage set may take some work to create
- Limited sub-genre to choose music from as it is obvious comedy






Another favourite video from my childhood, it combines all types of music videos in a hybrid

Things I like:

- Mixture of concept, narrative and performance
- Excellent storytelling and easy to sympathise with protagonist
- Draws emotion both from the lyrics, music and story combined
- An appropriate style of music that I would be confident in generally working with 
- Quality grading
- Use of imagery and symbolism
Difficulties:

- Multiple sets, quite complex setups
- Difficult to maintain lighting due to it being set a lot outdoors






Things I like:

- Very strong sense of performance
- The idea of band members strung up like puppets is a cool idea
- The lighting and grading is very stylistic of pop punk/emo genre and particularly effective
- Becomes increasingly passionate/crazy; an idea I'd like to take on, building up to either a climax or a final chorus


 the pretender misery business gives you hell bite my tongue playing god

Music, Band and Styling Inspirations

Some artists rely heavily on a genre-led fan base, with a large niche such as Bring Me the Horizon, Pierce the Veil and Black Veil Brides within a part of the popular post hardcore scene, being known for their tattoos and specific type of clothing, eg band endorsed clothes such as Drop Dead being popular with my age group but I would like to keep a broader spectrum open with a cool but mild, wipe appeal type image. A mixture of modern, fashionable urban and a hint of slightly 'hipster' clothing would suit a fresh new band whose image is likable but not extreme nor a major part of them as a band.



Above are You Me At Six and below are Enter Shikari, with a wide appeal in terms of style, not necessarily making themselves specific to genre but appealing to generally teenagers and young adults who like a mixture of genres.


The music I would like to use could be anywhere in the grounds of alternative/indie/heavier rock with an element of mainstream commercial appeal without being 'pop' or too heavy or too niche. Something that an audience can connect with either through being energetic and upbeat, or with emotion-drawing lyrics, or a song with both like Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner. Like with The View From The Afternoon (referenced on semiotic analysis) the music does not have to necessarily relate hugely to the video we produce but would preferably have a significant audience reaction whether it be to make them head-bang and air drum, dance or feel moved. The songs below have a mixture of these but all have effected me in some way while listening, and are all types that I'd consider using for my video.

Some examples of musical style I could consider:
Infectious, unique drumming pattern combined with a rough, rugged style of voice that has been extremely popular for the Kings of Leon.


Fast paced progressive rock that had a huge role in Biffy Clyro's rise to popularity


90s punk that started out being played at small gigs where die hard fans would mosh to, ironically positive sounding with it being about the singer being bullied in childhood


Funk that makes you pull faces and jump around the room with lyrics of a submissive male in a relationship where he is head over heels for his love interest


Lyrics of an abnormal, flawed yet romantic relationship with ironically contrasting upbeat pop punk on this track

Website Inspirations

I like this website's extremely clear band branding, which is synergistic across their marketing such as fonts, colours and their logo with the inverted triangle and circle, which, if you saw them live would behind them. There are clear links to social media and big, bold navigation to everything important such as merch, music, and ways to follow the band.




An even more visual website from Green Day, full of branding related to their most recent album; Uno, Dos, Tre! Kerrang magazine is featured large as they recently made the front cover, and things related to the band such as the broadway musical based on their album American Idiot is advertised. The striking visuals are also synergistic throughout their current marketing, indicating their drug infused, upbeat punk style.

Extremely colourful and again obvious promotion to Muse's most recent album, The 2nd Law. The multiple language options, images of huge gigs and some figures are used to proudly present their international popularity and the fact that they are a real stadium sized rock band.

Art Inspiration

In researching to get a better idea on how to aid the promotion of a new artist with their debut album cover, I looked at albums released at a variety of lengths into artist's careers. 

I like these for the simple yet powerful use of faces in CU with editing effects on them. There is a very strong sense of colour and striking image without loads going on. Many famous album covers have used faces in this way including those above. Some would not take huge effort to produce but can still be striking images; this is something I would like to do, not necessary having a minimalist look but not over-edited or immensely intricate.

I'm a big fan of the surreal, cartoon nature of Alright, Still, however it could prove difficult to make unless it was simplified, and would require a lot of artistic ability which I can't personally claim to have. It fits more with urban genres of music but I love the style.

Unknown Pleasure by Joy Division and Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd both have uncomplicated, symbolic, and hugely iconic, album covers - I would consider using simple imagery in a similar way if I came up with something that could look great like these

Red Hot Chili Peppers' I'm With You has a similarly minimalist cover with an image that the band have admitted is supposed to draw multiple, varied meanings in people's minds, and idea I've grown fond of

Paramore's Riot clearly connotes the punk rock genre and is a well known album cover, and Sum 41's Underclass Hero uses similar style with graffiti in a punk font, with more of a high school twist. They appeal to my age group, having a rebellious idea to them.

The Battle of Los Angeles has a powerful and clear message of uprising, common with protest music and punk, the sort of which I'd really love to use if it fit the eventual choice of music



Never Mind, The Sex Pistols' debut album is one of the most iconic albums in music. Unlike more modern music in an increasingly commercialised industry where reality TV and the charts work symbiotically and in tandem, this album cover is unconventional in that it does not have an image of the artists themselves. It does however tell you something about the artist, like all debuts should. What I find so interesting is that it does this solely through its title - use of expletives and the dismissive 'never mind' strongly connotes anti-establishment ideas.

In some ways you could argue that it displays an arrogance associated with successful artists' album covers further into their careers, where many are very minimalist, like I'm With You   or Beyonce's eponymous 2013 album. The impression is that they don't need to make as much effort because 'you know who they are'. This may have contributed to what established the Sex Pistols so strongly on the music scene, as they did this from the beginning.




Regardless of the type of music I might work on, I'm quite keen to make something with a similar confidence. I say this because with an effective and synergistic marketing and release strategy on every platform, (such as social media, websites, promotional material eg music videos, etc) a self assured cover with simplicity in its design can really work in the music industry. It has been effective in the past and continues to be in the present like with Jake Bugg's debut (above); giving the impression that you put in less effort and still are successful, even if marketing works very hard behind the scenes, creates a positive and very cool image of an artist. 

Audience Research

Some audience profiles of friends and family I've asked:


Age 16, Female
Genres: Rock, pop punkHow they listen: iPod, iPhone, gigs
How they acquire music: buy physical CDs, illegal downloads


Age 57, Female
Genres: Classical, country, soul
How they listen: radio, CD, vinyl
How they acquire music: buy physical CDs and vinyls


Age 18, Male
Genres: Dubstep, funk, hip-hop, metal
How they listen: iPod/iPhone, laptop internet, clubs, gigs
How they acquire music: buy physical CDs, illegal downloads


Age 63, Male
Genres: Classic rock, blues, funk
How they listen: iPod, radio
How they acquire music

Age 25, Male
Genres: Pop rock, hip-hop, drum n bass
How they listen: radio, phone, gigs
How they acquire music


Age 17, Female
Genres: heavy metal, pop punk
How they listen: iPhone, laptop internet, gigs
How they acquire music: buy physical CDs, illegal downloads


Age 20, Male
Genres: House, garage, drum n bass
How they listen: laptop internet, phone, clubs
How they acquire music: buy albums on iTunes, illegal downloads


Age 18, Male
Genres: indie rock, indie pop
How they listen: phone, computer internet
How they acquire music: buy physical CDs, illegal downloads


Age 17, Female
Genres: indie rock, pop, house
How they listen: phone, laptop internet
How they acquire music: iTunes




Some noticeable trends from this research and some of my general knowledge is that older generations are more likely to listen to music through more traditional formats such as radio and vinyl. This may not be just due to their upbringing but their lifestyle; many adults that work travel by car and use the radio, whereas most school students I know take the bus - this having an influence on how they consume music.

Young adult/teenage audiences are more likely to download music illegally, being more tech savvy. Some still buy music on iTunes due to it being quick and easy to use. Those purchasing physical copies tend to do so online on Amazon or eBay for example as they can be found cheaper, but also the fall in stores like HMV which were previously quite popular was a factor for the young people I spoke to.
They tended to listen to more current genres like indie rock, pop, and EDM such as house.

Record Label Research

"A record label is a brand or trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos" (Wikipedia)

As well as the distribution and promotional side they also manage aspects of music such as trademarks and copyright, scouting and developing new artists, maintaining contact with artists and band managers who they offer contracts to based on their current or potential popularity.

In an extremely saturated market of music where practically every base and avenue has already been covered, many artists currently rely very heavily on record labels to begin their path to success and even be noticed in the first place. This could involve giving them positive media reports, promote tours, market their merchandise and getting the actual product available in digital and physical format.

                   

Rough Trade are an example of an independent label but one in this case indie doesn't necessarily mean small. Some of their most successful artists have been alternative, mostly British indie/post punk bands who have become huge, most namedly ones like the Smiths, the Libertines, Arcade Fire and the Strokes; achieving a mixture of huge cult and commercial success, eg the latter two having headlined Reading Festival in 2010 and 2011, respectively. They field a mixture of alternative artists but these are the type I associate most strongly with the label even before researching into it, which perhaps indicates the areas in which they have achieved success.

The label is owned by Beggars Group, who own other independent labels such as 4AD and Matador Records and XL Recordings. 4AD is less active now, having its heyday in the 1980s and 90s, Matador fields generally smaller bands and XL features a small number of often very popular artists from a range of genres, such as Dizzee Rascal, The Prodigy, The White Stripes, Radiohead, and Adele. The group all originated from London with the Beggars Banquet record stores, originating in Earl's Court in the 1970s.

Warner Bros Records is older and larger, stemming from the huge worldwide multimedia corporation that began with the film company in California at the start of the 20th century and merged into TimeWarner in 1989 in a deal worth $14bn. Today they are signed with some of the world's biggest music artists such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Biffy Clyro, Avenged Sevenfold, tending to have a main focus on broad appeal alternative and rock artists. They do not only take on the most enormous established artists but also take on those they believe to have popular potential such as Royal Blood. The label is widely known as one of the 'Big Four' labels amongst Sony, Universal, and EMI groups, which apart from EMI are also multimedia conglomerate umbrella corporations.

Because these main four label groups own so many other labels and other parts of the media, most labels outside their ownership are often considered independent.

Many established artists create their own record labels so they can avoid larger proportions of their profits going to a label, and also to help upcoming artists in their genres. This is most common in the hip-hop genre with artists such as Jay Z and Kanye West.

Criteria and Practicalities

Having such a wide taste in music I have multiple genres that I know quite well and are available for me to work with should I choose to. For the purpose of this project I must take into consideration the following criteria in order to filter down to a more select few ideas:

• Nothing too niche - the whole group must have sufficient knowledge to be able to create and strategise marketing for the music we intend to use
• Keep expletives from mild to none at all - videos will be showcased to other students at our school to take audience feedback and it must be suitable for the exam board - this unfortunately narrows down the idea from using much of my tastes in rap and heavier rock music
• Plenty to work with in order to make a good music video - lyrics with a mixture of possible interpretations are useful, as well as songs with a structure that has multiple parts - this leaves out a lot of my tastes in music such as house and garage which often either do not have lyrics beyond a short few lines on a continuous loop or are simply more suited to clubs due to a repetitive, 'trancey' nature
• Must have a clear audience - due to knowledge of what I and people my age find appealing I would keep generally within what could be successful with that age of audience.
• I would also stay inside the boundaries of at least fairly mainstream appeal or a large enough niche that I would be savvy for marketing and promotion - however much I love certain genres such as jazz and blues, they are simply not current or of much obvious appeal to teenagers and young adults
• Nothing that is really iconic eg The Beatles, Michael Jackson, and not a big or recent chart success
• Avoid songs where an existing video if the video is too similar to the type of video you wish to make
      

At the time of writing this the groups have not been made yet so I do not know who I will be working with or their taste, but because of the likelihood it will benefit the project I eventually undertake, I will focus my research and inspirations more on what appeals to16-25s/teenagers - young adults.


TURN INTO A PREZI??

Group Meetings: Intro and Early Stages

We meet as a group twice a week after school, for two hours each time, totaling 4 hours a week, allowing us to share ideas and make progress on our project outside the standard amount of lesson time. We discuss the stage we are currently at in the project, from researching videos and artists inspiring our ideas to forming consensus on what type of artist and video we aspire to have, then set an agenda and act on it. Anything we don't finish in meeting time we subsidise using break and lunchtimes, plus occasional shared free periods.

This post will roughly lay out the process and content of meetings, whilst separate individual posts will highlight the details of our resulting decisions.


During the latter weeks of September to mid October we got our ideas down to pitch and hopefully get approval of them from our teachers. We focused on creating an animatic, a steal-o-matic, and making 4 key decisions:

• Artist
• Record Label
• Audience
• Track

Track
We had finalised our track before completely breaking down our ideas for audience, record label, and artist, although we had a decent idea of audience as our group would be considered part of it. We knew the type of sound we wanted (see early ideas and inspirations post) so to decide, we listened to a series of songs, and pitched the best handful with our teachers.


Record Label


Having a general idea that we would have similar music, branching off slightly into related genres, we researched other labels and who they had signed on.

Some evidence of our meetings on record labels, written out on A2 paper plus logo design progress on A4:

 

Artist

We researched similar artists and identified a good gap in the market:

Audience

We spent some time brainstorming sections of our audience, looking at consumption habits and listening tendencies

Steal-o-matic

We researched videos that could inspire us while creating this at the same time - we browsed 'related' music videos on YouTube, 'favouriting' ones with parts we liked, and put the individual parts onto a Premiere Pro timeline.


Animatic

Similar to above but without spending meeting time on finding what we wanted to include as we had already decided. Some time was spent taking photos and finding photos on the internet to represent parts eg some of our narrative.

Creating a storyboard in one meeting gave us the ability to move shots around and plan an initial planned order. The key at the bottom and colour-coordinating our shots on post-it made it visually obvious if we they were two repetitive in shot type/distance prior to making it.


This leads on to the next stage - planning for our actual shoots

Early Ideas & Inspirations

As a group we have decided to incorporate a mixture of performance, concept, and narrative, with a strong sense of the latter two.


Lighting, Grading and Colours

We agreed that we could envisage low key lighting or/and black and white grading like Waiting Game by Banks with the style of music we wanted to use, as well as a mixture of techniques such as strobe lighting like in Papi Pacify by FKA Twigs. This could contrast with bold, strong colours similar to in the video for Quintana by Travi$ Scott where a silhouetted man dances in front of a red background.


Camera

Lots of powerful, intense closeups similar to early in Raleigh Ritchie's video for Stronger Than Ever with a slow reveal of characters.

Editing

We all were keen to explore a use of slow motion and incorporating reverse/replay editing also like in the video for Papi Pacify. Double vision effects like in Quintana would also enhance the use of visuals that could anchor the video.


Musical Influences

After discussing what we liked as a group we decided we were fairly broad and open as a whole but liked the idea of the following elements

• Slow paced trap
• Alternative R&B
• Minimalist dubstep
• Work with gradual buildup of suspense and power
• Must have a sense of emotion and intensity

Our Audience

USE RESEARCH ALREADY DONE AND INCORPORATE INTO THIS POST

Our Record Label

Our logo: intertwining the two 'R's to form
and S inbetween to make 'RSR'

We named our record label Raw Sound Records. It has similarities in terms of model with other labels, particularly Mercury Records and Relentless Records in that they are independent, London-based but still operating under a larger company with Universal Music Group.

PBR&B, soul, dubstep, hip hop, and house will be our genres of focus as many of these intertwine in musical influences e.g. PBR&B being made up of multiple genres, mixing of the genres in songs such as soul/R&B artists singing on hip hop tracks (Jamie Foxx on 50 Cent and Kanye West tracks for example), and the overlap in audience culture.

We would take pride in discovering and signing up and coming artists to bring out their potential to a more lucrative mainstream market where popularity and profitability are attainable. We believe a market exists for everyone and in getting the best out of every artist.

Here are some notes from our group meetings laying out our process:

Here are some examples of the type of artists that would feature on our label:

Here are some pictures to show some of the design process of our label's creation:

Our Artist

Artist name: Roza
Nationality: British
Gender: Female
Age: 20


Name
In naming our artist we decided we wanted a short, single name that was both simple and not so common. It had to be a name that stuck in our minds, so when 'Roza' came up on a random name generator we used in which we put in details of gender, age, and genre, as a group we agreed that it sounded quite cool and catchy.

During a free period, Yssy and I were browsing dafont.com for font ideas to use with our branding, which would be synergistic across our website, album cover, social media, etc.
We decided on _____, which was uncomplicated but quite striking and stylish:

The Market

Within PBR&B there is a gap in the market for a female artist as it appears to contain more male artists such as The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, How To Dress Well, Miguel, and JMSN being successful to name some prominent ones. It is not so dominated by males that there is no potential for female artists, as BANKS, Jhené Aiko, Kelela and FKA Twigs have also proven successful, meaning there is ample opportunity to create a strong female identity.

Another way to establish ourselves differently from others would be to present ourselves
as Britain's answer to PBR&B, (FKA Twigs being the only other major British artist in this genre), as it is a North American phenomenon, most prominently in California with BANKS, Frank Ocean, Miguel, Jhené Aiko all from there.

Male PBR&B artists lyrically use more lustrous, sexual lyrics, and less emotion in their music whereas the female artists tend to write more about feelings. With Roza we're somewhere in between, with poetic lyrics about a relationship, but the video hopefully showing a numb, emotionless side as well as a passionate, fiery side too.


LYRICAL EXAMPLES OF OTHER ARTISTS GENDER COMPARISON



Styling

Elements of Roza's style would be influenced by a mixture of our genre inspirations. Roza's style would not be limited to a certain type of clothing, but in fact identifiable

Our Track

After a lot of discussion, contemplating, and listening, we chose 'Teen Spirit' by SZA.

   


Key points about the song and why we chose it:

• It fit our shared desire to make a video for a slow tempo but powerful track containing emotion - we could envisage creating a video for it
• Slow but intense beat, soulful vocals, ambient, atmospheric sound, and artistic lyrics fit our idea of a style heavy on concept with loose narrative
• It is of the R&B subgenre known as 'PBR&B', containing elements of R&B, hip-hop, soul, and aspects of dubstep, which we felt was what we wanted for our track
• We felt there was a gap in the market for a British PBR&B release (see 'Our Artist' post)
• Potential for strong female identity and vocal performance, working to a strength of our group, having Yssy as an aspiring actor who is capable in front of camera 
• The track has sections of building up, breaking down to only vocals and ambient sounds, and dropping into its beat, lifting the track and providing us with scope to work with, allowing for changes in mood and narrative without becoming repetitive

In relation to the actual task:

• We were able to edit the censored, clean radio version over the split second where the song's only profanity is
• Teen Spirit is a non album single song with no chart performance
• It is contemporary and within a popular alternative genre, and of a marketable culture (see 'Our Audience' post)
• Hiphop, alternative R&B, dubstep and soul, the genres it breaks down into interlink with what would feature on our record label (see Record Label post)
• Long intro and outro that do not vary much make it easy to cut slightly into the beginning and fade out into the end to keep within 3 minutes

Lyrics (taken from RapGenius, where the meanings are broken down):

Verse 1:

Ice under my heels, I hear it breaking

Under my heels, I hear it cracking

Foolish of me to think I had it

Emmanuel, how foolish of me!

To think I had it..

I hear your voice behind me

Moving up my neck

I hear you talking

Creeping on my shoulder

I hear you breathing

In my head I hear you screaming

Just do it..

Hook

Yeah yeah, I feel you talking

Yeah yeah I feel you moving

Yeah yeah let's do it already

Yeah yeah..

Verse 2

Chipping away at boulders

I conquer fire

40 days 40 nights

No New Star

Fuck your Third Eye!

I be the One

Neo of the Sun

Give me simplicity

To lonely seems like real fun

I feel you

Creeping up my leg I hear you talking

Moving on my shoulder I hear you breathing

In my head I hear you screaming

Just do it

Bridge

Don't come close

Don't come close

You don't even know me, know me

Don't come close

Don't come close

Pre-Hook

You don't even know me

You think you know me

Yeah yeah, I feel ya talking

Yeah yeah, I feel ya moving

Lets do it already

Mmhmm yeah yeah

Yeah yeah, I feel ya talking

Yeah yeah, I feel ya moving

Lets do it already

Mmhmm, yeah yeah

Dont come close

Dont come close

You dont even know me, know

Come close, Dont come close

You dont even know me

You think you know me, yeah

You dont even know me

You think you know me, yeah

You dont even know me, know me

You think you know me

Yeah yeah

Yeah yeah

Yeah yeah

Aww yeah



Our choice became dictated slightly by the choice of artist, but not to our detriment. One of our original song ideas was The Weeknd's cover version of Michael Jackson's 'Dirty Diana', however despite the fact it was a cover, the stardom-type nature of the song made it slightly inappropriate for the task, especially since the artist had vocals at times indistinguishable from the original version. We were led by our decision to find a track sung by a female artist, and our group had a strong consensus over Teen Spirit.


Copyright

The artist SZA technically has ownership of the track, as it was released prior to her signing to Top Dawg Entertainment, rather than after this. Josh took the initiative to attempt contact SZA asking for permission to use the track, for the sake of the task's rules:




This was attempted on Facebook also. So far we have received no reply.

Steal-O-Matic

This our group's steal-o-matic; a montage of parts of music videos that have inspired our project. It is effectively a video mood-board including lighting, artist image, interactions between characters, use of editing like reverse and slow motion shots, and themes. Some of the specific parts of our inspirations are highlighted with text to clarify what we liked about them. We downloaded the individual videos using youtubeinmp4.com and inserted them onto a timeline on Adobe Premiere Pro to cut these parts into the steal-o-matic.

It does not represent our project in terms of structure but more in the sense of shot types, techniques, editing; essentially things that we like, whereas many of the more specific ideas for shots we would like to achieve, as well as their actual structure in a video, will be presented later in the animatic.

Animatic

This is our group's animatic. Similar to the steal-o-matic in that it is a series of images and short video clips, but this is more developed as it is ordered into the plan for our music video. The shots are more specific as opposed to being simply things we may consider doing something like them; the shots in the animatic represent what we would like to have, and a more developed idea of their order.




The narrative is to remain loose; reflecting on a flawed past relationship with both good and bad times contrasting eachother, and often acting as a facade to the outside world. This is anchored by conceptual content featuring an elemental theme (eg fire & ice) to at times explicitly reference the lyrics, as well as represent the fragility and volatility of the relationship.

Group Meetings: Working up to Shoot Day + Promotion UNFINISHED

Casting and Concept

From early on we had planned to use as few people as possible for reasons of practicality. Apart from three scenes, only members of our own group are used. We had copies of eachother's timetables to plan around are availability, which was much easier within the group than it would be outside as we shared lesson time and free periods in which we could shoot in the studio.


Roza (Lead role)

As mentioned in the 'Artist' post, Yssy from our group is an aspiring actor who performs well in front of camera, and therefore was the best option for the lead role. The sound of the vocals on the track is feasible with her image, and a believable lipsynch performance of the song is vitally important in realistically creating a music video that looks as professional as possible. 

Boyfriend
Harry, also from our group, was decided as the (ex) boyfriend for the video, to feature in our narrative shots. This was because he is quite confident in nature, fitting the personality idea for his character. He proved a good combination with Yssy during screen testing (see below) and seemed to have more natural chemistry on camera, making the narrative look more believable. Having all group members for most of the important roles is also better from a practical and organisational perspective. 

We tested who would work best with Yssy for the boyfriend role by filming the two spontaneously interacting. Ama, another student at the school in our year, was in contention with Harry for this.



Arguments showed good potential, plus our cast got on well.


The 'Good Times' showed some chemistry that came across effectively on camera.


Despite Ama being an able actor, the relationship seemed less natural.

The 'sweet' shots looked good, but not to the extent that it would be much greater value to look outside our group for casting, which is more practically difficult, when Harry seemed to work great with Yssy. 

Concept

Seeing as one of my stronger attributes is creativity, I felt I could be of better use on the ideas side rather than acting a lot. By contributing more on ideas and directing I could put these into practice. However I also put myself forward for some of the shots I thought up, like the shots of my back where I felt I could best benefit the group by acting in the way I imagined it, as I thought directing from the outside could be more difficult on some shots to convey what I had in mind. My enthusiasm for the more abstract and creative side of media were the main reasons for being more heavily involved in this. I also took on the drumming performance shots out of being musical.

Despite being experienced in acting, Josh somewhat stepped back from acting to hone and make best use of his directing ability. Since he understands acting and performance well, he used this to coach and instruct Yssy and Harry (and me a little) to get the acting looking best on screen. He acts in the silhouette shot with Yssy as it required some choreography that he understood well. His height also helped to create the imposing effect intended for the silhouette.  

We enlisted in former student Tasha's help, knowing of her dancing and performance abilities from her assisting our class on the 1975 remake shoot and also from her being lead role in the previous yeargroup's Jessie J remake. She features in the dancing concept shots.

We chose Olivia, another former student, to perform in our fire poi concept shots as she was keen to have a role in the video. She helped with the 1975 remake also, for makeup, and when coming into school to give tutorials on makeup for the music video groups to use on their shoots, she put forward the idea of fire poi, which she knew how to do. This tied in well with our use of elements as symbolism.