During our research we looked at a wide variety of album covers to find inspiration for our ideas such as the following:
Album Covers
The album covers shown here are all of a similar genre as our artist so we were able to see some of the conventions of the genre for example the album cover featuring a distinct view of the artist. For example Lauryn Hill's debut solo album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" features a striking focal image that is now a large part of R&B pop culture.
As our artist is releasing their debut album I think it is important to have:
A distinct images of the artist
Artists name
Album cover
Clear colour scheme and aesthetic
Distributor, year of release, barcode, copyright logo, music record logo and contact information
Here are some of the videos that have influenced some of my ideas:
These videos have influenced some of the lighting and visual effects that we hope to achieve in this video. The use of camera angles in this video is very interesting and allow a much closer and more intimate view of the artists. It is very interesting how the videos use colours and visual effects to further convey the lyrics and genre.
These are the final 2 tracks that we have selected and we will now select one to choose.
This song is a R&B garage fusion and switches between fast and slow tempos. Overall the song is quite upbeat and "old-school". The lyrics tell the story of the artist's love and a former love of her being unfaithful. This makes for a good basis for a story line for the music video we may decide to make, it also has a very British style to it.
This song is an upbeat indie song. Due to the type of song it may have limited appeal as it doesn't have as much of a wide reach as more mainstream genres of music like R&B.
Record labels are essential to artists as they provide them with the ability to sell records and gain the necessary information needed to build their artist identity. Even independent record labels are usually part of a larger group as this gives the platform to distribute their music to the wildest audience as possible and the equipment they need to produce professional quality music. Some of the labels that have a big market share are: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. Here are some of the labels under Sony Music UK:
Record labels are companies that produce and market recorded music and music videos. They engage in artist recruitment and development, music publishing and copyright enforcement. Marketing is an essential functions of record labels as it raises public awareness of the label, artist or music and this is how they make their money. Record labels are essential to artists as they provide them with the ability to sell records and gain the skill needed to cultivate their artist identity. Without record labels, it makes it that much harder to have a multi-platform presence as record labels help to provide artist exposure.
For our artist an independent record label would be more suited as they will have the necessary time to teach and support them as they are just starting out. This label would be a subsidiary of a larger music group as this would give them the necessary tools to make authentic and professional music content.
Due to the proliferation of mobile technology over the last decade there has been a clear shift on how music is consumed. This shift has led to streaming services and the online purchase of music overtaking the number of purchases of physical copies of music. Mark Mulligan made a graph to show the shift of the measurements of success for a new generation of digital age artists:
The top 10 charts for singles and albums give me a good insight in to what the trends are like.
Top 10 Albums
Top 10 Singles
From looking at the charts I was able to see that there are a lot of R&B and Rap songs in the top charts with the likes of Post Malone, Camilla Cabello, Rag'N'Bone Man and Ed Sheeran. There is also a demand for more 'old-school' music as Elvis Presley and George Micheal, this could be because younger people want to experience the "golden days of music" and experience a different variety of music compared to what music is like today.
If I had complete control of the decisions made, the type of video I would like to make would involve some sort of interesting and visually stimulating concept. It would be very much about the performance and how the choice of shot types, camera angles, lighting, framing and especially editing helped to further convey the concept. These videos use cool effects and style that I think would be interesting to use:
In terms of what happens in the video I would also want an intriguing dance/ performance such as the movement in Pharcyde - Drop being in reverse:
As many artists are doing now, I think having my video as part of a longer visual album would also work very well. Each video could have a new style to it but there could be an overarching aspect that features in all of them such as location or characters. Examples of these are:
Our target group of interest is the 16-24 year old group, consisting of both genders. This is because our artist's music style is a fusion of garage, R&B and pop music which is very popular within this age group. On the whole younger people are more open to listen to new or different styles of music, this means that our fusion of genres would have a place in the market.
Below Ipsos connects 2016 research showed that 93% of 16-24 year olds consume music from the site Youtube. This is especially important as youtube is the most used music service where 82% of all youtube visitors use it for music.
As well as streaming music online, our audience also attended night clubs to listen to music and dance. They also are among the highest percentage on concert/festival goers in the UK. Below is a graph by Statista conducted in 2016.
