Primary Research; Interviews

Audience Research - Interview

to further understand about people and what and why they liked indie music , i decided to ask some friends who are very fond of indie music a few questions that could allow me to have a clearer sense of what to do for the music video.

when watching a music video

what do you care most about?

the scene / theme of the video .. If it relates to the song/ words well enough!

i see why would you want the lyrics to relate to the narrative?

Because then it would make some sense to me... Defining the song further.. Otherwise it wouldn't have meaning.. Or a purpose for having actuall a video for the lyrics

so then , give me an example of a music video you really like and what you like about it?

Jamie T sticks and stones merely because it is very down to earth! And shows life in reality.. And clearly relates back to the lyrics within the city life.. I like the changing imagery and constant movement and variations of camera work... It is not like a glossy American video ..

Analysis of Song Lyrics

The chosen song is

Saint Raymond – ‘As We Are Now’ Lyrics 

We've all been waiting for this, Could be referring to the 'wait' we have as children for everything we want for example - We want a new toy car - Mum says we must 'wait' until Christmas.

But it always comes too quick. Linking to the first line of how the wait is usually quick because time fly by's when we are children.  He could also be indirectly talking about how teenage/adult life comes 'too quick'. Childhood is short lived and when we only realise that life is greater when we were children when we are too old. 

Spend our days in the playground, Saint Raymond now talks about how he spends his days in the playground; probably a metaphor for a child like mind set. Life is complicated as an adult and therefore he now spends his days in the playground (Child like mind set).

Pretending not to be kids. an indirect lyric perhaps about how he is an adult and therefore needs to pretend to act like an adult and not a kid, even though he is in the playground (childlike mindset) 

The girls are in the corner, Reminds you of when in primary school, girls hung out together in groups - again linking to the coming of age lyrics.

Already had too much to drink. He is now coming back to reality in today's age and time period. The girls he refers to have had too much alcohol to drink - perhaps drowning their sorrows of teenage/adult life.

Boys hide behind their laughter, Talking about males as 'Boys' again makes you think of primary school/childhood effect.

Like they don't care what girls think. Talking about females as 'girls' - primary school/childhood effect 

CHORUS 

We will never be as young as we are now, He now realizes and glorifies the fact that we will never be as young as we are now. It sounds almost like a self realization; the older you get the harder life gets. So in this lyric he's reminding the audience; that we are only growing older - don't take life too seriously

The faces in the crowd are thinning out. Saint Raymond reminds the audience he is an artist by including a lyric about performing live - not many people can relate to. However the lyric could be interpreted as after realizing that 'We will never be as young as we are now' he is finally removing the non-important people out of his life - 'thinning out'

And I'm not saying stick around,  But stick around. He now seems to be talking directly to someone close to him or an important person in his life. Who he is telling to stick around.

Oh, we may never have another like today, Tomorrow is brand new start away. The lyric once again linking to the first line of the chorus- he now finally says it how it is. We will never have a day like the present, tomorrow is a brand new day - make the most of the present.

And we'll never be as young as are now,  As we are now Emphasizing the importance of not taking life too seriously (Also the name of the song)

2ND VERSE

We'll all been getting tired,  Of the streets that we've outgrown. Perhaps talking about the streets he grew up on. Playing with friends he has now outgrown in adulthood. However he is not happy with being outgrown....He wants the streets back as if it is a possession - again linking to the first verse of his 'Child like mindset' 

We sit indoors for hours, He finds adulthood boring

Now King George has lost his throne. Could be a metaphor for - When we are children we can't wait to be adults. Now he is an adult, he uses King George loosing his throne as a metaphor for the excitement of adulthood being washed away after realizing what it is really like

But something out there's calling, A whisper we call home. Referring to his childhood as 'home' - somewhere he feels safe and happy. He says that home is now calling for him to return (wants to return to childhood) 

The nights that I stayed with you, Cos' you didn't want to be alone. Saint Raymond yet again has a lyric which is personal and to someone special in his life. Someone who he has spent nights with because they didn't want to be alone.


Clearly after analyzing the lyrics we can see how powerful the song really is. The hidden metaphors, slow tempo and referring to gender's as 'Boys and Girls'. Makes the perfect song which many audience members can relate to. Most if not all teenagers and adulthood's wish they were children again - childhood memories.

The song makes a perfect tool for people to listen to but at the same time relate to. 

Indie Fan Culture - Secondary Research

http://www.cracked.com/funny-1677-indie-music/

Article link is above.

The article talks about different indie terms and festivals. 

It quotes 

‘having a friend mention a band to you and being able to respond with "seen em live" is the crowning achievement for indie music fans. To an indie, it feels like 100 orgasms covered in chocolate set to a Radiohead soundtrack. You would have to attend far too many small shows to gain the clout you get from going to one festival.’

This quote shows how most indie fans are about the music and the live experience of music rather than the entire product that goes with the aritst.

Secondary Audience Research - Bastille Fans vs One Direction Fans

‘Bastille’ an Indie band

In the video it shows fans waiting outside a show Bastille have just done. The fans shout the lead singers name and then as he appropraches they say ‘You sounded so great’…. This shows how the fans are not so much obssesed with the way they look. They are more obssessed with the music being produced. The fans waiting are all females aged around 11-19 showing us the target market to Bastille as a band. Juxtapose these fans with One Direction Fans (video below) and this shows how One Direction fans are more obsessed with the band because of their looks rather than their music.

One direction are a pop band 

Secondary Audience Research - Lana Del Rey Fans

An article By Luke Winkie Tue, June 10 2014

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2014/06/lana_del_rey_fandom_is_exactly_the_same_as_pro_wrestling_fandom.php?page=2

In this article Luke Winkie juxtaposes Lana Del Rey fans and WWE (Wrestling Fans). He talks about how little children believe everything about WWE is real and to do with real life… He then goes on to similary juxtapose these ‘children’ fans with Lana Del Rey fans talking about how her fans also believe that she really is some dark mythical goddess. Luke splits up the different type of Lana Del Rey’s fans as ‘Marks’ and ‘Smarks’.

The Marks are the ignorant ones who believe she reall is this alter ego living in a dark twisted world.

The Smarks are the clever ones who know Lana is simply and entertainer and ‘Lana Del Rey’ is her character.

The article shows how Lana Del Rey has image and brand/character through the use of her music and videos so powerful and real… that fans truly belive that she is this woman who is obssessed with death. 

Record Label Research

Independent-  ‘4AD’

Established in ‘1979’

Genre Focus: Indie Pop, Electronic, Underground American Rock

‘As one fourth of the Beggars Group, 4AD is a British independent record label that was started by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent in 1979. It was initially created to serve as a "testing ground" for parent company Beggars Banque Records. The idea was that new acts would spend at least one year with 4AD, and if they achieved a certain level of succss during that period, they would then "graduate up" to Beggars Banquet. Only one group actually followed that program.

In the mid '80s the label focused mostly on underground Amercian rock acts. These bands would include the likes of Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, and The Pixies. Since that time, 4AD has evolved to represent a variety of acts from a mixed bag of genres. The current roster includes Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Blood Diamonds, Bon Iver, David Byrne & St. Vincent, Grimes, Purity Ring, SpaceGhostPurrp, The National, and Twin Shadow.’

For example an artist signed to the label is ‘Daughter’ – indie folk band

On the artist section – there is a big picture of the lead singer of the band with information on the band. There is then a section to hear some music through the label website, followed by news regarding the band and then finally their music albums and videos.

Looking at an example of the Bands Videos

Daughter – Still

Even though the video looks professional, you can tell by just the first 20 seconds that it is a low budget video which could be filmed in a day or so. Having said this, a simplistic video for a slow, low tempo song works to ‘Daughter’s advantage. If it was a high budget video it would have too much going on at once and then perhaps loose that sense of realism to it.

The cheap looking video makes it seem more relatable and real. The location as well – Inside someone’s house; relatable – real settings (convention of indie videos)

The lighting used is a cool blue – making the video seem more cold and icy linking to the icy lyrics ‘It’s spiralling down, Biting words like a wolf howling’

Major Record Label Comparison

Virgin

Virgin Records, Ltd. is a record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powelland Tom Newman in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, The Human League, Culture Club, Simple Minds, Lenny Kravitz, dc Talk, The Smashing Pumpkins, Mike Oldfield, Spice Girls and more on their list of artists. 

‘Bastille’ an indie pop/indie rock band are signed to Virgin.  

When visiting Vrigin Record Label’s website the first thing that came up was a huge picture of Bastille and an exclusive performance they had done. 

I select the artist page and the first thing that appears is ‘Bastille’ – clearly a band Virgin are trying to gain recognition for.

The artist page has a link which does not have an artist page for Bastille however takes you directly to their website.

Their Website is very simplistic – with a huge presentation of the car seen in their album cover shown and the bands name. You are then able to visit their social sites through buttons at the top right and navigate around the website viewing photos of the band

Looking at an example of the Bands Videos – Compared to an independent record label

Bastille – Things We Lost In The Fire

The music video is located in Luthuania (looks like a desert) straight away, it seems that video is high budget and very professional. It loses its sense of realism and reality as the location is something not many of Bastille’s audience members can relate too. In the video we see all band members in a car, as well as a hound on top of a car and the same car seen drag racing. The same car is shown in the album cover of the bands album

Compared to the independent video by Daughter, the difference in budget is clearly noticeable. However it seems like having a huge budget video doesn’t always mean having a better video. Due to the realism and relatable factor of Daughter’s video, it comes across as a much better video.

How the Record Label impacts Views?

Being signed to Virgin Records, with vast amount of promotion, and a high budge video Bastille have over 24 million views on Youtube.

With daughter far behind with just over 4 million

Artist/Genre Research

Websites situated around ‘Lana Del Rey’

                                                                                                                                                                 

‘http://lanadelrey.com/’ which seems to be an official artist page for Lana Del Rey, on the website the first thing promoted is her latest album ‘UltraVoilence’ and there are hyperlinks to buy the album from various music downloading websites e.g. iTunes.

Scrolling down the page the next section is the latest Lana Del Rey news allowing fans to see the latest buzz around Lana. However clearly this ‘News’ section is also used as a promotional tool because the first post writes ‘New US shows added’ – Gaining publicity and recognition for her latest concerts and therefore more sales.

Just underneath the news is her latest concert dates and a hyperlink to buy tickets – again another promotional tool used for her website to gain national awareness of her next shows.

Next comes the music which are used as album cover hotspots, if you click the album art it takes u to another page where it has the album info and links to where you can buy them.

Social Sites

Twitter

Lana is very popular with over 4 Million followers.  Her header is promotional to her latest album ultravoilence, letting people know it is out.

Lana tweets ‘YouTube’ links to her videos, sharing with her 4million followers and everyone who has twitter – therefore allowing her to get views on a global scale

Facebook

Lana also has a facebook page with the same twitter header and picture.

She also uses her facebook page as a tool to promote as seen below- promoting an upcoming show

Spotify:

Lana is a verified artist on spotify, where all her albums and songs are avaliable for people to listen to for free of charge – gains new fans browsing the app

Promotional Photos/Album covers – 

The following are the album artworks from Lana’s latest album ‘UltraVoilence’. They belong to apporopriate singles on the album

As you can see all her single covers some how link with each other – they make her seem upset, sad, miserable.

 As an artist Lana Del Rey has built her image to be like this, most her songs are about heartbreak and love. At one point she sings the lyric ‘I wish I was Dead’ – Dark Paradise

Therefore these promotional images/album/single covers work well because they link her to the kind of artist she is – slow/sad love songs.

Her miserable image is so profound now, that when people are upset or heartbroken they say ‘Im in a Lana Del Rey mood’

Lana Del Rey's Vogue Shoot

Here Lana seems so bright and elegant almost the complete opposite to the person fans have come  to know and love. However when looking closely at the picture I still see misery and pain in Lana’s eyes and as a fan, this reminds me that even though it is a bright/sunny picture of Lana, she’s still the Lana Del Rey that we as fans know.

Lana Del Rey currently has 3 albums, and one ‘Paradise Edition Album’ (Special Edition)

If we look at all the font styles used in all the album covers it gives us a sense of the brand and type of artist Lana Del Rey is trying to portray/ come across as.

In all albums Lana’s face dominates the artwork as it is the biggest and first thing you see, however the second is her name. It is always written in block capitals, and is in a big/huge size. As if to show that her name on the album is so big just as her name in celebrity culture and the music industry is so big.

If you look at her debut album ‘Lana Del Rey AKA Lizzy Grant’ the font is not so big however it is still in capitals… Lana’s break through album which got her recognised on a global scale was the ‘Born To Die’ album which clearly shows how her name becomes much bigger and in white colour – stands out against the blue background.

All her album covers give a sense of classiness and posh – however her fist album cover makes her look weird – the sparkly silver dress under the oversized biker jacket, doesn’t work well but has possible connotations of her not showing who she truly is – the silver sparkly dress being hidden by the black jacket.

In all pictures she looks sad and miserable which links to her music being slow and sad.

All her album covers are Mid Shots of Lana however using minimilastic mise en scene – normally just scenery – makes her face stand out, almost showing that she is the important one.

Secondary Research- Youtube/ Fan Pages/ Official Websites

Lewis Watson; Sink or Swim

LEWIS WATSON- SINK OR SWIM


Here the lyrics begin with the artist playing guitar. This makes the performance look authentic and legitimate as we believe the music played is the one created by the actual artist. This hence fits Simon Frith's theory of performance as we see Lewis signing and playing the guitar.

In the next few seconds in the video we see a mid shot of the artist; he's looking into the camera and his gaze seems really honest which connects the audience with the artist. At this point a relationship as well as an understanding is formed. The shot looks like a rough cut which adds to legitimate feeling of honesty- it's as if it a true representation of the artist. This shot is followed by a contrasting long shot which makes the artist look rather small (despite being in the centre) against the vast background.

Once again we see many shots of the artist playing however, this time there's a variety of them. This compliments the proposal made previously. Furthermore, to support this the location used is a natural one which supports the idea of the artists music being natural and self made.










These next couple of shots show the change in the Mise en Scene; the costume and the location. Which agrees with the conventions of music videos having many costume changes to compliment the story/ keep the video interesting. Here we also see a narrative which further agrees with Frith's theory of Narrative and Performance which this video switches between.

The video is in some way illustrating if not amplifying the lyrics as there's a use of water (whether the sea or the pool is used) This especially in the last scenes is put to use as the character jumps into the pool and there's a long pause. We are unaware of whether the artist will 'sink or swim'. This is also a dynamic ending as the rest of the video is rather calm and this very moment is spontaneous and surprising. Before this we see a juxtaposition where the artist is pressing through harsh wind against a mid shot/ close up of the still feather.  

Indie Music Video Analysis

Indie Music Fest- Bringing People Together

Secondary Audience Research- Interview Of A Band Member From 'Coast'

Secondary Audience Research/ Music Video Analysis

This video here is a perfect example of the support indie audiences show. Many decide to show their dedication to this genre of music by creating animated clips or films; like the one above. Here we have a shout of for support to the indie genre; the self made video is a bit 'weird' and 'funky' like the genre they support. It shows the extent that the fan will go to in order to protect their music genre

Qualitative Date; Interview Questions

1. Do you like indie music?
2. Who’s your favourite artist?
3. In your opinion what type of group (fanbase) does/do your artist/artists reach out to?
4. Do you follow any social sites (insta, twitter etc) of your favourite artist?
5. How do you find out about new tracks/albums/videos?
6. Do you feel as if the fashion you wear is influenced by the music you listen to? (self-identity­)
7. How do you get your sources for your music?
8. Do you watch music channels?
9. Do you ever visit fan-ran websites related to “insert favourite artist here”?
10. Do you ever read music magazines?
11. On a scale of 1-10 how much does music mean to you? Why?
12. How do you support your favourite artist? Gigs? Merc ?
13. What does the term ‘fanbase’ mean to you?
14. Favourite music video?
15. Does the music video affect your opinion of the song?

These are the questions we came up with for our interviews; however in practise many questions were skipped, reworded or added according to the interviewee 

Editing Our Preliminary

Preliminary Evaluation

History Of The Music Video

First Script

Qualitative Data

Qualitative Data; Interview Review

On the 29^th of October, our group went out to central London to interview individuals to find out about relationships they have with their music. We started off at Leicester Square, which is where we did most of our interviews. At this location we also witnessed a performance by a busker and had the opportunity to interview him. After finishing in this location, we also attempted to find some interviewees at Piccadilly Circus and China town - however this proved to be quite difficult, as many people refused to take part in the interview due to being in a rush. In our opinion the day was quite productive, as out of the five interviews we conducted, three were successful. The remaining two interviews gave us an insight on real musicians’ opinions.

Improvements

If I had to do this again, I would keep the microphone a little further away from the interviewee’s face during filming to avoid them feeling crowded and intimidated.

Some people were in a rush or not wanting to the get interviewed; many foreigners were unable to answer and/or understand questions fully. We had expected that people will be willing to participate – however because we had high expectations that weren’t met, next time we would keep in mind the variety of different responses we might get from people if we ask them to be interviewed. With this we would also expect more refusals and rejections and prepare ourselves for it.

Another problem was the issue of approaching people to ask them questions- once again we had high expectations, this time of ourselves - we had not expected to feel as uncomfortable around strangers as we did.

Next time the equipment had to be checked properly. The mic and headphones weren’t plugged in correctly at the time of some interviews, which resulted in sound not being recorded properly – the audio was not loud enough. Luckily we had the external camera mic, which came in useful as backup equipment.