R&B:

We looked at different genres of music, and the codes and conventions the videos contain.

Chris Brown-With You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4bi8N8cPUI

This video is a good example of an R&B video, Chris Brown is wearing a black hat, grey hoody, with the hood up and sleeves rolled up, dark jeans and black shoes with a white rim around them. He also has an ear piercing and wears a long chain around his neck and a ring. The choice of clothing for the video gives him an urban which is considered to be fashionable. Throughout the video he is seen dancing and does hip hop/street dance moves. This creates an R&B style video.

Usher-DJ Got Us Falling In Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxcBlU-yUoY

Again this is another R&B video, and Usher is wearing high top shoes, dark jeans, a belt, grey top and a leather jacket and shades. Which is an urban look and this makes him look stylish, expensive and important. Throughout the video he is seen dancing in a similar manner to Chris Brown in “With You” and through our research we have found this is a feature in most R&B videos.

Damon Elsey

Basic Genre Analysis

Retro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8zx68HENIA

The Beatles – Can’t Buy Me Love

The music of The Beatles is timeless but, songs like ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ were recorded at a time when media was relatively new. So this official video of Can’t Buy Me Love has almost no narrative to it. This presented us with an opportunity to give a classic song a video with a modern twist.

Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0LV_bETEzs

The Wanted – All Time Low

In this video of ‘All Time Low’ by The Wanted, there is almost no narrative at all. This is surprising because they are a new age pop band. This being said, the emphasis of this genre of music is the image, and this correlates with the emphasis of the video. It has strong focus of the look of the band, and the lights and location to promote certain images rather than and real story.

Indie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePg1tbia9Bg

Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco

The video of ‘Fake Tales of San Francisco’ by the Arctic Monkeys has more of a narrative element but is centred around the going on of the band back-stage. It is almost a documentary style of filming. This can be seen through the hand held, shaky and low quality filming. The narrative is also integrated with the shots of The Arctic Monkeys playing live. This style appeals to the audience of this genre as it creates a sense of naturalism of what it’s like on tour and can increase aspirations of fans of the band.

Pop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPBwXKgDTdE&feature=related

Taylor Swift - Mine

Taylor Swift’s ‘Mine’ is a prime example of pop music. It is about a couple meeting, getting older and spending their lives together. It displays the trials and tribulations of relationships and this is one of the general conventions of the pop music video. The narrative fits very well with the lyrics making Mine a very popular video because its audience can identify with its messages wells.

Punk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMX2lPum_pg

Sum 41 – Fat Lip

The video for ‘Fat Lip’ by Sum 41 has almost no narrative but its messages are very clear. It is focused around teenage rebellion and includes images of skateboarding, drinking and unclothed girls. This is stereotypical behaviour that is associated with teen punk rock stars and the trouble that comes with the image. Because of the fun lifestyle shown, it reaches out to its teen audience as they wish they could live like that.

We narrowed our choice down to two genres, Indie and Pop. Indie has a very large fan base and has a lot of room to manoeuvre when it comes to videos because most videos focus around what the band get up to and have limited narrative elements to them, and as our task involves a narrative in it, this is very important. Also, normally, lyrics to indie songs are meaningful and ambiguous so this allows a lot of room to negotiate on a storyline.

We also thought about Pop because it is a trusted and reliable genre of music for making videos. Pop music normally lends itself very nicely to a simple storyline because of the type of lyrics and messages it can promote that identify with its large potential audience.

Daniel Hilton