Grime is a popular genre in London, targeted solely at youth and those who come from working class backgrounds. Grime features quick rapping over an instrumental that is either on youtube or original to the artist. It is a common sight to see quick pace editing and an overemphasis on close ups of the star with a thick south London accent and this is what makes Grime unique. Grime having a small audience, compared to mainstream genres such as rap and pop, often includes embodiments of cultures which can lead to fallout between different Grime artists. These fallouts are turned into whats known as 'diss-tracks' which are intended to harm another artist and offend them, retaliations are to be expected as well. These 'diss-tracks' are perhaps the largest feature of Grime as audiences enjoy other artists disagreements with each other. The costume that is prevalent in Grime is also very important as every single grime artists tends to wear a tracksuit and trainers and they make references to it in their lyrics as appearance is very important as they want to embody the culture of South London.
Pop
Pop is mainstream genre which is widely received by many people in many locations throughout the world, and perhaps the largest genre out there. Pop tends to focus on having a target audience of young teenagers and young adults. Pop genre music videos tend to also have quick editing at certain points and eye-level close ups of the artist in order to brand them as a 'star' as Dyer states. Pop music videos can have all types of meanings and interpretations as it is a very open genre and most pop songs tend to be about love. However, as pop is a mainstream genre artists are quick to find their own identity and are enthusiastic to show it through their music videos. This lets each artist have their own unique styles which audiences may be more attuned towards. This is better explained through the repetition and difference theory by Stuart Hall. For example Katy Perry's music and Taylor Swift's music both feature the artist being the focal point of the videos have several close ups to brand them as as star and having bright colours which are prevalent in pop genre music videos. These are the 'repetitions' of this genre, but something called 'difference' separates their music videos. Katy Perry's 'Roar' is constructed to empower women by denoting them as strong, powerful and independent whereas Taylor Swifts' music video 'Love Story' is a more traditional romantic boy meets girl music video. Depending on the audience, they may choose to listen to either one because of these difference which separate so many artists.
Rap
Rap is another mainstream genre and tends to be more celebrated by older and male audiences, whereas Pop isn't. Rap tends to pain the artist as a dangerous person who is also very successful and will use this success in their lyrics. the lyrics of rap songs are often very self-empowering as they call for violence and their superiority in the genre of rap. Rap music videos also have very quick editing with lots of closeup but tend to have a different type of camera language. the camera is often at a low angle which looks up at the artist to make them appear more superior and dominant than the audience, adding to the image of danger and success. This is also done to make the audience aspire to be like these artists and want to be as successful and as rich which can be denoted from their expensive clothing, gold jewellery and lyrics about expensive cars. Rap has the quickest tempo of all the music genres, even the point where it becomes a competition and main selling point in artists such as Busta Rhymes.
In this week we completed our parody video of Macklemore's Thrift Shop and just completed editing the video to match the lyrics of the song. There were many problems during the pre-production of the music video such as disorganisation within the group such as who wanted to act and who wanted to film and who wanted to edit. but eventually they were sorted out. We put our knowledge of music video conventions and theories to the test in the production of this video to create a video that audiences would enjoy.
We understand that this is just another task to make us accustomed to making music videos and editing them using baby steps. Thanks to this opportunity we have learned to cut to the beat of the song and using specific parts of the song to suit our visuals in the music video we have created. Because the task was just to create a music video we also had a lot of creativity and flexibility for creating it and adding our own personal touches. We experimented with different types of camera shots and angles but because the task is a mash-up we had to intentionally leave out an establishing shot.
Our group chose to use a parody style of music video to inspire some humour into our finished product for the audience to enjoy and make them like the music video more. Parody is also easier to do because you do not have to strictly follow the original music video and you can add your own material to make the music video more original. I thought that doing interpretative would be too difficult and time consuming considering the lyrics of Thrift Shop being very random and sporadic making it too difficult to produce.
We added music video conventions such as editing the hue of the music video snippet to make the visuals look livelier and more suiting to the tone of the music video. Also some of the shots we had were too dark because of poor lighting affected by the weather so we decided it would be better to have a bright video than a darker one. Some of the shots also correspond to the music video in order for it to tell some kind of story in the midst of all it's chaos so that the audience can understand the music video better.
It's too early to decide for our music video genre for out final production but there we can definitely tell that we're going to use certain music video conventions over others. One convention we will use is a relationship between the lyrics and video of the music so that the audience doesn't become confused or think we're making a surreal or conceptual music video. One convention we won't be using is exhibitionism because we think that it won't suit the video we'll try and make or the message we'll be trying to send through the video.
We had a few problems from pre to post-production of the music video such as a lack of communication within the group which led to confusions at some points and general disagreement about which ways we wanted to move forward with the music video. We recognised that we were wasting time by disagreeing with each other and make compromises to suit everyone's wants in the group. This could have been avoided if we discussed more in the planning phase of the music video
We thought that we had a lot of successful elements in the production of our music video such as the lip syncing of the lyrics which was usually smooth. Also our editing matched the beat of the music to make a smooth music video and keep our audience from getting disorientated from watching an off-beat music video and make it clear that the genre of the song is hip-hop. Also after the we sorted out our differences in the production of our music video everything else ran smoothly afterward, we quickly completed the work whilst having fun and working in our new group.
Richard Dyer argues that musical stars are exploited by institutions to serve the purpose of making money for the institution. Once the star has been completely used up they can easily be replaced by another star for the benefit on the institution. Richard Dyer also argues that stars fit into one or more of these four categories.
Stars as Embodiments
Stars can become embodiments of a certain type of culture, and more than one artist can represent one type of culture.
A good example of this is the popular 2000's punk-rock band, Green Day. Green Day embodies the punk culture and this is where audiences who identify with this culture would go. This is because everything about Green Day represents this as the costumes in many of their music videos are black and have black accessories denoting darkness and anger, the band members even go on to wear black make-up to re-enforce the image of Green Day being a punk-rock band. The lyrics and sounds in their music videos can also be seen as connoting punk culture as they demonise the government and society which they live in, showing the bleakness of their lives. Even the strong, volatile colours used in the music video represent this as the colours and lighting that is used aren't usually seen as 'happy' or 'glad' colours but rather grimy and dirty to again embody the punk culture to speak out to a certain audience and have a sense of their own independence.
However it is important to realise that stars can embody more than just cultures and actually embody ideologies. Katy Perry is a good example for this as in her music videos she regularly empowers women and promotes their own independence. Early on in this music video we can see Katy Perry having her heart broken by her boyfriend who flirts with other women despite already being in a relationship with her. Katy sees this and transforms herself and joins the American army. We can see several shots of the hard work and training that Katy Perry has to endure. Then there are other shots of other women in the army, triumphantly walking through the desert having completed their training. Through this Katy Perry embodies the ideology of empowering women as she shows them to be strong and independent, capable of doing whats seen as a 'man's job' such as joining the army and serving in a foreign country.
Stars as Merchandise
Richard Dyer also argues that stars can be seen as merchandise which is extremely profitable for companies. This is especially true in the famous example, One Direction. One Direction's target audience of young girls from 10-18 are prone to buying products which represent their loyalty to this band. The members of One Direction's faces can be spotted on millions of products world wide, and this is another reason why the band is so successful. The members of this band attempt to retain their youthful image to keep their target audience's interest.
Many, many stars have their own types of merchandise and open their own product lines which will definitely be successful because of their wide audience base who will want to purchase these products to be able to align themselves with their favourite artist and such. These products have amazing reach in their variety as it can come in all forms of products whether it is perfume, clothes, games, posters and make-up.
Stars as Constructions
Stars that are constructions are stars which are constructed by the music industry to suit a certain gap in the market. However, these constructions tend to be of poor quality as they are often recycled with the star or band only having a short career then hiding in obscurity. The reason that they are so easily recycled is because the images of the artists are artificial and fake, making it easy to parody and copy. This is very easy to spot in the example to the left. This band known as Little Mix can be easily identified as artificial due to their overly-bright costumes and overly exaggerated smiles which are intended to gain the trust of an un-suspecting audience member. While not being unsuccessful, they are also not too successful.
The factory which produces these 'recyclable' stars is often Simon Cowell and the X Factor. Many young artists who appear on X Factor have dreams of becoming stars after winning the competition but many do not stay as stars. It is a well known fact that winners of the X Factor will be signed by Simon Cowell, a music industry mogul, and have an album in your name. However these albums are often not that popular because the X Factor is viewed for many reasons besides actually wanting to hear music.
Stars as Personalities
Stars can also be identified as personalities. This is strongly visible in stars such as Ed Sheeran whose lyrics tell as story that can be happy or sad. Ed Sheeran has a certain type of cult around him, especially on online media websites such as Facebook and Tumblr. On these sites there are numerous videos of Ed being kindhearted to his fans, approaching un-suspected fans in public them preforming a duet in public adds to this image of Ed having a personality in which the audience are able to like. It is also known that Ed used to be a street performer and came from humble beginnings as just an ordinary person. Again things such as these add to his personality or what the audience perceives to be his personality and support him for it.
