Top Ten Album Covers

Below are the top ten album covers of all time according to vinyl records survey.


1 sgt. Pepper - The Beatles



2 Whipped Cream and Other Delights - Herb Alpert



3 The Court of the Crimson King- King Crimson



4 Their Satanic Majesties Request - Rolling Stones



5 Abraxax - Santana



6 Escape - Journey



7 Sticky Fingers - Rolling Stones



8 Fragile - YES



9 London Calling - Clash



10 Led Zeppelin One "Hindenburg Cover" - Led Zeppelin

My reason for looking at these is to gain a better understanding of what makes an attractive album cover. I'm going to design one with these in mind. However i do believe some are a bit out of date and irrelevent to the target market we are trying to focus on.

Goodwins Theory Applied To The Indie Genre

Razorlight

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Applying Goodwin's Therory To Stan By Eminem Featuring Dido

1) Throughout the song he is reading out what is being written on the letters

2) Most of the lyrics are mimed by the actors in the video, especially when the letters are being read out.

3) Rap, Hip/hop

Audience Questionnaire and Preferences

Initially we had decided on what target market to aim for, we then set out to create a questionnaire to ask them what they preferred and wanted in a music video.
I believe this would not only give us some ideas to explore but to also take our audience preferences into account, one of my main concerns was whether our female audience where going to be very different to our male audience. Obviously there is a large difference between preferences in the two sex groups, but i feel we can adapt our video to appeal to both sexes. There will be a clear decision on what to do once we've asked our audience.

From the findings i have conducted a table to split the answers. In blue theres are the students that i considered the students to answer correctly.

Goodwins Theory

Goodwin’s Theory is based on 8 main principles, below are a explanation of each principle and then applied to the genre of Rn'B

I have looked a little bit at how music videos are changing and what makes them stand out. Now i am going to use goodwins theory, and apply it to the very popular Rn'B genre. then im going to apply the theory to the indie genre then I will then decide what song is being chosen for my music video.

1) Links between Lyrics and Visuals

Links between Music and Visuals (Complimentary, Contradicting or Amplification)
Genre characteristics
Inter textual reference
Notions of Looking (objectification of women)
Voyeurism (direct gaze, other people looking at artist, insight into artists life, screens and mirrors)
Demands of the Record Label (representation of the artist)
Performance based, Narrative based or Concept based music videos

2) Griminal - Invincible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gpBIfqvojA

3) Lyric and Visual

Goodwin suggests lyrics will make constant references to visuals on screen. Visuals will reinforce what the lyrics say. An example of this can be seen in the Griminal – Invincible music video. The lyrics depict a boy and girl in love, using personal terms about a relationship such as “we” and “us”. This is further emphasised on screen by the couple sharing an intimate moment on screen. Furthermore the lyrics lead up to the word “love” on screen this is followed up by the ring reading love and the way the couple are together on screen, in love.
“Yeah that’s true invincible yeah that’s me that’s you, matter fact scrap that girl that’s us we break up we make up but girl that’s love”

4) Genre Characteristics

These are depicted as the certain traits associated with a particular music genre. For example a rock video you would expect to have the performance of a live band. For grime it adopts several characteristics of different genres as it is a new genre. Typical grime video’s you would expect them to have the following characteristics as a must; Jewelry, a narrative based story, hoods and ‘urban’ clothing, a trait of many grime songs is to perceive the artist as if he/she is just writing the music. This can be seen in American hip-hop video’s such as Stan by Eminem. Also to appear good looking and sexy is a characteristic adopted from R&B.
Sexual smooth depiction of artist.
Lyrics just being written
Hooded, urban clothing.

5 )Notions of looking

Notions of looking plays on the idea of gaze and the way someone in particular is seen. For example, in a lot of music video’s women are often presented according to Goodwin as objects.
Notions of looking however is not just restricted to women, it may also represent men in a particular way such as controlling or violent as cheats etc.
In this video the representations are of teenagers. They are portrayed as very sneaky.. This is shown through the fact they were alone in the house with out the parents knowing.

6) Demands of the Record Label

The record label has a certain control over the artist they sign. It is ultimately up to the record label to decide what the artist should be represented as. For example, for women the label may require the artist to come off as sexy in order to appeal to men and reach that target audience. For men the same thought process could be applied, being represented as sexy would reach out to the target audience of women. This is crucial as particular genders are more inclined to listen to certain genres of music. E.g. women who are interested in urban music are more likely to listen to R&B. So men appealing as sexy would draw in women audiences.

7) Narrative Based

As well as being part of the genre characteristics narrative is also its own category with in Goodwins theory. The narrative allows the music to come to life, like a story. It connects all the dots with in the categories that Goodwin identified. Narrative can either be fragmented or linear. Most music video’s today tend to be fragmented. This is typical of R&B and Grime as a genre. This however is not the case with Griminal’s music video. It uses a Linear format, which is rather simplistic getting from point A to point B. It is only broken up by the chorus.

8) Implications

This PowerPoint lists but a few of Goodwins theory.
Considering Goodwin’s theory is imperative for our group in order to make an effect video that connects to the audience as the small things that Goodwin identified will aid in helping us to make an effect music video and link all three products together.
Using Goodwin’s theory has given the group a better knowledge of the values that music video’s hold. It has allowed for more thought into our music video, such as the importance of Intertextuality. After researching Goodwin we have decided to include a motif to break up the narrative and create a Fragmented story.
We will continuously refer back to Goodwin through out the production

Developing Our Idea And Asking Audience Preferences

Weve come to the conclusion that choices will be our main subject. However, we carried out a survey and found that many people preferred to see the band in their video, which suggests that we should take this into account when we put together our storyboard.
We will have the band dressed smartly, but not over the top so that our audience see the band as casually dressed, so that we can try and appeal to a wider audience.
The fact that our band will be casually dressed differs them from the Hoosiers, who wear tuxedos.
By doing this we think that the video will appeal to younger age groups.

BLUE- "i would prefer to see the band in their music video"

PURPLE- " i don't have a preference"

YELLOW- " id prefer to see some action than the band"



From this we are definitely going to show the band and another subject to satisfy the needs of our target market.

Our Song Choice And Why

We have decided to make a music vidio to the song Choices by The Hoosiers.
This may seem like a typical song that younger generations listen too. Therefore we thought we could take the main idea in the song which relates to the younger age range, then try and show that subject in a video.

We then thought we are the age that a lot of mistakes can occur to do with one thing, making wrong decisions.
We will show in our video the fun and joy the younger generations have then the frustrating and unhappy side. The idea of relationships and the mistakes people make. This will all then revolve around the subject of trying to make decisions and choices.

Our ideas comes from the chorus in the song "choices", and relate to our experiences and the choices our age group have. However we will portray in our video the outcomes that some choices have, this idea may seem boring as some of the words in the song will be show in how the actors act in our video.

We hope to make an exiting video and hope we can take this idea and show it in a video.

Goodwins Theory

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Audience Research

We are going to give out questionnaires to 3-4 different target areas that might find our music video enjoyable, also our song choices. With the results that we get back from our questionnaire we will decide on the target group to aim for. This depended on the answers that were given to questions such as:

Do you like the song? if a particular group didn't like it as much as others then they wouldn't be the main target group.

Which technology source do you use? the top 3-4 answers would be the main sources were we would display our product.

Gender male/female? so we would no aim it at females or males or both.

Not only did we do a questionnaire we looked up and researched songs like ours to see how they have presented their music video and which audiences they were aiming towards. Also we considered which technology they used to show their music video, and if it was successful, if so then that might be an option for us.
Our research shows that our target audience would be aged 15-20 because of how we see the story line and our views of what it is trying to tell. We see that this age range has many choices to make from GCSE to A levels and university to jobs.

Our music video will take on many things we have learnt in our audience research, and i will show what weve learn in my evaluation.

Modern Day Music Videos

Modern day music videos have been able to show what used to be seen as inappropriate; their are numerous sexual references in most modern day music videos, with even the top bands and solo artists being more imaginative than ever.

The modern society has changed and now scenes of sexuality and homosexuality are able to be viewed without the shock that earlier generations have had.

My view is that society itself has become more open; meaning scenes of this nature do not shock viewers. The first industry to diversify into this new way of "norm" were films. Which explains why music videos have evolved along with films.

The Pitch

Our pitch consists of our plan of action and what we plan to achieve.


Pitch by Josh Logan

"we've decided to make a music video to the song 'choices' by the Hoosiers, were going to research them and their record label to see if we can use the song for A level purposes, and our initial thought and aim are to promote a new band that has a wider audience range than the Hoosiers, we are planning on carrying this out by appealing to a younger age group by creating choices in our music video of which young people can relate too. our band will dress more casually, meaning they will appeal to younger age ranges to help us achieve our aim. We've researched into young age ranges and how then consume music, from the findings we've come to the conclusion that when we've released our song our main source of revenue will be from downloads and from concerts"

We've conducted this pitch to enable us to focus on our main aim and how we will carry out our plan. We hope to show in our video that we have taken young peoples choices into account whilst appealing to other age groups by showing shot of the band.

Conventions Of A Music Video

We have looked at Taio Cruz- Break Your Heart to start our search and analysis of music videos.

This video is what we see as a cliche to music videos. Taio has made his video seem as if all the women want him. At the start he says to a woman in his car "you know I'm only going to break your heart right". This straight away implies that he thinks he is a "babe magnet" and the video then goes on to show women putting their arms around him, which then leads to the woman at the start being pushed away.
The video makes Taio look like a man who has got it all... the women the money and therefore tries to attract his audience by showing of what he supposedly has, hoping people will buy his records because they want to be like him.

What Is A Music Video For And How Are They Changing?

A music video is made to support and put forward the views of the song. The video will usually closely relate to the song. However new and unusual bands are now trying to expand and develop their music video past the "norm" and begin to explore new ways of being different and eccentric.

A music video also helps to increase awareness of a song, because it can be watched and advertised on new technologies such as Ipod, television and computer, this in turn helps to increase band awareness and enables them to create a larger target market because in can be watch on many platforms of the media.
Making a video enables artists to entertain their customers and target audience not only by listning to the song on the radio or MP3 player, but they can phsically see something to relate to a band/ artist.
Producers are also able to put into practice new and unseen ways of making a video.

Below are a band that i think have pushed their video past the norm and have developed an imaginative and unique way of making it.