Similar artists and their image

When listening to our artist I have composed a list of similar artists. The artist I have found have several features in common with our artist e.g. their sound, style and their image as a performer.

Kate Nash: merry happy (although this has no video, the song can relate to our song)    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zdi2IF5ezw 

The song merry happy uses the piano as its main instrument as the main beat which can be heard through out, as does our song . It keeps the same melody throughout the verses and chorus from the piano, our song does the same by using the same beat and tempo throughout the song.

Kate Nash and Jose Vanders have similar style choices. When looking on the Internet I found pictures which showed they both has similar style Her choice of clothing gives off them impression that they are laid back, original and not going for sex appeal. 

 Also I found when googling for images of this artist a majority of them were of her performing with either a keyboard or guitar, this shows that Kate Nash is trying to create an image which shows her skills not only as a singer but also as a talented musician.

 (Cropped from google)



Ellie Goulding: Guns and horses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDwbHeR0UYc&ob=av3n

 

Ellie Goundling has a very instrumental indie sound. And unique tone to her voice. This i have found  is very similar to our artist.  Her style can also be seen as similar as our artists as she also has a casual laid back style, wt back combed hair andlike KateNash not going for sex appeal.

We will try to incorporate influences from both of these artists’ styles as they are both in the same genre and have the same image which we want to create for our artist.
   

Where is our artist most likely to be heard?

To get an idea of where our artist is most likely to be listened to, i looked to see where similar artists are listened to. I used the 'Itunes' chart and the 'Radio 1' chart to establish whether they are more regularly listened to on the radio or if more of their audience actually purchase and download their music.



Number of  Single CD copies sold :- 60 000

“Foundations” reached No. 2 on the British charts despite the fact that it initially received almost no commercial radio airplay, although BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 did add the single to their playlists during the week of its release. ( Taken from  http://uk.askmen.com/celebs/women/singer_300/394_kate_nash.html )

Because of the indie fashion of this artist's many of the audience probably come from her 'MySpace' and 'Twitter' pages. Artists like this get less attention form the media like Radio coverage.

Genre Research - Devlin.

Devlin is a Grime MC/Rapper from Dagenham.



Devlin strongly portrays his image through his lyrics, because of the nature of them and he can easily express his feelings and opinions. However, many of his lyrics relate to certain situations in for example, everyday life and this can be very effectively shown in video. Devlin himself in represented in this video as a confident, intimidating type. He uses facial expression and body language to put this accross. His costume in the video is very fashionable and he wears expensive labels. This gives the audience something to relate to. Much about the genre of grime is very 'show off' like and this is obvious in his lyrics and videos. The reason for the setting of the video is much to do with the lyrics - the song portrays a message and for this to be effective the audience has to visualise what is being said in the song.


This is an image of an album cover of Devlin's. There is a bold title which will attract the audience's eye and it's plainness makes this album stand out form the rest in shops. Also the picture suggests hard work, passion and emotion.

Similar artists.

Eighteen year old Jose Vanders is a singer/songwriter and pianist (also plays other instruments 'casually') from South East London.

She is quite similar to other mainstream artists in the industry and by studying these artists, we can create an image for the artist of our song and video.


Kate Nash - Kate Nash carries a perfect role model image that we would like to push for our artist. She appears to have a good awareness of fashion and her clothes and appearance play a big part in her image. She wears her hair in a relaxed, wavy way - nothing to fancy and flash. Therfore, her audience would be able to relate to her. She is signed to a 'minor' record label which could put her into the very diverse indie category - which is the same for our artist.

Kate Nash's image suggests she is passionate about her music and is not just after stardom and the celebrity status which comes with success. This is what we want our artist to be like. She plays her own instruments in her music which again is something we want to push with our artist's image.

Brain storm

Brain Storm on Prezi

Theorist Research and what we are incorperating

Goodwin's idea is that a video has three strands:

1. Visuals
2. Lyrics
3. Music

Messages are portrayed through the strands, they can illustrate, amplify or contradict each other. We feel that our video should illustrate the lyrics of our song and amplify our music. We aim to do this by filming the exact events that our mentioned in the lyrics and using a random and colourful video to relate to the mood of the song. 

Dyer's theory is that the star is just an image that has been invented in order to make money and fit into the market - the real person is separate from the image being portrayed. However, we have decided to avoid this theory in our piece because we want to create an artist that our audience would be able to connect with on a personal level.
Dyer also believes that stars can represent a shared culture and convey their beliefs to enhance their star quality. We have chosen to incorporate this part of the theory but on a lower and more subtle level as we do feel that there is meaning behind the lyrics. For example, "the boy has lost his marbles, found them down the drain, the sticks to thin to get them so he will have to start again".

Voyeurism is a common theme in music videos and numerous theorists take this into account. Voyeurism is the idea of watching someone without them knowing, often used in a sense that the audience is watching the artist so there seeing them as they are. This can be reversed so the artist is watching other people and there songs is the commenting on what there seeing. We have decided to facilitate a voyeuristic response from our audience through the use both ideas. The reason that we are is so that the audience can connect with the artist and we want her to see relatable and she appears to be a 'normal' person. We are having the artist watch other people as a way for us to illustrate the lyrics.

Exhibitionism is argued by Laura Mulvey's as a way to show that men are incharge. Provocative videos show women are used as objects rather than a person in control. However, other women have argued that women use exhibition as a way of controlling their male audience. Siegmund Freud's idea is that sexual desire is the biggest motivation to humans.
Although we will be exhibiting our artist in the sense that we will be creating a wardrobe for her to portray her as bright, stand out and individual, we will not be exhibiting her in sexual way.

Music Video Analysis

50 Cent - Window Shopper - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFLow5StvvU&ob=av2



The music video shows 50 cent in Monaco, there is no particular storyline, but we are aware that the purpose of the video is to show how good his life is, in terms of possessions, wealth, women and social life. The title of the song is 'window shopper' and the lyrics tells us that 'window shopper' is a reference to all these people who can only want cars, jewellery and women but never have them unlike 50 cent. The genre of this video would be RnB and Hip Hop. And the audience would be early teens to mid 30's. The conventions of the video are typical of RnB/Hip Hop as it shows attractive women, flashy cars, bling and parties. The video begins with 50 cent in a shop trying to buy shoes off a french man, we can tell by this that shoes are his signature thing and they feature throughout the video with some being personalised to him. It then goes into wide shots of what seems to be his expensive car driving through Monaco, the camera tracks across the town to the beaches so we can see the wealth of the area that he is in.
 The video links to his film 'Get rich or die tryin' as it is in the soundtrack. There is constantly a reference to money and this is to do with the film 'Get rich or die tryin', this could have negative connotations as it could be suggesting that in order for people to have that amount of money they would need to turn to crime which is referred to in the song 'So I don't cruise to nobody's hood without my gun'. However the general purpose of showing his wealth is to create an idolistic image of himself in order to say, 'you want to be me'. Throughout the video we see him with women and his 'gang' which shows his popularity, and he is always wearing designer jeans, sunglasses and expensive trainers which again reinforces his wealthy image. With everything he buys a label comes up with the items price which again shows how much money he has to spend, and he links power with money when he buys a girl some jewellery and she kisses him, showing that the money gained her affections.









The video can link to Laura Mulvey's Theory who believes women are often used for display purposes only and males have a powerful controlling gaze at the females on display. Overall, I feel the purpose of the video is to create 50 cent as an idol to many fans and the video is for both females and males, as females see his sex appeal and wealth and males admire the amount he has and idol his control over having women and expensive things. The artists image in this video is completely different from our artist's but if we were going to take anything from this video that we could use in ours, it would possibly be the camera angles. Location is a big feature in the video as it is in ours and they use wide shots and panning in order to show this, we could also do this to show off our location.