Record Labels

1)      The current biggest companies within music are: Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, Warner Music and Universal Music.

2)       Universal is the largest company with 31.71% of the music produced in 2005.
Sony are the second largest company with 25.61% of the music produced in 2005.
Warner are the third largest company with 15% of the music produced in 2005.
EMI are the fourth largest company with 9.55% of the music produced in 2005.
These four companies account for 81.87% of the US market in 2005. This meant that these companies pretty much controlled all of the music that would be heard on the radio.

3)       The benefits for the big companies of having such a huge market share is that they could keep producing money making artists by modelling them and their songs on current trends. This would mean that they would retain their hold on the market and would easily control what music would be heard.

4)      The problems that these large companies are causing are that the huge number of artists that they cover are being groomed and turned into a money making device. The music is now specifically made to be main stream and thus to create money. This is killing a lot of hte creativity that music is supposed to contain, and so has a backlash on the audience as we only get to listen to the music that the record companies allow us.

5)      The future looks pretty unknown. Due to the website Spotify, which allows users to listen to whatever songs they want for free, as a giant database of thousands of songs is stored? This could become extremely popular as it saves audiences a huge amount of money on purchasing the music, but could potentially be as bad as piracy, in that the music industry and companies won’t be receiving as much income as if the audience bought the music.

Shot By Shot Music Video Analysis - Basshunter, All I Ever Wanted

I watched the Music video of All I Ever Wanted by Basshunter and analysed it shot by shot. I noticed that not many of the shots were of the star (Basshunter) and most of them contained a female. One major point is that the video ends with a shot of the main female characcter looking unhappy, which fits with the lyrics in the song "all I ever wanted was to see you smiling".


Google Documents

Music Video Analysis - Sum 41 - Walking Disaster

1. Introduction
I am analysing the music video for Walking Disaster by Sum 41. They are a punk rock band from Canada that were extremely popular in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Sum 41’s videos often provide a mix of humour by showing silly and abnormal happenings, mixed with shots of the band playing the song, creating a unique style to their videos.

2. What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals, and music and visuals?
The relationship between lyrics and visuals is quite clear throughout the video. There are shots of a single robot walking through a city, which fits in with the lyrics about a lonely person who seems to have no one left in the world who cares about him. As the song goes on, the robot gets into worse and worse situations until it is ultimately dumped in a bin, this happens at the same time as the lyrics talk about it being “too late to save me”, clearly making similarities between what we here and see. Every few shots of the robot are broken up by shots of the band playing the song itself, creating a clear relationship between lyrics/music and the visuals.

3. Are there close-ups of the artist and star image motifs?
There are a huge amount of close-ups on the artists in the video. Whenever we see Sum 41, often we are shown a medium long shot followed by quick cuts through different angled close ups. This clearly shows who song it is without the need for well known stars to take part in the video. Also, because a robot is used as the main character and the only people that we get a good look at are the band, the band is further promoted because it is the robot and them that will be remembered.

4. Is there reference to the notion of looking?
There aren’t many notions of looking in the video, although some interesting ideas do show up. The start of the video shows the robot walking past a fence, giving the idea that it is trapped and isolated from the rest of the world. This fits with what the song is about creating a special link that makes hte video more memorable. We also get interesting shots of the robot trying to cross a road and go up escalators. These are strange because the robot struggles at these tasks as he fails to be noticed, probably because of his height and the fact that it is an inanimate object. Again this links to the lyrics, with the idea that the person the song is about is an inanimate and unnoticed object.

5. Is the music video performance-based, narrative-based or concept-based?
The video is very much narrative based, as what we see fits into the story that is being told by the lyrics. However, it is more than that. The idea that a toy robot is able to walk around a city is odd and thus makes the story slightly performance based. People may see the video but may not enjoy the song, but could still potentially talk to friends about the little walking robot, thus getting Sum 41 more publicity.

6. Conclusion
This music video is a good example for one that link what we see with what hear, as well as including some sort of narrative to the shots. The large number of times that we see the band is also good, as it helps to get them recognised without being intrusive on the narrative of the toy robot. This is quite an enjoyable video as we feel for the robot as the lyrics seem to flesh out his life, making us feel emotionally attacked to him, thus making the video more entertaining.

Music Video Analysis - The Gorillaz - Stylo

The video has had embedding disabled and so only the link can be provided.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9vAOzYz-Qs

1. Introduction

I am analysing the video Stylo by The Gorillaz. The Gorillaz are an alternative rock band that is also loosely indie. The band itself hides behind 4 personas, who are shown by 4 cartoon characters. The videos by the Gorillaz often include a mixture of real life and cartoon elements, creating an often very visually pleasing look.

2. What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals, and music and visuals?

The relationship between the video and the lyrics is extremely limited in this example. The video shows the Gorillaz in a car racing through a desert highway with a police car chasing, before it blows up and Bruce Willis makes an appearance as a bandit trying to kill them. The lyrics seem to be just an abstract reality being described. This contrasts and lacks connection to what we see on screen. However, the only slight connections can be found in the tempo, as the video and song itself are both quite fast paced, with the slower parts of the video being shown with the slower parts of the song. Another connection is in the visuals. As the lyrics play, we see one of the characters singing the lyrics in the car, creating some link between song and video.

3. Are there close-ups of the artist and star image motifs?

There are multiple shots showing the Gorillaz in the video, as the whole thing shows them in a car. There are occasionally medium close ups of certain characters, like 2-D looking out of the window, and Murdoch driving. The record company clearly are trying to sell the song as they have called on the famous actor Bruce Willis to play a bandit in the video. He is often on screen with medium close ups and long shots showing him to be a big part of the video, despite not being the band.

The video is different from old Gorillaz videos as they used to be a lot cartoonier, whereas they are now still cartoony, but with attempts to look like real life, similar to the popular animated films like Up.

On the left is the old stlye, cartoon look while on the right is the new CGI effect.

4. Is there reference to the notion of looking?

There are a lot of references to looking in the video. Because the video is shot in and around a car, there are a lot of windows and mirrors that show other things happening. For example, there is a shot of a wing mirror from the outside of the car, showing us what is inside. This makes us out to be outsiders as though we are seeing a story happening. 3.34 minutes into the video, we see Bruce Willis shoot a mirror, but we see Murdoch’s surprised face in the reflection. This makes it seem as though again we are outsiders looking in at the action.

5. Are there intertextual references?

The video relates to Bruce Willis’s films, as he often appears as an armed character who has to chase people down. His films are often full of action (Diehard) and so this references him as a well known action film star. By having him in the video it makes it seem as though the video is a miniature action film.

6. Is the music video performance-based, narrative-based or concept-based?

The video is partly narrative based, as it is a basic chase sequence with a little element of storytelling, the police chases them because they are wanted people, but the police fails, and so a bandit or mercenary takes over. The majority of the video is concept based, as it doesn’t really fit into the lyrics of the song and so is a bit of practice to see what could be done for it.

7. Conclusion

This music video is much less connected to the lyrics, and more focused on trying to sell the song. This is clear by the lack of lyrical and video links, with there being very few points in which what is being sang relates to what is seen. The fact that a famous actor is also in the video increases the idea that hte band really just want to get the song noticed and be a success.

Conventions of Music Videos

I have been researching the conventions of music videos and their genres.

I found a really good website that lists lots of conventions for music videos, as well as some features that stand out in specific genres.
Conventions Site

A user on Wikianswers stated that some typical conventions are also: "The artist is shown performing, the lyrics of the song influence what is shown in the video and the pace of editing fits the pace of the music"


Overall, I found out that similar song's music videos often include the following conventions:
- Black and white
- Artist/Band is shown throughout
- Use of long shots
- Use of extreme close ups
- Dark locations
- Some special effects
- Lyrics influence what is shown
- Casual clothing is worn

How important are stars in music videos?

Personally, I don't believe that the stars are required in their music videos.

There are a lot of bands who I would not recognize if I met them face to face, and therefore by having them in their own video would not make a huge difference as there will be a large amount of viewers who won't realise that it is the artists that they are watching, not just listening to. A counter arguement for this is that by having the stars in the video, the viewers will be able to familiarise themselves with the artists more, and be able to recognise them if they are in other music videos.

However, some songs don't use the music stars in them and instead, use famous actors. For example, The Day I Died by Just Jack uses James Nesbitt as the character the song is about, while The Prodigy's Invaders Must Die uses Noel Clarke as the character in the video, as shown below.

However, if the artist is able to perform on camera, then by having themselves in their own music videos could turn out really well, as is the case with Jamiroquai and most Girl/Boy groups. This then helps them create an image as well as show the story in hte song as how they see it.

Overall though, I still don't think that it is a neccesatiy that the artists or stars perform in music videos, as often good videos are made up of both the stars or completely unknown actors. I think that if the stars are used in their own videos entirely depends on how the artists feel and look on camera, and what the song itself is about.

Preliminary Video Task

As a class, we were tasked with re-creating the music video for Busted's That's What I Go To School For. My part in the creation was acting, editing and partial filming.



As an actor, I had to perform as Charlie, one of the singers. This was good practice for learning how to lip sync, and as I am likely to take place in our final task video, this will have been useful for me.

For the editing, we took turns as a class to edit parts of the video together. I only edited a small amount of the chorus part, but it was enough to get an understanding on what editing is like and how to get things to fit together. It also allowed me to look at the different effects and transitions that are available for video editing software. However, I have decided that I will use a different editing program to Adobe Premier Pro.

Finally, for the small amount of camera work I did, I learnt how to set up shots and to get angles and lighting to work pretty well. I already knew quite a bit about using the cameras from my project last year, but the Preliminary Task helped me to see just how many shots would be needed for a music video.