Sunday, 25 October 2009

Influences for Music Video

I feel that Blink 182's music video for their song "Always" is a strong influence for my group's own music video. Firstly the narratives are quite similar, in that it features a female protagonist with three males competing for her affections. The frame is cut into three horizontal sections, each portraying a different outcome for each boy. It succeeds in helping the narrative to flow in a unique way and it is something the group would consider when it comes to the final stages of production for our own video.

Sunday, 18 October 2009

Narrative in Music Video

After deciding between two songs for our music video, we chose the song ‘Superman by Barry Gledden’, which is an upbeat tune, with a catchy positive chorus and female vocals about the relationship between a girl and her superman lover. We came to this conclusion since the team had brilliant fun and exciting narrative ideas for the lyrics. The lyrics have also given us the opportunity to express the humour in our video, as the lyrics are very metaphorical, and exaggerated. We have created an outline of what we want the narrative in our music video to include.




  • Female looking for the right boyfriend.

  • She goes on dates with a number of different boys from punks, to gangsters to geeks, in the same restaurant, at the same time on different days!

  • The scene in the restaurant remains the same but the boys change, and the roses seem more wilted in each scene.

  • But of course she chooses the best looking boy, but he ends up to be the most big headed boy, and doesn’t really care about her.

  • However, the Geek that she dated really likes her and is the ‘real superman’. (He is seen in the background of most scenes wearing a baggy superman t-shirt)

  • As the video goes on, the geek appears to be better looking.

  • The girl begins to notice him again.

  • After a number of awful dates with her new boyfriend she is bored and leaves him, he doesn’t care as he is too busy looking at himself.

  • Finally she gets with ‘Superman’!

  • Want the video to also include animated shots, which have been influenced by legendary comics and Superman cartoons. For example, speech bubbles and signs that stress the sounds



Saturday, 17 October 2009

Influencing the Audience


If audience is a mass, it raises all kinds of questions about the power of the media to influence people - not just individuals, but whole sectors of society. There have been a number of theories over the years about how exactly the media work on the mass audeince. Two I will outline are called The Hypodermic Model and The Two Step Flow Model.


The Hypodermic Model


It grew out of what is referred to as The Frankfurt School, a group of German Marxists in the 1930s who witnessed first hand how Hitler used propaganda to influence a nation. According to the theory the media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who as a powerless mass have little choice but to be influenced - in other words, you watch something violent, you may go and do something violent.


This theory has been particularly popular when people have been considering violence in films. There have been films such as The Exorcist and A Clockwork Orange which have been banned in the past, partly because of a belief that they might encourage people to copy crimes within them. On the other hand no-one has ever really claimed that everyone will be affected by these texts in the same way. Many people have therefore seen the theory as simplistic because it doesn't take any account of people's individuality and yet it is still very popular in society in areas such as politics. Every time a young person does something violent and makes the news, newspapers and MPs will try to link their crime to video violence.


Another interesting example of the theory in action is the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Before every one of his murders, he watched a clip from his favourite film in order to get himself excited. This is the kind of fact that might seem to prove the hypodermic syringe theory.


The Two Step Flow


The Hypodermic model proved too clumsy for media researchers seeking to more precisely explain the relationship between audience and text. As the mass media became an essential part of life in societies around the world and did not reduce populations to a mass of unthinking drones, a more sophisticated explanation was sought.


Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential campaign and published their results in a paper. Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the mind of is audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active asociates, over whom they have influence. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow.


This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts.

The Cultivation/Culmination Theory

According to this, while any one media text does not have too much effect, it shows that although one viewing may not have a big effect, viewing constantly over time has a greater effect on people’s behaviour, making them desensitised (distanced from ones emotions). Therefore the result being that violence in the media means children become less shocked by real life violence. On the other hand many may become more sensitised, this is where the viewers are shocked by the violence, therefore becoming more aware and emotional.

Gratification Theory

According to this theory, we all have different uses for the media and we make choices over what we want to watch. In other words, when we encounter a media text it is not just some kind of mindless entertainment - we are expecting to gain something from it: some kind of gratification. In this model the individual has the power and they select the media texts that best suit their needs and attempts to satisfy those needs. Researchers have found four kinds of gratifications individuals recieve:

  1. Information: we want to find out about society and the world, we want to satisfy our curiosity. This would fit NEWS AND DOCUMENTARIES.
  2. Personal Identity: we may watch television in order to look for models for our behaviour. So, for example, we may identify with characters that we see in SOAPS.
  3. Intergration and Social Interaction: we use the media in order to find out more about the circumstances of other people and help us to empathise and sympathise with the lives of others.
  4. Entertainment: sometimes we simply use the media for enjoyment, relaxtion or just to fill time.

Reception Theory

This theory is based on the idea that the audience create their own image of media texts, meaning that although a number of people watch the same programme, individuals interpret it in their own way. This can be influenced by the our individual upbringing, the mood we are in, the place where we are at the time or all kinds of other factors. David Morley classes the varied readings of people in three groups, which are:

Preferred Reading: what the media producers hope the audience will take from the text.

Oppositional Reading: audiences from outside the target audience may reject the preferred reading, receiving their own alternative message.

Negotiated Reading: audiences acknowledge the preffered reading but modify it to suit their own values and opinions.

Constructing an Audience

Pop music is a genre that was created as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll. The pop rock genre emerged and acted as a fence which satisfied an audience with an admiration for both pop and soft rock. It has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs, dealing with the wide range of emotions from physical or emotion love. While these basic elements of the genre have remained fairly constant, pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music. Since the pop genre is extremely broad, different levels of pop are admired by diverse audiences. Therefore our team have created a questionnaire, to be able to establish our target demographic.










Foundations By Kate Nash & Directed By Kinga Burza

Kate Marie Nash (born 6 July 1987) is an English singer and songwriter based in London. She had a UK #2 hit "Foundations" in 2007, followed by the platinum selling UK number 1 album Made of Bricks. Nash started her career in 2006. After several gigs, Nash uploaded her music to MySpace. She found a manager for herself before seeking producers for her music. On November 14th 2007, Kate Nash celebrated her debut album 'Made of Bricks' going platinum. Whilst playing a sold out show at Shepherd's Bush Empire the news broke that her album had passed the 300,000 sales mark after Fiction records conducted a massive sales check. The album currently sits as 2007's second best selling album.

Foundations


Kinga Burza
Kinga was born in Krakow, Poland and raised in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia before moving to London in 2005 and signing with respected film production company Partizan of Michel Gondry fame in 2006. She completed a BA at the University of New South Wales, before she went onto postgraduate studies in Theatre and Film at UTS in Sydney. Whilst studying at university, Kinga began teaching herself by making amateur videos for her then boyfriend Sydney musician Jack Ladder and many other friends she had in bands. Since being in the UK, Kinga has shot videos for M.Craft, The Thrills, The Rakes, The Teenagers, Calvin Harris, Kate Nash, Ladyhawke and recent Billboard No. 1 newcomer Katy Perry in LA. Promo Magazine has dubbed Kinga to be among 'the next wave of up-and-coming directors' while both I-D and Dazed and Confused Magazine have also run features on her. She was nominated Best New Director at the CAD Awards in 2007 and won a Young Gun award for Music Video Direction for Kate Nash's "Foundations" in 2007. Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" reached No.1 on the BillBoard charts. In 2008 Kinga won Best Pop Video at the UK Video Music Awards in London for Kate Nash's "Foundations".
I thoroughly enjoy watching the video to Foundations at every available opportunity. Its light-heartedness and simplistic techniques (excluding the animation) is something I would like to incorporate into my own music video. The humour used with simple camera angles and editing techniques I feel would appeal to the audience I am trying to reach, i.e teenagers around 14-18 years old. I believe it would create light hearted and at times humourous connotations throughout the video.

Criteria of Advanced Portfolio

Our criteria for our Advanced Portfolio explains what is to be included in our promotion package for the release of an album. The three main tasks are :
  • Main Task: Produce a music promo video
  • Ancillary Task One: Produce a website homepage for the band.
  • Ancillary Task Two: Produce a CD/DVD cover for the release of album as part of a digipak.

Our research, planning and evaluation involves the use of our blog where we will evaluate and reflect on the creative process and experiences of our production.

We must answer the evaluation questions. These are:

  1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
  2. How effective is the combination of your main product and acillary tasks?
  3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
  4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Questionnaire Results - Music Video

When collecting the data from our questionnaires I inputted the information from the questionnaires into Microsoft Excel in order to create a tally or a graph. This would help us to see clearly the results and decisions of our demographic.
Gender and Genre

In order to determine the preferred genre among males and females, our results depicted that the genre of pop (our group's chosen genre) was most popular, particularly among females, with half of our participants from both genders choosing it. It seems though that the target audience for this genre will be females, with 7 out of 20 choosing the genre compared with 3 males.


Target Age Range
As the group have chosen Pop as our preferred genre for our music video, we wanted to investigate how popular this genre was depending on age and therefore who our target age range would be. Out of twenty people, it seemed the age bracket of 14-18 deemed Pop one of it's preferred genres with over half choosing it. This concludes the question that our target audience for our music video will be between these ages.

Attraction to Music Videos
When asked what attracted them to a music video, people included the answers of storyline, setting and humour. As the graph depicts, storyline proved the most popular answer with males and females with nearly 3/4 of participants including this in their answer. The second and third most popular were humour and SFX. While SFX may seem the more difficult and time consuming to include, we will have to go buy the effects we have on an iMac computer. However storyline was deemed the most important and as a group we had discussed previously that a storyline would prove integral to our production.


Preferred Album Cover
One of the future ancillary tasks is to produce an album cover and so it was important to begin thinking about this. Our questionnaire highlighted that Mika's album proved most popular, but only with females. Whereas Groove Armada's was only popular with males.

Sunday, 11 October 2009

Our Chosen Genre

After thoroughly researching a number of our favourite genres in our group and the mainstream genres of Pop, Rock, R&B and Hip Hop, we came to the conclusion that we as a group will produce a promotional music video for a Pop/Pop Rock song. We came to this decision due to our enjoyment of music videos by artists or this genre such as Lily Allen and Pink. As we our young students we also felt it would be easier for us as a production team and an audience to understand the standards expected by a young target audience. The genre itself of Popular music is very widespread and so it would enable us to try new techniques and ideas inspired by a range of artists.



To become more in touch with our chosen genre I have done some research into the history of pop and its main influences.
The 50's
1954 - Elvis Presley records 'That's All Right Mama' at Sun Studios, Memphis
A 19-year-old truck driver fulfils producer Sam Phillips's dream of finding 'a white guy who sings like a negro'. There were rock'n'roll records before this one, nearly all of them by black artists, but this is the moment when the embryonic form found its perfect embodiment.
1955 - Chuck Berry's 'Maybellene' is released
'Maybellene' was Berry's first paean to cars and girls, two of the constants of American rock'n'roll. His guitar and songwriting style permeated the music of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys and Bruce Springsteen.
The 60's
1961 - The miracles' 'Shop Around' is released
The first hit bearing the Tamla Motown imprint. The pop-soul label owned by Berry Gordy and operating from downtown Detroit produced more than 100 singles by the likes of Stevie Wonder, the Supremes and the Temptations. Dubbed the Hit Factory, it defined the pop decade more than any other label.
1962 - Phil Spector invents the Wall of Sound
Spector was the first producer as creative artist - and tyrant - treating his vocal groups as just another component in the production process. On multilayered 'wall of sound' songs such as the Crystals' 'He's a Rebel' and the Ronettes' 'Be My Baby', he was the first person to make pop sound epic.
1962 - James Brown: Live at the Apollo
The first million-selling r'n'b album, and a dynamic snapshot of the greatest soul act ever to tread the boards. Brown's influence on modern music is immeasurable, beginning with his impact on Sixties Mod groups and continuing apace with his presence in contemporary urban music.
1964 - The Beatles take America
Already the most popular pop group in Europe, the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan's television show in early 1964. The following month, 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' shot to the top of the US charts, swiftly followed by their four previous singles. In March 1964, they occupied the top five chart positions in America. Beatlemania was born.
1965 - The Who: 'My Generation'
The Who were the most aggressive - and the artiest - British pop group of the mid-Sixties. Pete Townshend dressed in Union Jack suits, smashed his guitar and wrote songs that perfectly caught the rising tide of teen frustration. The stuttered teen snarl of 'My Generation' remains one of the key moments in British pop, and the most potent evocation of Mod elitism and amphetamine-fuelled aggression ever committed to vinyl.
The 70's
1972 - David Bowie creates Ziggy Stardust
In January, Bowie told an interviewer: 'I'm gay, and always have been.' Whatever the truth of the statement, it announced the imminent arrival of his androgynous alter ego, unveiled the following June on Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars . The first of Bowie s many exotic personae, and the moment that launched glam rock. Perhaps the most influential album of the decade.
1975 - Bob Marley & the Wailers: 'No Woman, No Cry' released
Bob Marley & the Wailers' first hit single, and the beginning of Marley s reign as an international reggae star. As important a catalyst as Dylan or Lennon, he remains the only reggae artist to achieve iconic status. His death in 1981 robbed the music of its one and only global icon.
1977 - n 'God Save the Queen' goes to 'Number One'
The last and greatest outbreak of pop-based moral pandemonium, and punk's crowning glory. Released at the height of the Queen's Jubilee celebrations, the Sex Pistols' single was deemed so unspeakable that workers in a record plant refused to press it and official chart compilers refused to acknowledge its chart-topping position. It sounds gloriously irreverent now; back then it was nothing short of incendiary.
The 80's
1981 - 'Ghost Town' goes to Number One
The Specials were the last and greatest flowering of the socially conscious pop that emerged in Britain in the immediate wake of punk. They invented the short-lived but vibrant Two Tone movement, whose merging of reggae rhythms and punk lyricism reflected the multiculturalism of urban Britain. 'Ghost Town' was a lament for their beleaguered home town, Coventry, an anti-Thatcherist song that topped the pop charts at the very moment the country was torn by inner-city riots. Pop as on-the-spot reportage.
1981 - The launch of MTV
The pivotal moment when the pop video became as important as the pop single. The first television channel devoted totally to music, MTV has grown into a global brand as all-pervasive as Coca-Cola or Nike, colonising and dulling the collective pop consciousness with the tyranny of the rotation play.
1982 - Michael Jackson: Thriller released
The biggest-selling pop record of all time, Thriller made Michael Jackson a global icon. Then only 25, he had made his debut at the age of four and had his first hit at 12 sharing the charts with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and the Doors, and was already the subject of much media speculation concerning his eternal childhood. In the light of all that has happened since, it is worth remembering that he was once a pop genius.
1985 - Madonnna's 'Material Girl' is released
The single that propelled Madonna beyond the mainstream and made her the most successful pop brand of modern times. Tied to a video in which she mimicked Monroe, it was the first and most audacious of her various self-inventions, a song that caught the consumerist thrust of the Eighties, even as it supposedly parodied the same.
1985 - Live Aid
A great moment for charity, a dreadful moment for pop. Two all-star concerts organised by Saint Bob Geldof and beamed live into millions of homes worldwide, the event raised £50 million for charity. One of the greatest philanthropic events of all time, but the moment when pop became enshrined as pure showbiz entertainment.
The 90's
1992 - Nirvana: 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'
The single that catapulted Nirvana into the mainstream. A heady mix of metal and punk, with a structural dynamic that alternated Cobain's whisper with his guttural scream, it said all there was to say about America's lost 'Generation X', defining a strain of solipsistic angst that continues to echo through white American rock music.
1995 - Blur v Oasis
Britpop's big stand-off. Orchestrated by their respective record labels - and hyped by the pop and mainstream media - Blur and Oasis went head to head, releasing singles on the same day. Neither were any good, but Blur's 'Country House' was spectacularly bad. It went straight in at Number One.A couple of years later, when Oasis had eclipsed Blur as the biggest band in Britain, Noel Gallagher would be summoned to a New Labour victory party in Downing Street. The beginning of the end of Britpop and the hype that was Cool Britannia.
1995 - The Spice Girls meet Simon Fuller
The Spice Girls were the most unlikely teen-pop phenomenon of the Nineties, not least because they were the first all-girl band in an era dominated by manufactured boy bands. They fused pop, rap and a strident, if inconsistent, 'girl power' message, and their meteoric rise was overseen by Simon Fuller, perhaps the most influential player in modern British pop. In retrospect, their first single, 'Wannabe', was a harbinger of all that followed, from Posh to Pop Idol .
The 00's
2000 - The birth of Napster
A word that still strikes fear into the heart of music business fat cats. Launched by 19-year-old Shawn Fanning from his uncle's garage, Napster was the download service that provided free music to an estimated 100 million users in 2000.Now legal, downloading marks the end of traditional music formats as we know them.
2001 - George Bush declares Eminem 'The biggest threat to American youth since Polio'
At the height of his notoriety Eminem, who had singlehandedly made rap a medium for the kind of solipsistic whining usually expressed by pampered white guys with guitars, received the kind of endorsement even the biggest promo budget could not buy. Two years later, a poll of American parents found that 53 per cent agreed that 'America's youth find more truth in Eminem than George Bush'.
2002 - Teen Pop Rock
A new "teen pop rock" movement began. Avril Lavigne was arguably the first and lead artist to take this new direction in pop music, with hits such as "Complicated", "Sk8er Boi" at the begining of the decade and "Girlfriend" at the end. American Idol winners become a big part of the American pop sound, but only one winner became a staple. Kelly Clarkson experienced huge success and tons of hit radio singles with her pop-rock sound including worldwide hit "Seen U Been Gone" at the middle of the decade. The younger sibling of Jessica Simpson, Ashlee Simpson, experienced a breakthrough success with her teen pop-rock sound as well. Other artists reflecting the genre are Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff and later Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift.
2003 - Beyonce and the triumpth of R&B
For the first time since the dawn of rock'n'roll 50 years ago, none of the artists in the official Billboard American Top 10 was white. The ascendancy of rap and contemporary R&B as the music of choice for young Americans, black and white, was total and irrefutable (most notably Alicia Keyes, 50 Cent and OutKast). If the music has a figurehead, it is Beyoncé Knowles, the only woman in that Top 10 and currently the biggest pop star of the new century.
2004 - The Boybands Revival
Boybands do not completely die out, but rather evolve into teen pop-rock/pop punk acts, with artists such as Busted and McFly. Take That reunite in 2005 and recreate their earlier success, which once again sparks a flurry of other 90's pop bands following suite. Bands such as Boyzone also find success, whilst others such as 5ive and East 17 fail and once again disband. Animated musicians become popular, with the likes of Crazy Frog, Gorillaz, and Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil. Girl groups Sugababes and Girls Aloud span successful careers throughout most of the decade.
2005 - Pop turns to Reality TV
Reality talent shows which gave people the opportunity of a singing career became very popular with UK TV audiences. Shows included Popstars, Pop Idol, Fame Academy and The X Factor. Eurovision Song Contest is very important for the European Music. The most succesful artists to come out of this process include Lemar, Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke, Girls Aloud, Will Young and JLS.

Mainstream Genres

The music industry holds a number of mainstream genres ranging from Hip Hop to Classical and Garage to Gospel. The creation, performance, and definition of music differ according to its culture and social context. I have researched into the mainstream genres of Pop, Rock, RnB and Hip Hop.


Pop

Pop music is a music genre that developed from the mid-1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music. It has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs. While these basic elements of the genre have remained fairly constant, pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, particularly borrowing from the development of rock music, and utilizing key technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.

Characteristics

Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:


  • a focus on the individual song or singles, rather than on extended works or albums
  • an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology.
  • an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities
  • an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance
  • a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments



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Rock

Rock music is a genre of popular music that entered the mainstream in the 1960s. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country music and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music.
The sound of rock often revolves around the guitar back beat laid down by a rhythm section of electric bass guitar, drums, and keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, or, since the 1970s, synthesizers. Along with the guitar or keyboards, saxophone and blues-style harmonica are sometimes used as soloing instruments. In its "purest form", it "has three chords, a strong, insistent back beat, and a catchy melody. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, rock music developed different subgenres. When it was blended with folk music it created folk rock, with blues to create blues-rock and with jazz, to create jazz-rock fusion. In the 1970s, rock incorporated influences from soul, funk, and Latin music. Also in the 1970s, rock developed a number of subgenres, such as soft rock, glam rock, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive rock, and punk rock. Rock subgenres that emerged in the 1980s included new wave, hardcore punk and alternative rock. In the 1990s, rock subgenres included grunge, Britpop, indie rock, and nu metal.

Characteristics

  • Rock Music is commonly identified by its strong rhythms, singable melodies, and fast tempo.
  • A typical band consists of three guitars (lead, rhythm and bass), vocals, keyboard and drum kit.
  • A typical rock song would follow the following pattern:
    Introduction
    Verse 1
    Chorus
    Verse 2
    Chorus
    Solo Instrumental Section (middle 8/bridge)
    Verse 3
    Chorus

    Coda (outro)

R&B

Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B, R'n'B or RnB) is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The term was originally used by record companies to refer to recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular.
The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. Starting in the 1960s, after this style of music contributed to the development of "rock and roll", the term "R&B" became used - particularly by white groups — to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, the term "rhythm and blues" was being used as a blanket term to describe soul and funk. Since the 1990s, the term "Contemporary R&B" is now mainly used to refer to a modern version of soul and funk-influenced pop music.

Characteristics

  • Rhythm and blues bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, and sax.
  • However, contemporary R’n’B does not not use as many instruments due to modern technology.
  • Simple repetitive verses are common to help create mellow, individual sounds.
    Singers are emotionally engaged with the lyrics, often intensely so, they remain cool, relaxed, and in control.
  • Lyrics are usually relaxed.


Hip Hop

Hip hop music is a musical genre which developed alongside hip hop culture, and is commnoly based on concepts of loop, rapping, DJing, scratching and beatboxing. The music is used to express concerns of political, social, and personal issues. Hip hop began in the Bronx in New York City in the 1970s, primarily among African Americans, with some Jamaican immigrant influence. The term rap is often used synonymously with hip hop, however, the latter denotes the practices of an entire subculture.
Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat. Beats, almost always in 4/4 time signature, can be created by looping portions of other songs, usually by a DJ, or sampled from portions of other songs by a producer. Modern beats incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. Rappers may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics and perform their works a cappella or to a beat.


Saturday, 10 October 2009

Gender Representation in Music

In this lesson we started to build up our research on gender representation in the music industry. We began by looking at the renowned "Rolling Stones" magazine and P Diddy's recent album cover and compared the representation of females and males in both with obvious conclusions.

Gender Representation
  • Kid Rock is looking down his nose at the camerah. This makes him look arrogant.
  • He is superimposed over the title. This suggests superiority.
  • He is dressed in red and is centralised in the image. This shows the male to be the dominant figure and the red allows him to stand out.
  • The women are sexualised, half naked and seductive poses. The women at the "mercy" of Kid Rock.
  • There is a relationship between the characters and the camera. Most of the women look desperate as they try to gain his attention, while there are one or two who are looking at the other women. This in some sense is a male fantasy. Or in another sense is an idea of "bitchiness".
  • The leg position of the blonde woman is possesive as it is wrapped seductively around Kid Rock's leg.
  • The theme of red is continued throughout, with the title, sub-heading and clothes of Kid Rock. This suggests a seductiveness, sexy and devilish theme.




Gender Representation

  • P. Diddy is in a suit. This presents him as sophisticated and business-like.
  • His glasses make him mysterious, as if he is hiding behind a mask.
  • The extreme close up shows that it is "all about him". He is beckoning the camera towards him as if in control.
  • The woman is dressed promiscuously. Her hair is placed unaturally and her face is hidden placing more emphasis on her body.
  • P Diddy is leaning on her like furniture, so she is just an object.
  • She is clinging on to him, highlighting her weakness.

From this lesson I have learnt that there is a strong sense of patriarchy in magazine covers and album covers. Women are used as sexual objects and this is why women questioned their position within the patriarchal society.