Front Cover
Nicki Minaj, Pink Friday: the text is written along the bottom of the cover in a light grey front in contrast with the word “pink” which is written in a different font and colour. Which defines the whole purpose and ideology of the album concept; the Barbie style and iconography gives a insight into her persona and colours that surround and represent her as a individual. Which connotes the concept of a girly look yet surreal atmosphere being deliver here. The font almost looks like it been written in pink lipstick again keeping the ideology of ‘Barbie’. The rest of the text ‘Nicki Minaj’ and ‘Friday’ is in a thin, grey, capital font on the white background looking very calm and relax, yet it still stands out and captures audience response. The colour pink takes prominence on ‘Nicki Minaj Pink Friday’ cover reinforcing her conventional ‘Barbie’ style, which has become an iconic image for Nicki and her fan base. Her bright pink hair on a baby pink organza material all on the background. The image is a long shot of the artist with a slight high angle; making her seem small to contradict her long legs she ‘supposedly’ has, she is sat down on the backdrop of a solid pink background linking to the album title and her ‘Barbie’ persona. The whole ideology of the Barbie dolls reinforced with her plastic, flawless appearance fits in with Laura Muvley concept of the Male Gaze. ( the idea of a women conforming to a male fantasy within the media industry)

Back cover


The background colour is a light shade of pink, which fades into white; giving the image a more sophisticated look, than just block colours. The tracks numbers are in a dark grey colour but still manage to keep within the neutral themes, while the track titles are in white- which evidently makes it clearer and concise for the reader. This is the deluxe edition; therefore there are two extra tracks, again written in a darker grey colour. Along the bottom on the cover is all the additional information, including producers and technical workers who helped create the album, company logos, parental advisory logo and the anti-piracy warning. Lastly, on the spines there are two strips of a darker pink colour, with the artist name and album title. Image: it’s a long shot of Nicki crouched down on the floor, in a flamboyant, organza pink dress with high heels platform bubblegum pink boots and her bright pink hair- which again embeds the ideology of this typical Barbie icon image with a twist of her own personality. Her posture is straight; she is pouting and has placed her hand in a graceful, yet royal way, to mimic upper class, elite people. This presents her to be very humorous person, which is conveyed through her facial expression and body language.

history of Indie Music

Indie rock is a sub-genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others. Originally used to describe record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock. As grunge and punk revival bands in the US, and then Britpop bands in the UK, broke into the mainstream in the 1990s, it came to be used to identify those acts that retained an outsider and underground perspective. In the 2000s, as a result of changes in the music industry and the growing importance of the Internet, a number of indie rock acts began to enjoy commercial success, leading to questions about its meaningfulness as a term.
Indie rock, derived from "independent", describes the small and relatively low budget labels on which it is released and the do-it-yourself attitude of the bands and artists involved. Although distribution deals are often struck with major corporate companies these labels and the bands they host have attempted to retain their autonomy, leaving them free to explore sounds, emotions and subjects of limited appeal to large, mainstream audiences.

The Maccabees

The Maccabees are a rock band from Brighton, England. They have released two albums so far, Colour It In in 2007, with a follow-up, Wall of Arms, released on 4 May 2009
The band came up with the name by flicking through the Bible and picking out a random word. Despite adopting a name with religious connotations, lead singer Orlando Weeks has more recently affirmed, in an interview on Steve Lamacq's BBC Radio 1 show, that none of the band is religious. Their lyrics often include an atheistic theme, in particular their second album's title track, "Wall of Arms".
Their debut single, "X-Ray", was released on Promise records on 28 November 2005, and received some evening play on London radio station Xfm London. They received little significant exposure, however, until six months later, when they released their second single, "Latchmere", the subject of which is the wave machine at the Latchmere Leisure Centre in Battersea, South London,[2] on Fierce Panda Records in April 2006. This was championed by Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq and received airtime on MTV2. The video, directed by Hugh Frost and Samuel Bebbington, also proved an internet hit after it was posted on YouTube.

26/09/2011

Aims of the lesson:
*To continue thinking about genre in your music video coursework.
*To explore possible opitions in critical perspectives in exam.

Genre
* Typical instruments
* Typical sound/ pace/ volume/ tempo of music
* Typical style of singing
* Context themes
* the look of the Band/ Artist apperance

Icons: something which is really typical of that genre. (Edwin Panofsky) (1933)
Paradigmatic: what we select from genre to put into a video.
Syntagmatic: how we combine them in the music video and how its edited and filmed.

Pleasures of watching a music video?
Visual representation of the song
Fashion within genre and comparsion of am i fashionable
pleasure of lookin (Voyerism) sexual attraction
Music Video with narrative
Product Placement
the video can sometimes make the song

Genres
* Screamo- intensity
* Catharis- getting it all out of your system
* Pop- easy- cheers you up
* Punk- rebellion- rejecting how you should behave

19/09/2011

find at least three examples of didgipaks covers that belong to a chosen genre and at least one magazine advert featuring that genre.

Roland Bathes (Mythology) (1975)
Stage 1- Denotation
Stage 2- Contation
Stage 3- Myth or ideology

Laura Mulvey (Male Gaze)
Sexuality is constructed within existing power relationship.

Analysing Busted Muisc Video

Look at the first minute of the video. Note down how long each shot lasts for - and what happens in each shot. Use terms link connotations to analyse what you see.

The main theme of the music video is the sexual attraction of a schoolteacher from school pupils also members of the band. The shots of the teacher and the connation’s of her actions refers to her as being a sexual object for the fantasy of theses students who seem fascinated by her that she does in the music video in this section of the music video last up to a minute. The contrast to this in this section of the music video is the shots that use the members of the band, who are Charlie Simpson, Matt Willis and also James Bourne.


Examples of this include:

0:04: Eyes of the teacher.
0:11-0:14: Charlie Simpson performing the part of the song which he sings.
0:46-0:51: Band performs in the schoolyard.

What types of shots and camera angles are used? For instance, are there a lot of close-up shots or mid-shots? Are there any high or low angles?

There is a mixture of camera angles and shots in the music video. There are a lot of close-up shots of the teacher and also of the members of the band. This shows the importance of the members of the band because it is their music video and they’re promoting an image to us as the consumer also the teacher is an iconic member of the cast as she is the main attraction for the video. The mid-shots in the music video are of the members of the band when they perform in the schoolyard and also of the other pupils in the class.

Is the video performance-based or does it have a narrative structure? Or is it a mixture of both?

The music video is a mixture of performance-based and narrative-based music videos. This is evident of the use of a story about the members of the band being attracted to one of their teachers at school for the narrative-based part of the music video, it is also evident that it is a performance-based music video because of the members of the band singing the song during the class scenes as well as performing the song with the instruments in the schoolyard.

Busted video; What I Go School for

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzh8G4HdWVU

This image for beyonce i am tour represent her a powerful yet dominated, her feature as a spectular female brings out her diva aptitude in the music business but also as a icon. The dark silhouette on the back gives the impression that this performer is powerful in her performance structure and excels at reaching fans expectations. Beyonce name on the front cover is big, bold and in capitals making her seems as a big phemoumal singer as well as a performer. The DVD symbol on the front cover also audiences to know this a DVD features Beyonce in concert of her latest performance.