Analysing CD Covers

Like many CD covers from the Indie-rock genre, the Arctic Monkeys cover, which can be seen above, features members of the band. The cover has been produced to appear quite dark, which suggests negativity and depression, whilst the white effect used on the cover provides contrast. The band's name is quite small and discreet, allowing the photo to be the main focus of the artwork. In addition, this style can be used across many different types of marketing and promotional material.

The artwork for Definitely Maybe by Oasis also features a photo focus, whilst still retaining the iconic Oasis logo that has been used in much of their branding. There is still a focus on performance, as one of the members is sitting on the sofa with a guitar, although an element of disjuncture is present, with one person lying on the floor, and another sitting, facing away from everyone else. This is a theme that is potentially carried across in some of the band's music videos. In addition, the presence of wine in the shot perhaps links to the turbulent history that many of the band's audience may have.

 

 


The CD cover for Babel by Mumford & Sons does, like the other covers, retain the use of a photo focus, featuring members of the band. Here, the band appear separated from the rest of the scene, with the use of vintage props and items giving the cover and old feel. This perhaps indicates towards the band's background, and as the band are positioned in the centre of the shot, this draws attention to them. In addition, the shot appears quite informal, showing the relationship the band member's have between each other.

Music Promo Ideas

Understanding Lyrical Links - Pink

Pink is an incredibly talented pop artist who sings with passion in every one of her songs. All of her songs seem to involve anger as the main emotion portrayed within the lyrics and the videos. She is still a very good singer and co-writes her own songs allowing her to use how she feels in her music.

All her music is also quite upbeat and has a good tempo to it, meaning that her angry lyrics seem more passionate as she is almost telling her audience off by having such a fast pace to her music.

She has been around since 2000 and still people want to listen to her music and watch her videos. This is because she is passionate about her music and she sings about things that much of her audience can relate to. Also the music is described by her as 'pop rock' meaning that she seems to want to upset the genre a bit and not be like a normal pop artist, she wants to be unique and different.

Our expectations for a pop video is that it will be fairly high-budget and have clean-cut ,neat and expensive costumes as well as a story that generally involves the main artist playing a part in the story and the narrative of the video. The music videos for this genre tend to be quite 'feel good' and colourful to make the audience happy and because the pop genre is generally just based around solo artists, there is not very often much performance-based videos, they're usually completely based around a storyline told by the lyrics.

Pink has combined the 'feel good' feeling of the pop genre with the angry and fast-paced conventions of a rock video to effectively create a 'new style'.

Analysis of props compared with the lyrics:

This screenshot (left) shows Pink sitting on the sidelines at a volleyball game where she is part of the team. She is wearing a shirt that says the name of the team she is supposed to be playing for. At this point the lyrics say that she doesn't support the team, illustrating the lyrics and the costume in this is helpful to show to the audience that she is part of a team but her body language, attititude and the lyrics tell the audience that she doesn't want to be part of the team.







This screenshot (right) highlights what is being said in the lyrics 'My socks are never clean' and this use of props is clever as it illustrates the lyrics as well as shows her as being a bit strange and self-conscious about who she is, perfectly catching the emotions of the teenage girl audience that she is aiming this video at.







The lyrics at this point in the video say 'Every day I fight a war against the mirror', and the use of the mirror in this short scene (left) shows that she doesn't like the way she is and is portraying how Pink doesn't like looking in the mirror because of her self-consciousness and lack of belief in who she is and what she looks like.




 


This image (right) shows an intertextual link to a man called LA Reid, which links in with the lyrics as at this point, the words talk about how LA told Pink that she wouldn't make it in the music industry unless she changes everything about herself. He is a music producer so therefore she is basically linking this to the idea that people shouldn't let themselves be told what they can and cannot do in life by people, just because they have more authority.




This screenshot (left) doesn't particularly have a certain lyric that matches it, but it refers to the idea of self-harming which happens amongst the typical audience members that she is aiming this particular video. During this short scene she stabs the knife into a door to link to the idea that there is no need to self-harm because it's better to just get rid of the knife and move on with your life. This points out to the teenage girls, who this video is clearly aimed at, that they do not have to self-harm to one day be big or famous like Pink is.

Audience Research - Audience Profile

The typical audience member for the indie-rock genre that we are interested in is generally young adult or in their teen years. They dress in a stylish way, wearing clothes that are posh but aren't too bright and are generally simple and usually involves things like Vans shoes, mini-scarfs, headscarfs and leggings. Indie-rock audiences tend to dress well but not like they take themselves too seriously, meaning that they look casual but good.

The demographics of the indie-rock genre generally show the audience for the music to be fairly young, as well as being more a female thing as many indie-rock bands are male-centered, meaning that the girls take more of an interest than boys do generally, even though the music is enjoyed by males too.

Audiences for this genre tend to be quite brand loyal in everyting they do, often visiting shops or listening to bands that they know and like before visiting alternative options. This means that audiences for the genre only ever get larger as people tend to be quite loyal to the bands that they enjoy listening to.

When looking at the preferred media types for people who make up the audience of the indie-rock genre, it's hard to say whether they prefer television or music as these people tend to do both equally as much, watching TV when there is something they want to watch yet listening to music whenever they go out or are doing work or something that doesn't involve needing to hear, therefore allowing them to listen to music. As with most teenagers and young adults, this is the case so a media preference is hard to gain from the young audiences that support this genre of music.

 These people tend to be more into buying music and other electronics as well as clothes. In general, the products they buy tend to be more for a social factor than for economic reasons or just for home. Due to the ever-changing indie fashion, there is often a lot of clothes bought by the audience members, as well as electronics for spare time and to 'keep up with society' by having all the latest technology.

Audience Research - Methodology

To undertake audience research into what our audience expected from an indie-rock music video, we created a questionnaire, and issued it to 10 people. A copy of the questionnaire can be seen below:

I designed our questionnaire so that it gave the audience the opportunity to provide quantitative answers to our questions, as these can be analysed and evaluated more easily, using graphs, charts and percentage data. This enables us to get a better feel of our audience's views on music videos for this genre, enabling us to use our audience research more effectively.

When designing question three, which asks the audience about their expectations from an indie-rock music video, I took many of the common themes, ideas and conventions that are represented in music videos from the genre that I have noticed when doing research, and added these to the list of possible options for the audience to select. I also added some conventions of music videos from other genres, as this would allow us to perhaps identify any unusual opinions or misinterpretations of the genre. In addition, I allowed people the opportunity to say whether they expect to see intertextuality in music videos, as this would enable us to see whether this is a popular feature, and whether we should look to include this in our video.

Question four was designed to assess where people usually associate indie-rock videos with being set. By producing a list of popular settings for the genre, this question will allow us to assess which location is most popular, and this may influence our decision as to where we set our video, and also what type of video we choose to produce.

Question five enables us to see whether people prefer videos with a heavy focus on performance, or whether they like videos that include more of a narrative. Again, this information will be able to influence our decision on what content to include in our music video, and the audience's opinion is something that we will look at incorporating into our video.

Question six assesses the services people use to digest music videos. This will enable us to assess modern viewing trends, as we anticipate that a large number of people will watch music videos online, using services such as YouTube. In addition, the results will give us a suggestion of where people are when they watch music videos, those who enjoy videos on the television are likely to be watching at home, whilst those who watch videos on the internet are more likely to enjoy the videos whilst sitting at a desk, or whilst away from a fixed location.

Question seven is a continuation of question six, assessing which devices people choose to watch indie-rock videos on. As well as enabling us to find out which device is most popular in each category, which could have an impact on the ratio and resolution used to produce our video, we can find out which style of device is most popular for viewing music videos. In addition, we can further judge where people are likely to be located when viewing music videos, as those who use smartphones or tablets are often likely to be on the move when viewing music videos, whereas those who use a computer, be it in desktop or laptop form, are more likely to be positioned at a fixed location, such as a home or office desk.

Question 8 asks the audience whether they prefer videos that use amplification, illustration or disjuncture. It is important to gauge public opinion of this before starting the project, as it will allow us to formulate our plans for the video, having taken on board the thoughts of our sample audience.

Finally, question 9 assists us in creating an audience profile, by finding out what other forms of goods people who watch indie-rock music videos choose to buy. This would help us to target our video and associated material more effectively, whilst also aiding us in deciding whether traditional media, such as DVD's or discs, is a better way of providing our media instead of modern media methods, which may include online services and social networks.

Audience Research - Questionnaire Results

In order to conduct effective audience research, we carried out a questionnaire, which was given to a variety of people, in order to measure a variety of aspects to do with our project. The results from the questionnaire, along with an analysis of each question, can be seen below.

In the first question, we asked people to tell us their age, by selecting a category from a pre-defined list. The results show that 60% of the people surveyed were between 11-20, with 90% of the overall sample being under 30 years of age. Also, our results showed that none of the people questionned were over 50 years of age. This suggests to us that we should be targeting our video at people who are in this age category, by incorporating some of the themes and ideas that they suggested in further questions. 

Our results showed, perhaps surprisingly, that 70% of the people who watch indie-rock videos are female, with just 30% being male. This information suggests that this genre is perhaps moe appealing to females than was first expected, and again suggests to us that we need to be targeting our video at females more. If we were considering using targeted advertising on social media channels & websites, then we could perhaps consider targeting advertising at females.

Question three showed us what images, themes & conventions people expect from an indie-rock video. Although there was a fairly even mix between all options, the three conventions that came out on top were; shots of the band/artist, extra actors & intertextual links to other media prodctions/themes. Shots of the instruments, audience, nudity/suggestive content, fast editing and artificial lighting were all options that were very popular, and so we will look to incorporate some of these themes into our work where possible. 

Our research shows that 22% of our audience expect an indie-rock music video to be set outside. This could perhaps be because of the 'rough-and-ready' stereotypical image, which people may associate with outside urban environments. Again, this is something that we could perhaps look to incorporate into our music video. 

Our survey said that 56% of people prefer music promos with a narrative, whilst 44% of people like videos with performance elements included. Due to our relatively small sample size, these two figures are broadly similar, so we should be looking to include a mixture of both performance & narrative within our video. 

Question six shows that the majority of people watch music videos on YouTube, as was initially thought. This shows that YouTube is the best place for us to upload our music video, as this is the most popular platform for people to view videos of this genre on, allowing maximum reach for our product and the band. 

As a continuation from the last question, the results from question 7 show that Google tablets, along with laptops and desktops are the most popular platform for viewing music videos of this genre. With computers making up 40% of the result, smartphones making up 32% of the result and tablets the remaining 28%, this shows that the majority of people use traditional computing platforms to view music videos on. This also indicates where people choose to watch music videos of this genre - as most people watch on a computer, then they are either located at a fixed location, such as at a desk, rather than being mobile. This information helps us to decide which resolution and ratio we should use to publish our video, and also which devices we should target internet advertising. 

This question shows that most people prefer videos that use illustration. This could be because people who watch these sorts of videos generally find the story and message behind the video interesting, and like this to be highlighted within the video. This is something that we should consider incorporating into our video. 

Question 9 allowed us to get a feel for which other types of product people who lilke this genre choose to buy. As 40% chose to purchase clothing with their £10, this indicates that those who like this genre are conscious of fashion, and enjoy clothes shopping. 20% of people chose to purchase electronic goods, and so this indicates that these people like gadgets and technology, again suggesting that they like to keep up to date with the latest trends. This could be because most people who like this genre are under 30, as was demonstrated in question 1.

Ed Sheeran Lyrical Analysis

You Need Me, I Don't Need You - Ed Sheeran

Lyrics Analysis:

 

 

The video uses sign language to show the lyrcis that are being sung by Ed Sheeran. The lyrics are very personal to Ed Sheeran, telling the audience that people need his music but he doesn't need anybody else to interfere and write his music for him as he can do it himself.