ARTIST IDENTITY

As our artist won't actually be appearing in our music video, I wanted to explore other artists who did not make themselves the focus of their videos.


"Macerena" By Los del Río does promote the two men, however the main focus of the video is on the girls.


This video, "Give It Up" by Twista and Pharrell, centres mainly around the girls in the video, as oppose to the artists.


"Galvanize" by The Chemical Brothers - no illustration of the band at all.


Similarly, "Hey Girl, Hey Boy" by the Chemical Brothers doesn't show them either.


Gorillaz, "Clint Eastwood"
Gorillaz are a band who rarely reveal their real identities, instead posing behind these cartoon characters.

TRACK SELECTION

POSSIBILITIES:
GoldieLocks - Geek Chic
GoldieLocks - Dolla Dolla
The Egg - Walking Away (Tocadisco’s Acid Walk Mix)
Needy Girl - Chromeo
Boy Meets Girl - Junior Senior
Shake Your Groove Thing - Peaches & Herb
Debra - Beck
King Without A Crown - Matisyahu
Little Green Bag - George Baker
No Hay Igual - Nelly Furtado
Jesus Christ - Woody Guthrie
Le Belle et le Bad Boy
Coconuts - Junior Senior
Hiding on the Staircase - New Young Pony Club
Got to Get into You - New Young Pony Club
Relax, Take It Easy - Mika
You Can You It - Ice Cube & Mack 10/Ms toi
I Just Died in Your Arms - Cutting Crew
Follow Me - Jamie Lyn Spears
Sangria Wine - Jerry Jeff Walker
Finding Out True Love is Blind - Louis XIV
Disco Infiltrator - LCD Soundsystem
Serge Gainsbourg - Belle & Sebastian
Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up
Gettin' By - Jerry Jeff Walker
King Kong - Jibbs
Dracula's Wedding - Outkast
Tribulations - LCD Soundsystem
The Sun Always Shines on TV - Aha
No Diggity - BlackStreet
New Friend Request - Gym Class Heros


My favourite is 'Needy Girl' by Chromeo, unfortunetly they already have a music video

However, I've definetly never seen it on mainstream television and I think we'd take on quite a different approach..
Also really like GoldieLocks.

http://www.myspace.com/goldielocksmusic
-- 2nd, 3rd & 4th songs

http://www.myspace.com/theeggmusic
-- 3rd song
(was in an advert I think)

http://www.myspace.com/chromeo
-- 3rd song

http://www.myspace.com/juniorsenior
-- 1st, 3rd & 4th songs
(LOVE THEM!!)

http://www.myspace.com/matisyahu
-- 3rd song

http://www.myspace.com/resvoirdogssong
-- 1st song
(not sure if this is really famous- couldn’t find a video on YouTube though)

http://www.myspace.com/newyoungponyclub
-- 1st, 2nd & 3rd songs

http://www.myspace.com/jibbs
-- 2nd & 3rd songs
(nice variation of really high and really low voices)

http://www.myspace.com/gymclassheroes
-- 3rd song
(maybe too famous ?)

ELECTRO MUSIC VIDEOS.

My group is particularly interested in the 'Electro' genre as a soundtrack for our music video.
I have therefore researched what kind of videos this genre normally produces to get into the right mindset.
CHROMEO: SO GANSTA

AIR - SEXY BOY

LADYTRON - SEVENTEEN

RÖYKSOPP - REMIND ME

DAFT PUNK - AROUND THE WORLD

I LOVE THIS VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bloodhoung Gang - 'Bad Touch'

I really like the simplicity of this video which has resulted in an extremely witty end result. It has been shot around town with very few props - the most flamboyant being the monkey costumes. What really stands out in this video is the personality of the lead singer, who really steals the show despite the addition of dwarves and beautiful woman. He isn't particularly attractive and the dance moves him and his band perform are far from sophisticated, however the video still is very amusing and enjoyable to watch. The cheeky lyrics matches the boyish behaviour of the band.

I will now go on to compare the successful factors of 'Bad Touch' by the Bloodhound Gang to other music videos, to inspire us to think about how we could use these factors in our own video.

Three more videos:

This first example is titled 'Donkey Rhubarb' by Aphex Twin, and although we did find this video slightly disturbing, we were inspired by the costumes and repetitive 'dance' moves, along with the theme of voyerism when everyone watches the characters. We liked the fact that there were a group of bears, but that there was an obvious main character, which creates a similar structure to that of 'Bad Touch' (see above). This music videos has few components which means that it would be simple to make, yet still proves to be extremely effective.

These second two videos inspired us through the use of a simplified dance routine, which is performed in unison and creates a humourous atmosphere.

This video is titled 'Deceptacon' by Le tigre. We thought that it was fantastic that the video consisted of only a few takes, and that the dance routine was very original and consisted mostly of the two characters jumping up and down in unison.


This final video is entitled 'Here It Goes Again' by the band OK GO. Similarly, this video has been constructed in one single shot, which could result in disaster but in this case has been very successful. As amateur music-video-makers, I don't think that our group would be able to pull of this one-shot success, however we can still appriciate this video for its originality and constructed dance routine.

EDIT: Another video, produced by ex-latymer studient Jake S Wynne (Love's Not A Competition (But I'm Winning) by the Kaiser Chiefs), illustrates the fact that a one-shot music video can be extremely successful and effective.

ALBUM COVERS - analysis

TYPICAL FEATURES OF AN ALBUM COVER:

Name of artist
Name of album
Picture of artist/band - photography or illustration
Eye-catching colour
Eye-catching graphic design
Tracklisting
Record Company Logo/Info
Copyright Info
Barcode

HOW COULD YOU CATEGORIZE THESE COVERS?

Genre: pop, rock, R'n'B, electro
Era/Decade: 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s
Mood: funky, artistic, mellow, emo
Format: CD, tape, vinyl, podcast, digital download

FUNCTIONS/PURPOSES OF AN ALBUM COVER:

Promote the artist - make them look attractive and interestingDraw in the audience - make them want to hear/see more from this artistLook original and creative - something that hasn't been done before

SELECTED ALBUM COVER:


IMAGES USED:
MS of a female sitting in a white cake, situation on the left hand of the coverPlain green background
Simple layout, simply showing the artist and her details
Artist is looking straight into the camera to intrigue the audience

TEXT:
Light green, yellow and pale blue text colour in conjunction with the rest of the cover
Funky '60's style' font which looks very artistic
Positioned on the right of the image of the girl

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEXT AND IMAGES:

‘Sexy’ girl = ‘sexy’ font – curly, flowing (like her hair) and volumptuous
She is holding a rose which matches the colour of the text and background

MYSPACE-MUSIC.

MySpace Music is a site accessed by millions of users every single day, and a perfect opportunity to promote an unsigned artist or band. The social networking site has an application which allows you to 'add' a song on to your profile, meaning that users are constantly browsing the site in search for that edgy and original song to complte their profile. MySpace Music has its own homepage:


I have circled the important factors of the home page in pink. These showcase why it is such a great marketing tool for new and already popular musicians, through features such as 'artist of the week', 'behind the scenes' and 'featured download'. Popularity of the songs are published on the website, demonstrated through the number of 'hits' their profile has had, and how many times each individual song has been played.

Here are some famous success stories:
www.myspace.com/jackpenate

www.myspace.com/lilymusic

www.myspace.com/katenashmusic

www.myspace.com/arcticmonkeys

www.myspace.com/jamiet
www.myspace.com/theturncoat
www.myspace.com/themaccabees
www.myspace.com/cajundanceparty
www.myspace.com/adelelondon
www.myspace.com/canseidesersexy
www.myspace.com/newyoungponyclub

These independant artists and singers have been greatly affected in a positive way by MySpace Music, where they can easily showcase their music.
-- Shows how popular independant music is becoming - Lily Allen recently got to No.1 in the charts with her singles 'Smile' and 'LDN'.
We would definetly want to use MySpace music to market our band/artist.

LOOKING AT PAST STUDENT'S WORK.

This video is entitled 'Love Machine' by Soul.Funk
I really love the original choice of track by the group, as it is a genre (i.e. soul and funk) which is rarely re-visited in the mainstream music industry, yet the music video helps to modernize it.

I also think that it has been constructed extremely cleverly so that even though there is no miming at any point in the video, and the artist of the band is unclear, it still manages to work as a music video. This is something that I would like to keep in mind for our music video, as I think that this technique is easy to produce and often appears successful.

If I was to critisize the video, I would suggest that the filming and continuity is not very good, but thankfully they have managed to salvage the footage through fantastic editing and special effects.

Overall, the music video appears extremely original and humourous, two extremely important factors which I would like to emulate in our own music video.