RESEARCH: TRENDS

WHAT HAS BEEN REALLY POPULAR THIS SUMMER? 

Summer songs are made for the radio. The Summer is the time for playing music really loud, practically anywhere, in the garden or from your radio in your car. The radio is way these songs become popular, and thats how we identify the summer songs of 2013. These songs are then also played abroad, and having been abroad to Malia this summer, i recognised nearly every song played. 

The past three months have been no different from every other summer. From the retro disco-funk singles to the crossover EDM smash, the emotional street rap to the bubble-gum pop. Artists such as Miley Cyrus have been extremely popular, with other artists such as Storm Queen also being popular this summer. The summer consists of many different genres of music and these have all made our summer playlists, whether its JayZ's - Holy Grail or Miley Cyrus' - We Can't Stop.  

You'll find a mixed opinion on what were the best genres of music for the summer and thats because, everyone has different tastes and there's nothing we can do to distinguish every individuals favourite genre. Online especially, many websites claim to have the list of the best and most popular songs of summer 2013, however they are all irrelevant to each other, as each website is OPINION based. However, in my opinion the most listened to genres of the summer have been electro, dance, pop and rap. Pretty much the same as every year. 

Here is a list below of the most listened too artists of the summer. These are the most common I could find on each representing website: 

1. Lil Wayne

2. Jay Z

3. Zedd 

4. Big Sean

5. Ariana Grande

6. Miley Cyrus 

7. A$AP Rocky

8. Drake

9. Daft Punk

10. Robin Thicke 

RESEARCH: MORAL PANICS

MORAL PANICS

"Moral panics then, are those processes whereby members of a society and culture become 'morally sensitized' to the challenges and menaces posed to 'their' accepted values and ways of life, by the activities of groups defined as deviant. The process underscores the importance of the mass media in providing, maintaining and 'policing' the available frameworks and definitions of deviance, which structure both public awareness of, and attitudes towards, social problems." - http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/mediaviolence/violence.php?pageID=moral

The 3rd of September, 2012, marked The Department of Culture, Media and Sport closing a three-month consultation that observers believed would end a loophole, which meant DVD's with titles like The Bitch of Buchenwald and Britains' Bloodiest Serial Killers can claim exemption from being given age guidance by the British Board of Film Classification. 

Things stand at the moment that, most sport, documentary and music videos can claim an exemption from classification. "The great majority of exempt video works are fine," said the BBFC's head of policy, David Austin. "They are not going to harm anyone, but there are a significant number of titles that are potentially harmful to children.'

The BBFC estimated that around 200 videos might be caught by a change in the law.

There have been many examples of videos that have claimed exemption but would have been classified. Some are much more serious than others. One of the more shocking is a documentary about the American heavy metal band Slipknot. It shows one fan who has carved the word Slipknot in to her forearm and another who has done the same in her belly, to which someone is seen pointing in admiration, which is entirely inappropriate for young children who are being introduced to many types of music such as Slipknot by the internet. Many videos are setting a terrible example for young children such as this one. 

There is a certain amount of freedom in the music industry these days, and this is positive in ways as it allows unique artists to express themselves, however I believe this needs to be monitored in order for the artists to avoid pushing the boundaries of what is appropriate and what is setting a good example. An example of an artist seen to be pushing the boundary, is Miley Cyrus in her new video Wrecking Ball, where she is seen swinging on a ball completely naked.

I think that music videos in general are definitely pushing moral boundaries by becoming more pornographic, extreme and violent. Miley Cyrus is an example of an artist who is believed to be verging on pornographic, and is considered inappropriate. Slipknots videos are an example of music videos definitely becoming too violent with scenes of self harm not setting a good example for young children who admire these people. 

Performers like Miley Cyrus really need to take into regard the appropriateness of their videos considering the young fans that she possess'. Some young fan will look at this video and want to follow the way Cyrus dresses' which is very inappropriate and setting a terrible example, with some young fans being so young following Cyrus all the way back from her days in the Disney show 'Hannah Montana'.

RESEARCH: STARDOM

STARDOM - click here to view the website where my information is based

Richard Dyer's Star Theory applied to Pop Star

In one of our lessons we learnt about a man called Richard Dyer, and his 'Star Theory' which applied to everyday pop stars. One of the reasons so many pop stars are described as stars, is because they are extremely quickly promoted to fame by the management they are under, according to Dyer. Pop stars however are not always promoted in a positive way, with scandalous stories being published every day about pop stars in popular magazines such as HEAT, we can get a flavour of why these people become famous so quickly. We completely forget about the music side of things, when reading about love affairs etc, and therefore it almost seems like several performers 'jump' the actual performance stage to fame, however, they do go through it eventually. 

Dyer said that a TRUE pop star has lasting significance upon its audience and will live as a legend even when dead. He claims that many of the top 40 chart stars at the moment haven't created any impact on social or environmental factors across the globe and will therefore in a number of years be forgotten by their fans, whilst they move onto someone or something long term. 

Dyer proposes that: 

'A star is an image not a real person that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (eg advertising, magazines etc as well as films [music]).' 

This is the website used to research Stardom - http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/Music/music.php?pageID=popstar

 Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve a purpose — to make money out of audiences, these audiences then respond to the 'star' by buying the several singles and albums released by the artist. These stars that are produced each year are what keep the record companies running as the companies get a large cut in the profits from how much a single or album makes. Record companies nurture and shape their stars — as the TV talent show processes have shown us. The record companies tend to manufacture what they think their audiences want, such as the increasing number of boy bands as of late. However, there are many people and markets of music that do not conform to the hype of todays music produced by 'stars' as they believe the music is too manufactured and not setting a good example for the youth of today. 

RESEARCH: MUSIC TV CHANNELS

MTV

MTV (Music Television) is run by an American satellite RV channel owned by the MTV Networks Music and Logo Group, which is also a part of the giant company Viacom. MTV was launched on August 1, 1981, the purpose of the channel originally was meant to be for music videos but over the years it has changed more into a TV channel full of reality TV shows, and has become extremely popular with TV shows such as Jersey Shore and Geordie Shore proving massive hits. MTV targeted younger audiences at the beginning of its launch but now focus's more on the older generation - mainly 16+ due to the nature of the TV shows played on the channel. 


MTV allowed many up and coming bands to promote their music successfully and quickly, with many of the bands using this technique becoming extremely popular: e.g. Duran Duran. The first ever music video to be played on MTV was Video Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles.  

Sourcing from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV

4Music

Sourcing from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4Music

4Music is a music and entertainment channel in the United Kingdom and is available for a vast minority in the Republic of Ireland. The channel launched on 15 August 2008, replacing The Hits. It is the only Channel 4-branded channel within the Box Television network. It is available on Freeview, Virgin Media, Sky and Smallworld Cable. On 2 April 2013, all Box Television channels went free-to-air on satellite, apart from 4Music which went free-to-view. As a result the channels were removed from the Sky EPG in Ireland.

Viva

Sourcing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viva_%28UK_and_Ireland%29

Viva (comes across as, VIVA) is a music video and entertainment channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The channel was officially launched on 26 October 2009 by Alexandra Burke, with an exclusive live performance of her single "Bad Boys". The channel replaced TMF. The channel is owned by Viacom International Media Networks Europe and was originally a German channel. It is also the first channel from MTV that is on Freeview. It launched on 26 October 2009.

TREATMENT for Music Video - Californication

Treatment for Californication Red Hot Chilli Peppers (directed by….2000) 3:22 cut off? The genre of our music video is rock from a mainstream American band which is known for its songs, By the Way and Under the Bridge. Our video opens with the band picking up instruments and beginning to play. There are 4 band members: guitarist, bassist, drummer and singer. There will be shots of the band playing all through the song cut in with quick editing. There will be a narrative treatment that loosely illustrates the lyrics. The story of the video will be a girl (Ellie) crossing through different environments in a dream-like world reflecting the dream-like state of Hollywood. In this we intend to convey the preferred reading of the text as an exposé or satire on Hollywood values.Amongst the scenes are Hawaiian shirts, cocktails, As she goes through these different scenarios, various obstacles will arise to block her path and they will have some connection to the lyrics e.g “pay your surgeon very well”. Someone in white with a scalpel will attempt to perform an operation on her.She will transition through the various locations and at the end she will wake up in front of the tv watching a Hollywood blockbuster (this will be chosen to be something particularly trashy to reflect the plasticity and fake-ness of Hollywood) like Legally Blonde.

Further Californication Music Video Planning

Californication - Red Hot Chilli Peppers

In today's lesson, Ellie, Max and I continued our planning of the music video on the song Californication by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. We spoke to our teacher for advice on what we could use for idea's and to try and get a better picture of what California was actually like, considering she had visited there with her family. She showed us many pictures of her holiday and it gave us a real insight of what we had to try and represent in our music video. This included clear, sandy beaches on a sunny day, beach huts and clear views. The song itself speaks of how California, Hollywood is a place of dreams and how some area's remain the same, whilst the majority of Hollywood is fake and manufactured, therefore, we need to take the lyrics of the song into account and represent the manufactured side of Hollywood as well, otherwise the music video will contradict the lyrics and therefore won't make much sense. 

We came up with the final idea today, that we would have Ellie (girl in our group) running through a 'dreamlike state' through what would appear to be Hollywood. However, as she runs through this dream like state and place she is blocked by many obstacles in her way, and these obstacles and objects represent some of the issues raised in the lyrics of the song, mainly about the fake and manufactured side of Hollywood, California. For example, she could be stopped or chased by a person dressed in all white, in a surgeons costume with a scalpel in hand, symbolising the plastic surgery in the song lyrics to beat the natural process of ageing. The reason we chose the idea of Ellie running through a dream like state was because Hollywood is represented as a dream to most people, however, when you actually live the dream you come across some nightmares, and the objects Ellie gets stopped by, are the nightmares. 

'Pay your surgeon very well

To break the spell of ageing'

We also talked about having an overweight man seen in the video wearing a Hawaiian shirt, to also represent the Hollywood image. The fat man could be anyone we wanted to use as it isn't hard to get hold of a Hawaiian shirt, however it will be hard to find a volunteer who is willing to come to a beach with us to film a couple of minutes worth of shots. The drink 'Mojito' is also very popular in California, Hollywood according to our teacher and therefore we decided that the man should be drinking a Mojito during the shot and that it would really represent the Hollywood image well. 

This moved onto the next point which was, that we needed to find time to perhaps visit a beach and film some shots there to represent the California beaches that are supposedly exceptionally dreamy. Upon looking at pictures of the Californian beaches, provided by our teacher, we decided that we definitely needed to visit a beach in order to show the Hollywood, California, image. We decided that we would either go to West Wittering, or Brighton. We probably are going to go to West Wittering due to the fact that West Wittering has sandy beaches, whilst Brighton is 99% pebbled beaches and wouldn't represent the Hollywood image well enough. Looking at pictures its also vital we try to go and film on a sunny day before winter strikes. 

We are still currently brainstormed new ideas, however so far this is all we have and it is going very well. We already knew that we would have band scenes cutting between shots as that seemed pretty obvious and essential with all three of us being able to, or have played an instrument in the past, with two of us being guitarists whilst the other has briefly played the drums. 

Chosen song for music video - Californication - Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Californication - Red Hot Chilli Peppers

On Friday 20th of September, Ellie, Max and I came to a conclusion as to what song we were going to use for our music video. We agreed on Californication as we all liked the song and had some great idea's as to what we could do for the actual music video. We also learnt about a man called Theodore Adorno who's views on culture had relevance to the song and could have helped us come up with even more idea's as to what we could do for the music video and an understanding of the song itself and what it's talking about.

The song 'Californication' focuses on the darker side of Hollywood. The song focuses on the deterioration of society and how 'plastic' and 'fake' the world is, much like Hollywood - according to the Peppers. The RHCP's started their band together in Hollywood and therefore have a strong understanding of the people and culture's in Hollywood.

Many of the lyrics continue to explain about the plastic unrealistic image that Hollywood portrays and the young forever image it sells to young people. 
For example:
"Little girls from Sweden dream of silver screen quotations." - Becoming famous.

"Pay your surgeon very well to break the spell of aging" - The Hollywood 'young' image.

"And buy me a star on the boulevard, It's Californication." - Dreaming of endless possibilities.

"Space may be the final frontier but it's made in a Hollywood basement." - The image that Hollywood sells is manufactured and fake. 

Theodore Adorno shares the same views as the song Californication about the manufacturing of cultures and the inappropriate images and promises it expresses. Adorno said that the culture industries produce 'unsophisticated' products that replace critical art forms which then makes people forget about the important things such as the question of social life and the meaning of it altogether. He also said that people are too materialistic and like things purely because of how much they cost, or if everyone else has one. A lot of the things Adorno says here are very relevant to the song Californication and it was therefore, extremely important that we learnt and studied about him and it will be a big help when coming to shoot the video and to write about it.