SIMILAR ARTIST DEMOGRAPHICS

Artists similar to our chosen songs artists genre and sound are Ben Howard, Paolo Nutini, Ed Sheeran, Jack Johnson, Bobby Long, Damien Rice, Jake Bugg, John Mayer, Benjamin Francis Leftwich and Jason Mraz. To have a look at  the different audiences that listen to artists similar I've looked at YouTube videos and Facebook pages in order to see the ages and sex of online audiences.

Ben Howard

I decided to look at the statistics of his song Keep Your Head Up which has nearly 5 million views, with the most popular places of viewing are in the  UK, Netherlands and Jersey with females aged between 13 to 24 years old being at the top of the demographics and also males aged between 18 and 24. Most of his views are referred from other videos of his or from his facebook page.  I think that he appeals to these age ranges especially because of the content of his songs, about relationships, break ups and tough times.

To back up these demographics I looked at his facebook like page on which the most popular age group was 18-24 which links in well with the top demographics from his   youtube songs.

He has well over 260 thousand likes on facebook with lots of people talking about him and people are able to keep up to date with gigs, new releases and any personal updates. A lot of the younger generations use these social networks so it makes a lot of sense to use them to stay in touch with the audience.

I also had a quick look at his twitter followers with near 170 thousand he doesn't have as many followers as likes on facebook but I think that is because the majority of his audience are aged between 18-24 so they are more likely to use facebook to keep updated about his music. There is also a clear mixture of males and females within his followers which shows he appeals to a mixed audience.

Damien Rice

Damien Rice, a slightly more established indie acoustic artist who sings and writes his own songs. Some of his most known songs are Cannonball, Blower's Daughter and Delicate each with over 2 million views.  

Damien Rice's video for Delicate on YouTube which has over 2 million views. His music is popular within the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland with the top demographics showing that females aged between 13-24 and males aged between 25-34 view him and his songs the most. To confirm this research statistics, we looked at Damien's Facebook like page where he has received 938,269 likes with the most popular age group being 18-24 years old.

Benjamin Francis Leftwich

The next artist we decided to research into the demographics of is Benjamin Francis Leftwich who is an indie acoustic artist as well. However he is less established and well known then Damien Rice yet this makes more similar to Lewis Watson, our chosen artist and fit in with the indie scene better.

Benjamin's YouTube video on the left for his song Atlas Hands received 1,322,917 views which is a fair amount less than Damien Rice but still more than Lewis Watson. Therefore this shows that he is an up and coming artist. His top locations in which he is popular in is United Kingdom, Jersey and Ireland. His top demographics are females aged between 13-24 and males between 18-24. These statistics are very similar if not exactly the same as both Damien Rice and Lewis Watson. However he differs from Damien Rice as he has only received 49,752 likes on Facebook which shows how he is less popular, as of present, than Damien. 

GENRE CONVENTION RESEARCH

After looking at a some music videos from bands from the genre of indie I wanted to make a quick post that includes the most common aspects so when we start planning ours we are able to know exactly what is expected to be in the video.

Sound

The sound of indie music videos could be seen as heavily influenced by artists such as The Beatles, Oasis, The Kinks so the sound is recognisable and appealing to those who like this sound.

Camera 

Typically indie music videos are made to look like they are amateurly made, some look like home videos but all are usually filmed on handheld cameras, some even on mobile phones and others are even filmed on film cameras to be really authentic.

Shots

The use of close ups, long shots and extreme close ups are essential within the indie genre. 

Editing

Fits in with the pace of the song and changes with the beat, quick changes when the pace gets faster and longer shots when it's slower.

Lighting

Outdoor shots use the advantage of natural lighting and indoor shots tend to be darker and more subtle. 

Colour

Colour is a key part of getting the right feel to the footage, being able to give it a vintage vibe is key to an indie music video so the hues and tones are often edited and a lot of them are commonly black and white or cut between this and colour.

Props

Usual props of a video of the indie genre is usually an acoustic guitar and an old film camera, there isn't very many props in these videos as they tend to be very simplistic.

Clothing

Male artists of the indie genre are usually seen wearing smart-casual clothing with their own individual influences. Typically many of the clothes and outfits worn have been inspired by vintage and retro styles apposed to high street clothing and mainstream fashion. This down to earth and casual look gives of the impression that they are just normal people to the audience. I would say indie bands and male artists take inspiration from bands that they are both musically and style influenced by. Common brands used within their wardrobes are probably Fred Perry, Rayban sunglasses or signature pieces and for more one off individual style clothing many pieces would be bought from vintage stores such as Rokit and shops in Brick Lane.  Indie artists construct their individual image to fit in to the image they want to portray and the music and image mirror each other.

Locations

The majority of indie music videos I have seen have an outdoor location, typically in a random forest or field with the sun light creating a really striking image of the scenery. They tend to be in summery locations in this sense, some are filmed at beaches. Also a town location is common  but is usually an outdoors in an urban area. 

Characteristics

Male indie artists come across to the audience as relaxed and casual people and also appear to us as a natural artist in the sense that they haven't been overly worked on and constructed to be something they're not this image could be made in order to appeal to the target audience though.

Instruments

Often indie artists really emphasis the playing of instruments, especially the use of acoustic guitars but in some music videos by the indie band Mumford and Sons they have included more classical instruments and Ben Howard, an indie/acoustic artist has also included the use of more unusual instruments in some of his latest videos.  

CONVENTIONS OF MUSIC VIDEOS

In order to see the similarities and main concepts of music videos in general I'm going to look into the conventions of different genres music videos. Any music video should contain a mixture of camera shots and movements, a heavy use of editing, and a big focus on mise en scene, these alongside the right use of sound, colour, lighting, props and costume are what make each music video unique to the song and artist.

LISTENER PROFILES/RADIO STATIONS

For up and coming artists especially it's important for their music to be heard everywhere and anywhere and the radio is a key platform to succeeding in reaching out to lots of different people through the right radio stations to which the artists main target audience tunes into. Radio is probably the fastest way artists are able to get recognition in the music industry and as a result of their songs being played on major stations the popularity of them increases and the more successful they become because of this. 

Heart listeners are mainly female and aged between  25 and 44 years old.  They are fashion conscious yet family orientated and fun and make time for themselves despite juggling many roles as mothers, wives and professionals. They are able to make the most out of life and listen to heart to get tips on how to do so. 

Listeners of XFM are opinionated independent individuals with disposable income and a good social life. They tune into XFM as they trust the station to play the music they want to here, a mixture of todays hit music and old classics.  

Plays mainly chart music and popular hits throughout the day and the station is aimed mainly at the ages of 15-29 but the average age of the audience is actually 33. 

STEREOTYPICAL VIDEOS OF THE INDIE GENRE

Indie as a genre is more of a cultural movement rather than a specific and well defined genre similar to alternative as bands described as indie take elements of well known and established genres, combining them together and making them a lot more original and more difficult to point out. It's also about the rebellion against what is mainstream, by rejecting it and trying to be unique and is basically about the artist being themselves more than anything. To gain a bigger understanding into what is expected to be included in a typical indie video I've decided to look into a few different videos by indie artists.

This video by Bombay Bicycle Club for their song called 'Always Like This' has been filmed, put onto a video and onto a tv which has then been filmed so there is a sense of intertextuality of the same video in it and the footage cuts between the tv view and real view. I've not seen a video done in this way before and it's cleverly done, with quick cutting rates that fit into the beat of the song. The mise en scene is typically indie through their dress sense as they're casual and look a little nerdy. The use of instruments is very typical of any music video but especially one from this genre. The use of the tv adds a vintage/retro feel to the video which again is common with the indie genre as old is not new or mainstream especially since video players are not commonly used anymore. The speed and rate of the video looks as if it is being controlled, and which could be interpreted as if they're being controlled by a remote by someone. The video and the song don't really link too well together, there isn't a specific story line to it or main characters just the band and their instruments. The video also goes through the day to night time and is filmed in random town locations such as parking lots and shops and bus stops and then it's rewinded. 

The music video for the song 'Trouble Town' by Jake Bugg is typically indie because of the use of derelict an worn down locations, the acoustic guitar, presence of the artist and the massive vintage/retro look to the video as well as the cut between digital footage and film footage. The use of black and white in some shots add to the old fashioned feel and the colours have been adjusted give that vintage vibe. The video and song relate to each other because of the lyrics 'trouble town' and it's clear that it has been filmed in a town location. His dress sense is also typical of the indie genre.

Ben Howard's video for his song 'The Wolves' shows the presence of instruments from the start as we see a group of people carrying guitars and double bass' and it's already clear that the footage colour has been edited giving off a heavy vintage feel through the use of muted colours. We see the performance from the band in a natural habitat, after seeing dark clips that are quickly cut between each other which proves difficult  for the audience to really understand what is going on until we are shown a wider shot of the full band playing in a shed/garage type place. The words 'we lost faith' relate to the outdoor setting as he is in a church yard so there is a link to faith and religion. In the video he's seen to laugh and joke around with friends and it connects the audience to him as an artist more because they're seeing what he is like behind the scenes. There is a strong contrast between each outdoor and indoor shot, ones dark and ones more natural and light.  The mise en scene is very typical of this genre as the dress sense of everyone in it is very casual and the location is random.

LEWIS WATSON DEMOGRAPHICS

Lewis Watson is the artist of the song we have chosen to do, he is a 19 year old singer/songwriter with a interesting and distinct acoustic/indie sound who I first came across a while ago when I stumbled upon his tumblr where I noticed he did covers of songs that I liked, his covers became watched more and more which in turn made him upload some of his own stuff.

He has over 35 thousand followers on twitter who are able to receive constant updates about his life and next music projects. A quick look at his followers and it was apparent that the majority of them were teenage girls. 

He has over 45 thousand subscribers on his youtube account and well over 4 million views and uses the social network as a platform to share his stuff with the world. The song Windows by Lewis Watson (the song to which we will make a video to) already as a video on YouTube and has over 80,000 views and lots of comments. I looked into who commented on his video and the majority were girls which made sense in relation to his twitter followers although some comments were by people who can relate to his songs and are similar to him. I then looked into the demographics of the video and that showed that mainly Females aged 13-24 years old had listened to it but that males aged 13-17 have also watched it too. His music is popular within the UK, Ireland and even Australia, he just recently got back from a little tour there. 

I also had a look into how the people that watched his video cam across it and the majority was linked from either other videos of his, his twitter/facebook or from a google search.

His facebook like page has nearly reached 24 thousand likes which is a huge amount, and the majority of this likes come from females aged between 13 and 17. It also shows that the most popular like location is in the UK and is London. More people than ever are talking about him and he shares a lot of photos and gig information through this page so it keeps everyone up to date.

He has many social media platforms to use to reach out to his fan base which evidently are the ones that are most likely to use this sites. 

WINDOWS LYRICS

'windows' 

i'm not here to startle you
hell, i only came 'cause you asked me to
it's such a shame that we can't renew
all those feelings that we shared back a month or two

you know, i kept everything that reminds me of us
it sounds weird but your picture's still hung up
i've tried getting distracted by other stuff
but that's not enough

i'm sleeping with a pillow, under lamplight.
freezing cold, 'cause you always liked the windows opened wide.
just so you know, i'll be here when you make it home.

i'll call you up at like 3am, again
just to make sure you know that i don't mind waiting,
although the call will end with us both saying
that we both hate this

i'm not sleeping too well, now i'm sleeping alone
and all you have to do is pick up the phone
and i'll come running to your aid but i'm sure you know
this won't help us grow

i'm still sleeping with a pillow, under lamplight.
freezing cold, 'cause you always liked the windows opened wide.
just so you know, i'll be here when you make it home.

IDEAL AUDIENCE MEMBER

As our artist fits into the Indie acoustic genre, our typical ideal audience member will be a female aged 17 as, from looking at Lewis's and other Indie artists demographics, this fits the profile the best. They would have to have previous knowledge of what the conventions are regarding indie acoustic; so, emotional and personal lyrics, solo instrument which is usually a guitar or, on some occasions, piano. The girl would be able to relate to his lyrics in some form; most typically in a relationship situation. Also, the girl would be around a similar age to the artist and be able to relate her lifestyle or adapt her lifestyle around him.

NARRATIVE IN MUSIC VIDEOS

Today, in my lesson we looked into the theory behind music videos relating mainly to narratives. There is a lot of theory behind music video narratives, more than I thought there would be.

NARRATIVE IN MUSIC VIDEOS on Prezi

FIRTH, 1998

Music videos can be characterised by 3 broad typologies. 

PERFORMANCE

Performance is used in music videos to give the viewers a sense of a concert experience, and depending how good the performance looks it could bring up ticket sales. Visuals that are mostly orientated by performance show the views that the actual recording and playing of the music is the most important factor to the band/artist. Examples of videos that contain this are ones by The Killers and Ed Sheeran as they use real concert footage and also give the audience a little behind the scenes view of themselves.

NARRATIVE

Narrative within a music video is usually linear and tends to evolve around a love story. "Action in the story is  dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen." - Schwichienberg, 1992. Essentially they are all based around a story whether it be related to the songs lyrics or not, it more or less always uses words, factors or feelings from the song. The main genres to use a narrative are R&B and Pop although it is very common across all types and sub genres. 

CONCEPTUAL

Conceptual videos contain metaphors to create a mood, ones that offer multiple meanings to different people, and the visuals don't necessarily have any relation to the song.

All these types explain the form and describe the content that has been chosen either by the artist or director in a way to attract views and please fans and audience members and also convey messages both direct and indirect. 

GOODWIN'S THEORY EXAMPLES

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics..

The genre of Kanye West's Homecoming video follows suit with Kanye's usual associated genre of RnB. The video itself uses black and white lighting effects to give a harsh, bold and strong presence of the artist. A recurring theme in Kanye's music videos is that he portrays himself as both physically and mentally strong. This is apparent in Homecoming as the use of the low angle camera shots make him seem powerful and domineering over his audience, as if he thinks himself high over them/ The video is about Kanye visiting his 'hometown' of Chicago, therefore the panning shots and close up shops of him looking around Chicago and reminiscing on his childhood. The further close up shots of the kids could represent Kanye, himself, in his childhood. However the low key lighting keeps specific facial details ambiguous. The city is frequently shown inside the silhouette effect of Kanye and Chris performing, symbolising that the city is a part of him and he takes it everywhere with him.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals..

There is a significantly detailed use of cross fading, switching from a mid/ tracking shot of Florence dancing in the center of everyone to a close up of her hand resting on the side of her face. There are potentially many reasons why the director chose to use this editing technique however one reason could be for textual or lyrical cohesion. The song 'Rabbit Heart' repeats the line 'Raise it up' multiple times which, I believe, to have some spiritual significance. As in 'raise it up' from the dead which the seemingly not choreographed dancing implies. This theme is carried throughout the video as another time she is pushed out to sea on a coffin-like box which has biblical references.

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals..

Usually, there is a relationship between music and visuals; especially in mainstream/ hip hop videos. An example of this is when there is a guitar solo being performed during the song and the camera usually focuses on the musician/artist performing the solo with his instrument. In Dappy's song 'Rockstar' featuring Brian May, towards the end of the video there is a jump cut into a mid shot and close ups of Brian performing his solo.

Another example is in Drake's video 'Take Care' featuring Rihanna. The song itself is about taking care of a partner or a person in which you are in romantic relation with. During the video, Drake, himself, and Rihanna show signs of affection between each other as they are sitting close together and touching each other in a romantic way. 

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work...

Lady Gaga is a great example of a record label's influence as in her video 'Bad Romance' she demonstrates her signature hand gesture of her 'Monster Claw'. To her fans, she identifies herself as 'Mother Monster' and all her fans are her 'little monsters'; this keeps them involved and they feel apart of her and her videos. Below is the video for 'Bad Romance' where she demonstrates this.

5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body...

6. There is often intertextual reference...

GOODWIN'S THEORY

Andrew Goodwin, a director of music, came up with theories which feature in his book about purposes and features for music videos.  His theory is generally based around 6 main principles..
- Links between lyrics and visuals, when the words directly link to the video.
- Genre characteristics, the visual representations of the music genre and portrayal.
- Demands from the record label, how the artist is represented through the need of close ups of the artist and may even create motifs which occur frequently throughout their work.
- Performance based, narrative based or concept based music videos.
- Reference to notions of looking, mostly of voyeuristic treatment towards the female body.
- Intertextual reference, the reference to other videos, media texts, artists or products within a video.
- Links between music and videos, the instruments, cutting rate (on the beat) and if the link is complementary or contradicting.
- Voyeurism (insight into artists life, direct gaze, other people looking at the artist, mirrors and screens).

PERMISSION

After we decided on the artist and song we had to get permission to use it so we used our twitter account to tweet Lewis Watson in order to be in direct contact with him, this proved to be a successful way of contacting the artist as it was the most direct as possible as he was able to get back to us straight away and said he would be honoured!

SONG CHOICE

This is my groups chosen song, we liked the overall sound of the artist, Lewis Watson and to decide on an exact song we looked into the lyrics and the melody of them and also thought about potential videos to each and all three of us decided on his song Windows after getting it down to that and Bones. Windows is quite a depressing song with an up beat sound to it which ables us to create an interesting video and story to. The song fits into the indie and acoustic genre. The song itself can be related to situations people may find themselves in as it's probably about a break up and the feelings involved with it. Overall the song will allow us to be creative with our ideas and there is a lot of possibilities and potential references to lyrics.

GENRE CHOICE

My groups chosen genre will be indie.. focusing more on the sub genre of indie acoustic. We chose to do this genre as we felt our abilities would be used to our advantage within the indie genre because we all have certain strengths and combined they compliment each other and we have already proved that we work well together.

GENRE REPRESENTATION

"Genre is not simply given by the culture, rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change." - Davi Buckingham.

Today in our lesson we looked into genre representation. We were given a minute to come up with as many genres as we could think of and I managed to get down all these.. Indie, rock, soul, acoustic, dance, dubstep, folk, country, heavy metal, funk, pop, rap, r&b, jazz, techno, reggae, classical, punk, boy band, girl band, disco, alternative, emo, grime, grunge, motown and electro.

INTERVIEW 2

Michael/56/Illford

What music were you interested in when you were my age?
I listened to things like Waterloo Sunset, Icthy Coo Park, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeplin, Cream, Blind Faith, The Who, The Kinks,  The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, The Doors, The Faces. I was in a skiffle band was called Harry Monks Red Hot Jubilee band as well.

How did you access it?
I used to go to Camden to places such the Roundhouse, Dingwalls to see live bands and also went to the Lyceum to see loads of artists play. I also used to go to Universities, pubs and clubs to see people play. Used to go to record shops and go into a listening booth and listen to records. Listened to a lot of radio, pirate radio caroline and radio london. My dad used to work at the market so always used to bring home new singles as well which was a good way of hearing new music. I watched the Old Grey Whistle Test to hear music.

Looking back now do you think you followed a particular subculture and dressed a certain way in the sense that the choice of music reflected your lifestyle, friends and fashion?
Yes, I was more of a hippy type person with long hair and a long beard and often got mistaken for George Harrison which was heavily influenced by the music of the 60's with my favorite band of all time, The Beatles.  I wore three button t shirts and loons.

INTERVIEW 1

Denise/54/Grimsby

What popular music were you interested in when you were my age?
At parties we mostly listened to Rod Stewart, still the Moody Blues were about, Pink Floyd and some really obscure ones as well, like Tamla Motown. I used to go to folk clubs as well. Dylan and Leonard Cohen, they sang ballad type songs. A mixture of artists and singers, from Diana Ross to David Bowie.


How did you access it?
Well I didn't really listen to music very often, more of a treat. Most of the songs were well known and it would be people telling you about it but mostly I watched Top Of the Pops. Also still going to record shops to listen to songs with head phones and you'd ask if you could play it and we used to buy in my family, we'd take it in turns, 3 people put together, 7 and 6 a single, we'd get a single a week which was quite a lot really. That was my older sister and brother but I got to listen to the as well and I've even still got them they were treasured, you'd even go round to peoples houses and you'd take your record collections because not everybody had them. I listened to music mainly through records and not on the radio, as a family we did not have the radio on. In our house it was either top of the pops or the record player. Listening to older siblings, influenced by their tastes in music and saw many bands in my area because of my sister going. Sometimes I went to see live bands as I did travel to Liverpool to the cavern club to see bands there. Also I went to the Free trade hall in Manchester to see a famous guitarist called.. At parties there were duke boxes so we could choose what songs to play and and I did this at Blue Note which was a hippy 'to be seen' cafe place where I'd meet friends and not go with school friends as they had different tastes. Also read magasines to find out about new artists. We also did music appreciation in our music class at school where someone would bring in some music and say a bit of information about them and that's how I found out about Leonard Cohen.


Looking back now do you think you followed a particular subculture and dressed a certain way in the sense that the choice of music reflected your lifestyle, friends and fashion?
I think it did at the time, although I did go across to a folk club even though I dressed differently I didn't take to certain traditions there and when I went to parties all of the well known bands were played. I wore a lot of hippy style things, beads and glasses which was definitely reflective of the music I listened too. I was inspired by some artists and was able to see them from magasines pictures.

MEDIA GROUP

It was confirmed that I will be working in a group of three, along side Jack Willson ( http://willsonsmusicproductions.blogspot.co.uk ) and Becky Wilson ( http://rebeccawilsona2media.blogspot.co.uk ).

AUDIENCE THEORY

It has been said that there are two types of audiences on being active and the other, passive in relation to their involvement and choice of media consumed. An active audience member would be one who will chose to watch something because they know exactly what they want as they have high involvement within choices and a passive audience member would only watch that same something because it was on or just right in front of them as they tend to go with the flow and can't make their minds up.

People make this choices by searching on search enginges such as Google and going onto YouTube and clicking on the suggested videos at the end of the one they just watched or viewing one of the videos that are down the side of the page. They also make choices through social networking sites through their friends and adverts on the sites, TV adverts will also aid their decision process along side album releases, concerts, artists websites and the radio. Back in the 60's to the 80's past audiences made their choices through programs on TV such as Top of the Pops, by listening to radio stations, reading magasines, through work of mouth and by the trail and error method (going to gigs of bands they didn't know or heard of).

McQuails theory of uses and gratifications suggests that reasons for active choice by media audiences are:
-personal identity (who you are/your character)
-personal relationships (things in common such as music tastes/dress sense, peers who like the same)
-informations and updates (the news, mags, networks, tv and friends)
-escapism and diversion/entertainment (for fun, enjoyment)