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

Although there are numerous artists and music videos that I feel will inspire me for my music video, The Hoosiers' 'Goodbye Mr A' is one I felt personally will be most influential. This is because when I first started having my own music taste, this was a song I absolutely loved and couldn't listen to enough.

The music video follows a number of conventions:

• Lip syncing
• Mainly performance
• Artists appear in the video
• Editing matches pace of the music
• Lyrics matched to video
• Costumes change for different scenes

Inter-textual references are used to connote the upbeat action/superhero genre, fitting well with the fast-paced music.

Batman-style 'H' logo spotlight in sky

• Retro Batman-style comic artwork alongside onomatopoeic words such as "biff" and "wham" work well to convey the superhero theme.
• Pole into bat-cave style lair
• Test area
• Mr A merchandise is shown in shot alongside the lyrics 'expect me to buy it', this collaboration between music and visual works to further depict the main characters' personality in the music video as patronising towards Mr A.

• Mr A is held above smoking green vat, sign saying 'acid' - almost cartoon-like style where things are made very simple and easy to understand.

• Newspapers - Mr A was hero - Hoosiers are heroes acting like villains
• Hoosiers' costumes - tights underneath their pants - mask (classic superhero film costume)
• 1:37 - playing FIFA 08

• Simplistic rocket plan, blueprints => "Put Mr A on rocket. Light fuse of rocket. Take over the WORLD!" Very tongue-in-cheek.

• Hoosiers training up, weightlifting, like the 'journey' undertaken in many films, for example Skyfall.

• "Hoosier gonna call?", reference to Ghostbusters - red telephone draws attention to this.

• Split screen at 2:21
• Child in awe of Hoosiers, similar idea to Superman films, i.e. is it a bird is it a plane.

• Saving kittens stopping robbers, The Hoosiers carry out stereotypical heroic acts.

• Key to the city given to Hoosiers, a conventional part of many hero films.

• TIME magazine - "The greatest superheroes of our time." - A play on TIME's other titles such as "The 100 Most Influential People".

• Mr A's eyes opening at end acts as a cliffhanger to the story. 

The amount of inter-textual references in this video work really well together to create the fun, recognisable style of video. I believe for my music video I will probably include many inter-textual references in a similar way.

R+P Post 8: Possible tracks for the single

Whilst holding our group meetings, we all had our own ideas for possible tracks and discussed the following in depth.

David Guetta & Showtek - Sun Goes Down

Mario suggested this song as it has very particular buildups and breakdowns that our ideas could revolve around. Furthermore this track doesn't have a proper music video (just a Lyric video).

Felix Jaehn - Ain't Nobody (Loves Me Better)

I thought this song would be a very good possible track for the single because it has very emotive lyrics that would work well with a narrative story. However we decided not to use this song due to the fact it already has a music video, and coming up with original ideas for the narrative may be compromised.
.

R+P Post 7: Record labels of interest

Since 2012 there have been 3 major record labels, (known as the 'big three'), who control around 70% of the world music market and 80% of the American music market.

Music & Copyright's annual surveys show that independent record labels dominate the sector.

Independent labels will be in our greatest interest as most EDM is released independently, with many artists self-publishing until they fall under the eyes of an independent label.



Spinnin' Records

• Dutch independent record label
• EDM, but focus on progressive house, electro house and big room house
• Founded 1999
• 40 sub-labels
• Have signed in the past names such as Avicii, Borgore, Darude, Martin Garrix, Nicky Romero.

Monstercat logo

Monstercat

• Canadian EDM record label
• Founded 1st July 2011
• Signs artists for single releases only, letting artists retain copyright control and release on other labels
• Every 30 tracks, they release an album
• Albums are available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Spotify, Xbox Music, Google Play Music, Apple Music, Beatport, and others.
• They promote snippets of tracks on their Facebook and Instagram pages.
• Had signed in the past Krewella

R+P Post 6: Current trends in popular music

Since the late 1990's, pop music has been the UK's biggest album seller, overtaking Rock. This is also evident through looking at the UK top music charts.

However, we are most interested in EDM, and the UK Top 40 show's this to be very popular, with 4 of the top ten being listed as sub-genres of EDM, and 2nd place going to an EDM track.

2nd, 5th, and 6th place go to EDM sub-genres. 7th is also arguably EDM
as although it is listed as Pop, it sounds like all the production is electronic
synths.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), found in recent surveys that although Rock albums sell more than any other genre, it is still Pop that sells the most singles.

The term EDM (electronic dance music) was pushed to audiences in 2010 by the U.S. music industry in order to try to re-brand rave culture and increase popularity. It is a kind of 'umbrella term', which can be used to reference many different sub-genres.
The 'House' genre, seen as a sub genre of EDM has been around since the mid 1980's, arguably the first house record is Jesse Saunders' "On and On".

In the mid 1990's electronic dance music (previously associated with European rave culture) was marketed in America under the term "electronica", in an attempt to increase popularity.

By the mid 2000's, popularity of dance music, particularly in North America, had greatly increased. The "tipping point" of EDM, according to Spin Magazine, was when Daft Punk performed at Coachella in 2006.

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

I really want to create a video that uses simple yet effective visual effects to take the viewer to a different world.

This is a great example of what I have in mind as it takes normal everyday shots and locations and 'enhances' them with retro and futuristic graphics.



Another similar technique that the following Watsky video demonstrates is called 'data moshing', and it is basically corrupting a video on purpose to create a desired glitchy effect. I find this very interesting considering the fact that nowadays everyone is usually competing to have the best quality video, and this turns the tables.

R+P Post 4: Audience groups of interest

The audience groups I am most interested in are festival goers and fans of EDM. The majority of festival goers are young people, however fans of EDM cover a far greater age range.

I believe the popularity of EDM has risen in direct correlation with the more often occurrence of it being played at festivals, and also in conjunction with the electronic elements seeping into pop music tracks.

This graph shows both concert and festival attendance in 2012 and 2014, in thousands of people.

As you can see from the graph, over the two year gap festival attendance in the UK rose by over 700,000. Although concert attendance rose by well over 4 million, this still shows that the audience for festivals is growing, so is a good audience to try to appeal to.

R+P Post 3: Music genres that interest me

I enjoy almost all genres of music, however there are some in particular that I listen to more than the rest. I'd say my favourite genres are EDM, Pop, and Classical.

EDM is a very diverse genre, which includes practically all electronic music, however the majority is produced for festivals. My first exposure to the genre was on-line, through the YouTube channel of the Monstercat record label. One of the first tracks I heard, (and one I remember best), was Pegboard Nerds - Disconnected

My interest in pop music is relevant to this due to the face that pop music now has many elements of electronic music in it. One of my favourite pop tracks at the moment is a remake of an old song, and this particularly sums up my interest in pop as it is a clean, electronic pop song:

Felix Jaehn - Ain't Nobody (Loves Me Better) ft. Jasmine Thompson

I grew up with classical music on at home a lot, this due to the fact my parents listened often to Classic FM. Although I don't follow any current classical artists nor do I frequently listen to the genre, I still find it one of the genres I most enjoy when I do happen to listen to it.
Having said that, I can still say my favourite classical composer at the moment is Ludovico Einaudi, whose music seems to have a flow to it that you don't find in traditional classical music.