R+P Post 10: Album covers that have inspired and influenced my ideas

During our research, our group looked at a variety of album covers to find ones that influenced our ideas for our own album cover.

Here are some of our most influential:

FRONT

BACK

The cover for the debut studio album Lungs by the British indie rock band Florence and the Machine denotes the lead artist in front of a curtained backdrop and colourful flowers. The front of the album cover keeps with the conventions by displaying the lead artist, and by having the name of the band and the album. For a debut album, we believed this was important as there is not yet an audience to associate the name with the music, so showing the artist on the album is important to begin establishing a connection for the audience between their image and their music. We agreed that for our upcoming artist, we would follow these conventions for similar reasons.

We also liked the use of a uni-coloured green backdrop and pale coloured flowers to establish a colour palate with this artist; we thought this simplistic design successfully conveyed the heartwarming mood of the album, and we discussed ways in which we would use our pastel colour palate in our album cover to convey our band identity.

The back of the cover contains conventions of album covers such as a track list, a barcode, copyright information and logos for record labels. We thought this was important to add to the back of our own album.

FRONT

BACK

The album cover for London Calling by English punk band The Clash has a grayscale photograph of the guitarist swinging his guitar to the ground in a performance to smash it. This is an iconic image and perfectly conveys the rebellious message of the band and their music. Although our group are not thinking of a rebellious, 'angry' tone for our own band, we really liked the simplicity of having a photo of someone performing be the album cover and what their look when seen live says about their image. We also liked the live performance aesthetic because it is a convention for independent artists to portray themselves performing live on their album covers, as it demonstrates that they are all about 'the music'. This is a convention we would like to portray for our band, and this cover influenced us to consider whether using an image of our artist performing would be a successful way to convey this.

R+P Post 9: Music Videos that have inspired and influenced my ideas

During our research, two music videos stuck out as having majorly influenced our ideas for our own music video:

BEST COAST - WHEN I'M WITH YOU (2010)

Our group really enjoyed the quirky on-screen relationship between the female singer in this music video and the iconic Ronald McDonald. The intertextuality of the McDonald's mascot serves to show how important people in your life will always stick with you, and build a notoriety as being dependable and a provider of joy (much like McDonalds). As our top choice for our music video ('Sweet Dream') is about remembering sharing good times with important people. we thought that we could highlight the theme of remembering by including iconic nostalgic characters in our music video - e.g. characters from famous older movies, books and games - sharing good memories with our lead female singer. This marries memories of 'the golden age' of older media with memories of friends and lovers, creating a very personal tone for our music video, which this music video creates so successfully.

SIA - YOU'VE CHANGED (2010)

We really enjoyed the use of the handmade cardboard props and set, as we thought it gave the track a playful aesthetic. We especially liked the creative way the cheap props were used to an amusing effect, for instance the way the cardboard lyrics travelled karaoke style along the bottom of the screen, influencing us to think about ways in which we could be similarly creative with our props. It also helped convey the artist's image, that being that she doesn't need high-budgets and expensive things to have fun; this can still be seen in her latest tracks, e.g. Cheap Thrills (2016). We decided that this 'cheap thrills' image was one we would like to portray with our artist, and we began to think of other ways we could portray this in our music video.

R+P Post 8: Possible tracks for the single

One of our group's first activities was to compile a list of possible tracks for our single. We did this by creating a list of songs we believe would be good for the music video, keeping in mind that they would have to be three minutes or under to fit the requirements of the brief.

We then shared and listened to our choices in a meeting and created a long list for songs we believed could work:

Our longlist

From that, we had a few favourites:

MGMT - 'TIME TO PRETEND'

Pros:

• lyrics that resonate with a specific, young adult audience.

• clear 'message' about the joys and problems of youth - a clear focus as to what signifiers in our music video will successfully convey this message.

• potential narrative - perhaps the story of a popular boy in a high school setting, treated like royalty, messes around etc.

Cons:

• already has a very identifiable track and music video - risk of plagiarising the original video.

• over three minutes long

ARCADE FIRE - 'THE SUBURBS'

Pros:

• lyrics resonate with specific, young adult audience
• loose narrative that could translate on to a music video well; e.g."'I learned how to drive"

Cons:

• over three minutes long

BLACK CAT ZOOT - 'SWEET DREAM'

Pros:

• possibilities to create intertextual references in our music video; for example, the line 'dancing in the rain' created ideas to reference the film 'Singing in the Rain'.
  
  
• out of the songs on the long list, this track stimulated our group with the most ideas and discussion, about set-ups, potential narratives and ways we could fit in some of aesthetics we wanted to replicate from other music videos; for example we liked the concept of a character 'hopping' from world to world (possibly referencing pop culture), with the sets appearing handmade (i.e cardboard).
  
  
• 'synth' keyboard and fun lyrics stands it out as having an indie pop sound, a genre our group have a good understanding of, meaning we felt that we could successfully replicate the conventions. 
  
  

Cons:

• ambiguous message to the track, therefore difficult for a semiotic approach and also to create a narrative around

R+P Post 7: Record labels of interest

Our group have researched a variety of record companies that produce music for independent artists. We wanted to find a record label that produced songs similar to the ones we had been researching, that being quirky, fun tracks. We looked at record companies such as Father Daughter Records, 4AD, and Jagjaguwar, all of which produce music for fans of independent music.

One record label we found especially interesting was Harvester Records. 

Harvester Records is a British record label owned by Capitol Music Group, whose parent company is Universal Music Group - this exemplifies how most producers of independent music are subsidiaries of larger music companies that are horizontally and vertically integrated. Harvester Records has produced music from such British, indie bands as Glass Animals and Best Coast, some of the bands we have already found a lot of inspiration from. We have decided that the record label for our band will be a sister company to Harvester Records which will focus on distributing indie pop, rather than Harvester's signature genre of alt rock. We believe that a company similar to Harvester Records will suit our independent band's needs when trying to start making a name for themselves on the independent music scene.

R+P Post 6: Current trends in popular music

MUSIC 

We can find out the recent trends in music by looking at the current charts:

The Top 10 in the Charts as of October 31st

The trending genres range from pop, hip hop to electronic dance, with a lot of songs appearing on the list belonging to newly released albums; for example, Sam Smith's song 'Too Good at Goodbyes" is from his second studio album arriving in early November 2017.

The songs tend to have the typical features that make pop music what it is, including catchy, memorable choruses, often with repetitious choruses, (e.g. Havana by Camila Cabella) and the messages of the songs being universally applicable to make them appealing to a wide demographic (e.g. Perfect by Ed Sheeran). 

Therefore, to successfully make a name for our up-and-coming artist, we must, as part of our promotional package, release a song by them that is on par to the popular music of recent times. A good song to launch our artist is one that has memorable lyrics so our audience can know the words after just one or two listens. This retains the song in the audience's minds, which helps build a viewership and recognition around our artist.

EXHIBITION

The way we listen to music is changing. Whereas twenty years ago, people would discover new artists by flicking through albums in a shop, the most popular form of finding new artists through online interventions. This includes online platforms such as Spotify.

Spotify is a digital music service that allows listeners to cycle through a playlist of tracks, meaning that the listener can be recommended a number of songs based on artists and genres that they are interested in. Spotify has grown incredibly fast, doubling in users between March 2016 and July 2017. 

This  proliferation of online music has changed the way music is written, meaning that a lot of up and coming music artists have deliberately tailored their music to make it stick out in an online playlist to attract potential consumers. 

I read an article by the Guardian written by Eamonn Forde about how Spotify has changed the music industry. 

In it, Forde cites a correspondent from the music community called the AEI group, who state that a big part of what Spotify does is being a platform for new talent to share their music to a wide audience. 

Forde concludes his article by stating how it's now very hard to try and exhibit your independent music without the help of platforms like Spotify. 

For our independent artist, we will acknowledge the mass music audience's relationship with the Internet and online platforms like Spotify when we decide how to promote our artist. This will mainly influence our choices for our website, which should allow viewers to easily access the artist's music and where they can purchase it if they want to discover more. 

R+P Post 5: The kind of video I would like to make

After some research with my group, we found some music videos that we thought had similar ideas and aesthetics to the ones we would like to create.

SIA - 'YOU'VE CHANGED'

Our group really liked the use of cardboard props used to convey the story of this video. We thought that the handmade aesthetic of this video was an entertaining and visually interesting idea, especially as all the effects - of the selection on the main menu, and of the 'sing-along' - were done practically instead of in post production. We decided that we wanted to make homemade scenery and props for our own music video.

SONS OF PITCHES - 'MMMBOP (in 10 Genres)'

Our group enjoyed this video for it's comedic visual change in style to create references for the audience to decipher. We thought the idea of the audience being challenged throughout the video, in this case to discover what the '10 genres' being referenced are, very helpful, and it taught us that one way to keep an audience member interested throughout a three minute music video is to consistently change the set up and add intertextual references to keep them on their toes.

I FIGHT DRAGONS - SAVE WORLD GET GIRL

As well as having similar homemade scenery to the Sia video, our group liked this music video because of it's homage to old sci-fi movies, i.e Star Trek. We wanted to replicate what this music video did with it's intertextual references, entertaining the audience by tapping into their nostalgia and adding visual references, such as the old Star Trek uniforms and unconvincing laser battles with prop aliens. We thought this added a comedic edge to the music video, which was definitely the tone we were looking for. 

MEGHAN TRAINOR - 'ALL ABOUT THAT BASS'

Our group were keen to have a pastel colour palate for our music video, and this music video had a lot of the colours we were looking to replicate. The pale, pastel pink in the background was one that we want to have as the backdrop for any band shots we will have as it is simple yet pleasing to the eye, allowing the action of the performers to take centre stage.

R+P Post 4: Audience groups of interest

Our group were interested in a target audience of indie pop fans, skewed towards girls aged between 12-25. To investigate this audience further, we set up an online survey on SurveyMonkey which we sent to a wide range of people, so that we could gather information about what our target audience was like and also understand what our secondary audience might be.

The majority of our respondents were female and almost all of our respondents were teenage.

We asked what artists they enjoy and why. Many cited that they enjoyed bands such as Bastille and Vampire Weekend, and enjoyed solo artists such as Lorde. 

83% of respondents said they enjoyed the music because they were fans of the genre. The other most popular responses were:

• the music is different
• the music reminds them of the past
• the music sets a mood

We asked them what their favourite artists' image is. Many responded saying they enjoyed their artist's unique image. 

Many attributed this to their fashion sense, which were commonly referred to as 'quirky', 'casual', 'different' and 'colourful'. 

Bright, bold colours were often mentioned, including a mention of 'pastel' colours. 

From this information we gathered from our audience group, we established that people of this group enjoy listening to bands of the pop genre (e.g. Lorde, Arctic Monkeys, Bastille), all of whom have arisen from independent backgrounds. This is good news for our artist, who is a new artist starting out in the music industry and is being promoted by an independent record label. 

We also took on board the fact that our focus group enjoy artists who:

• produce 'different' music
• are quirky
• aren't concerned with being popular
• wear bright colours