Research - Popular Music Theory

It’s important to understand theories and the theorists who made them because we as an audience don’t actually understand the background to why music is how it is today. We are working class people who are seen as dumb and stupid because we follow the popular culture and we need to understand this. As media students, we should definitely have some sort of understanding to the music culture we are around/what we follow everyday of our lives.

Popular Culture Theory.

Popular culture is the understanding of ideas and attitudes of the mainstream culture in society which has a large influence upon us an audience. Popular culture became mainstream in the 1980’s and was influenced by disseminating the cultural material. It was produced through mass media and was able to through the audiences’ cultural products. Mainly our generation follow the popular culture due to how much it relates to our lifestyle. The popular culture theory says that popular music uses slang, imitates our lifestyle and can relate to us as teenagers/young adults.

Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony.

Gramsci was a leading Marxist thinker. He rejected economist and insisted on the independence of ideology from economic determinism. Gramsci also rejected cruse materialism which offers a humanist version of Marxism, also focusing on human subjectivity.

Hegemony - The term means to look down upon the predominance of someone's social class over others (bourgeois hegemony). This represents political and economic control and the ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world. This is so that those who are subordinated by accepting it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural’. This is involving willing and active consent.

Gramsci emphasizes struggle. He said that ‘common sense is not something rigid and immobile, but is continually transforming itself’.

Frankfurt School.

The Frankfurt school refers to a group of german-american theorists who developed powerful analyses of changes in the western society during the war. Two main theorists in the Frankfurt school are max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno.

Both theorists said “Programmes watch for their audiences and popular music hears for those who listen”.

Theodor Adorno.

Adorno made the Hegemony triangle. This explains how the bourgeoisie (higher class people like the government, royal family, politicians, etc.) are the smart ones that know the real meaning of ‘True art’, which consists of jazz, classical and ancient pieces of art. It explains that the working class people (everyone else) are dumb and everything is ‘dumbed down’ for us to understand. The in between is where stars, artists and other entertainers belong. They distract us from the true art that only the bourgeoisie deserve to have as the triangle represents that they will be the only people to understand ‘true art’.

Birmingham school and its theory is also based around the hegemony. Stuart hall is a cultural theorist and sociologist that supports Antonio Gramsci's theory. Stuart Created his theory from 1973 to 1980 and created the 'encoding' and 'decoding' theory. Encoding is a process by which a text is constructed by its producers. Decoding is when the audience read, understand and interpret. Stuart was inspired by Barthes Theory of Decoding and Encoding to create this.

Dick Hebdige mainly studied Subcultures and how they are made within the masses on the Adorno triangle. He is against Adorno's triangle as he suggests that within the working class group they are different personalities and different groups of individuals which will have an interest in different genres of music. not everyone listens to Pop or Hip Hop.

Conclusion: I learnt many different theorists/theories which may agree with each other to go against each other within the music industry and why people are entertained in different ways. My beliefs in the Popular Music Culture Theory is that it is made to entertain and relate to a wide range of audiences and is only made to keep us as an audience entertained. It creates no morals or life lessons which will help an individual, it just entertains with the typical beats and lyrics which everyone hears every single day. Popular Music Culture is repetitive and audiences fall for it all the time.

Research - Dyer's Star Theory

The star theory was designed to show what stars do what they do for the public eye and reasons for this. Star theory is designed for popular culture. The term ‘Stars’ refers to the set of meanings constructed around singers in order to sell their music to a mainstream or loyal audience. The industry shows that the more mainstream you are to an audience, the more money you will earn in your career.

Quoted from Richard dyers book, he said a couple of things which the star must be. This was quite interesting as they contradict themselves;

“The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer”.

“The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer”.

This means that not only should a star be an inspiration and amazing in audiences eyes, they should also relate to the audience in a personal manner. Moreover, the audience should feel connected to the star's music whether they can see them present in a music video or not.

A Performer may or may not be famous, but can perform music. Whereas a pop star has an image which is completely constructed to an audience. An artist which is a performer and not a star is someone like FKA Twigs, she is not known very well but she is an amazing dancer and works great with the camera. In this industry, it’s not always about the talent because if a star isn’t attractive, an audience won’t be as interested as someone who can look attractive on a screen. For example, Selena Gomez is an attractive artist who makes music but can’t sing as good as the likes of Whitney Houston. Whereas, Chris Brown is attractive and has a sex appeal towards a male audience and he has great talent which he shares with the world.

Stars as Constructions:

Stars are constructed and have an artificial image. This helps if their image has a unique selling point. Film stars have their image based on roles they have in films. Music stars have more of an advantage over film stars because they are freer in expressing themselves, which could be dangerous at rhe same time. For example, being too explicit or controversial in their music vided can offend audiences, making them lose their fan base. X Factor is a prime example of showing us the supposed construction process. This shows how an ordinary person can groomed, styled, coached and formed into a ‘Star’ or a record company and build their market expectations.

A prime example is the band one direction. They came into the X factor competition as solo artists in 2010 and was put together as a boy band. The five boys didn’t know who each other were, they were complete strangers. They were put into a band to create a cute, attractive, jolly boy band who will attract a huge teenage fan base who are mainly girls. They blew up in the UK and was constructed into extremely attractive young boys who appeal to young teenage girls.

Industry and Audience:

·         Manufactured to make more money for themselves.

·         Whatever their nature, are quite clearly the product of their record company – and they must be sold.

·         Record companies identify what sells. They produce the same thing over and over again.

·         Always have someone fresh to choose from.

For example, Miley Cyrus’ image in this present moment was constructed because her career on Disney channel was dying. She needed to gain attention to create a brand new image which will attract audiences and make her unique and recognizable, so she can gain money. She wears ridiculous outfits, shows explicit imagery of herself over the internet/in her music videos and says/does crazy things so she is always gaining attention from audiences.

Ideology and Culture:

Stars are represent attitudes from their own beliefs and cultural values, and promote a certain ideology they believe in and agree in. Audience interest in these values enhance their ‘star quality’ and create their own star persona.

Social networks give pop stars to the opportunity to establish their own values outside their music.

For example, in Kanye west’s music video ‘Diamonds are forever’, he represents the mining in Africa for diamonds, gold and other extremely expensive pieces of earth which are valuable to the world. The fact their hard work isn’t recognized and they don’t get paid enough for their work, he wanted to express his views on that through his music video. He uses twitter to express himself and what he feels because he knows that the majority of his fan base, if not all will have access to twitter and will read his tweets on a daily basis.

Character and Personality:

The star is a construct, but the construct that has a foundation of realism. Stars provide audiences with a focus for ideas of ‘what people are supposed to be like’.

 Stars must support hegemony (dominant cultural ideology) by conforming to it (thin/beautiful) or providing difference (fat/still loveable).

For example, J Cole represents realism in both his lyrics and visuals of his music videos. In his music video ‘Lost ones’, he represents realism in pregnancy and being disloyal to one another. He mainly shows the realism of inner feelings in society’s situations such as; relationships.

Do artists/bands have control over their star image?

In my opinion, I believe for a star to be successful in the long run, they need their image to be constructed by a manager figure. For them to build their career and gain a secure/loyal audience, at the beginning they have no power over their image in order to be successful and become as famous as they want to be. Once a star has been in the industry for a while and has secured a large fan base, they can have their star image in their own hands and make their own identity because they have the power.

Conclusion:

This theory is important because it represents how famous people are formed to entertain the world, such as; Katy Perry, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Selena Gomez, etc. This theory shows true colours to artists and expresses their inner thoughts or how fake they can be. However, I want my artist in my music video to show character and personality. I would like to show a real situation with inner feelings being expressed so audiences can relate to the music video and think about the events happening in the narrative of the music video. I don’t want to be mainstream with the typical visuals of men wanting to have sex with women and women disrespecting themselves by dancing in a sexual manner, I want something different and unique within my artist. I want the artist to be naked, but not being unclothed, being real within themselves through the music video. In my music video I would like the artist to show character and personality within their music video, whether its in a happy manner or not.

Research - Star Image

‘Star Image’ is the way an artist is represented to the audience. The most effective way to do this is through music videos as this can reach a mainstream and international audience.

A music video can help an artist’s career in a few ways. Firstly it can build a strong relationship between the artist and their target audience. Also, It can help the artist become more popular in mainstream audiences and can help them share their thoughts and opinions. This makes it able for the artist to express themselves to the public in artistic ways and also makes their visuals come to life. Reputations will grow massively with the help of music videos too.

Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson’s career was a roller coaster from the beginning, right until the end for him. Not only in social ways but also in very strong political ways too.

He started off in Jackson 5, a family band with him and his older brothers. They were extremely successful and were popular worldwide and loved by everyone. Michael Jackson was the lead singer and gained the most attention out of all of them. The Jackson 5 was formed by their father in the early 1960’s. He was seen as a cute, young boy who was innocent inside and out. He was represented as very family orientated and a happy child. Everyone found him adorable. Jackson 5 created hits such as; Blame it on the boogie, who’s loving you, ABC, I’ll be there, and many others.

As a teenager, he went solo into the industry which caused a lot of family problems due to him leaving Jackson 5. This is because they needed him as he was the main attention from the band. His solo career was extremely successful as everyone found him cute but became more mature and grew with his target audience. He made his own songs (which were of course a success), made TV appearances and appeared in films, such as; The Wiz.

Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was released on November 30th 1982. This was where his career was at its highest, most successful point. Thriller was the first short film with horrifying images released to the public, so this was a shock to the audiences eyes as well as gaining a lot of interest. He was extremely popular through all audiences across the world. many other songs he released were extremely popular/successful and became hits, such as; smooth criminal and bad. His songs were beginning to show political and social views to the world, He was representing diversity, equality and positive thoughts to the world which really helped and gave the public positive thoughts about him as a person and an artist.

The final stage of his career was his downfall. Many news reports represented him as a very bad person. Rumours spreading globally gave him a really bad name, The 1990's was when his career slowly had its downfall due to the accusations of serial paedophilia behaviour and continuous sexual assaults were recognized by the public in 1993. In 2005 a trial was held for these accusations people had of the star. During these accusations he was going through physical changes too, He went through a skin disorder called vitiligo, but rumours spread of him bleaching his skin. This caused a lot of political issues due to black people being offended about him apparently bleaching and wanting to be white instead of black. Rumours also spread of him not wanting to be black so this offended the black society massively. He was also diagnosed which a body dysmorphic disorder. In 2003, his father admitted to whipping Michael and all his siblings when they were youngsters. This cleared up the truth from back in the 1960's/70's. In 2002 he was seen by paparazzi hanging his baby out of his balcony. This caused a lot of gried and abuse from the public due to the poor handling of a baby from its father. After all of this damagin drame to him as a person and his career, the overdose of drugs killed him on the 25th of june 2009. His doctor was accused of actually giving him the wrong drugs and more than he should take to purposely kill him. A trial was held in 2011 and his doctor was accused of man slaughter. By the end of his life and career, it was very stressful and this is what led him to his death.

Kylie Minogue

Another example is Kylie Minogue. Her career began in the 1980's and she was targeted at young girls with her cute appearance and jolly songs made. her dancing was energetic and appropriate for younger audiences.
As she got older going into the early 1990's, boys and girls started to become interested in her as she became more mature and independent in her style and the way she sang/looked. She was very confident in herself and began to look sexier, attracting boys attention. However, she wasn't too inappropriate for her target audience, she matured with their age.
As it hit the 2000's she became extremely mature and sexy as she began to make hit songs which played in clubs. Her appearance came across as very sexy and mature in an aggressive and intimidating way towards her female audiences.She was extremely confident in herself and her videos became very falic in her movements, Her clothing was very limited as she showed a lot of skin. For example, in her most recent music video she is extremely sexual and shows a lot of skin in the video. She also bounces on a bouncy ball, showing falic movement.
Her image in her music videos changed over time due to her starting off as a sweet young girl and being very fun and innocent in her music videos to being more mature looking, wearing less and being more sexual. This completely changed the audience's impression of her as a star. Sexual Reasons:
some people can use music videos to exploit or to feel comfortable with their sexuality.

Political Reasons:
Some people can use music videos to exploit or to feel comfortable with their sexuality.

Moral Reasons:
Some people can use these music videos to express their personal opinions on issues that they believe are important,

Social Reasons:
To represent a type of lifestyle or ideologies,

Star image is extremely important in many ways. To attract a target audience, you need to have a star image which will attract them to you. For example, if i used a female artist and i wanted to attract a male audeince, i would represent the female artist as very sexual, minimal clothing and use close up shots of their assets, This will appeal this target audience. If i used a male artist in my music video i would make he is quite attractive to the camera so they can attract a female target audience. However, i would make sure they have talent to attract male audiences aswell. Star image is the way an artist is represented to an audience so they need to be able to hold a stable image for the audience.

Research - Intertexuality

The word ‘Intertextuality’ means to merge two things together. Intertextuality is when something in a music video refers to ideology, past events and known people. Goodwin mentioned Intertextual reference in his music video as it creates an atmosphere on audiences depending on what reference is made in a music video. Whether it creates a negative or positive atmosphere for audiences, it still has an impact on audiences which makes the music video more interesting for audiences. This can be expressed visually or lyrically and must be recognizable for an audience. Almost anything can be referenced in a music video other than a soundtrack. For example, in Nicki Minaj, M.I.A and Madonna’s music video to ‘Gimme All Your Luvin’, the three artists dress up as Marilyn Monroe (Blonde curly hair, lipstick, etc.)

As a class, we analysed George Michael’s music video to ‘shoot the dog’ we found several different intertextual references throughout the whole video. It was very interesting to see how many we could see by watching the music video once through. This is what we came up with:

·         The white house.

·         The Simpsons.

·         Middle East Terror War.

·         Different times that George Michael reinvented himself.

·         Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

·         The Queen.

·         David Beckham and Paul Scholes.

·         Current international relationships.

·         Ginger Spice.

·         Sadam Hussein.

Throughout the whole music video he is mocking all of these intertextual references, which he found quite entertaining, but offended many people such as; British society, celebrities, football fans and war civilians. This video gained a lot of publicity due to the mockery and its strong meaning. George Michael's intertexual references were offensive as it not only just referred to these many different people, the music video made fun of all these people and made a mockery out of them.

My own example is that I researched a music video called ‘La La’ by naughty boy. The whole narrative is based on the same narrative as the old time classic ‘The Wizard of Oz’. A boy travels through streets and meets different characters before he gets to his destination (in the music video). Similar to the wizard of Oz, Dorothy travels down the yellow brick road meeting a scarecrow, tin man, lion and wicked witch of the west who tries stopping their journey to the emerald city to meet the wizard of Oz. This is all very similar and due to this, it’s known as an intertextual reference in the music industry.

My other example that I researched is that one direction also made an intertextual reference to the Beatles. In one directions music video they walked across the famous Abbey Road just like The Beatles famously did in their music video. This was easily recognizable due to The Beatles making that road extremely famous, then, one direction’s success was being compared to The Beatles so the walk across Abbey Road in the music video made sense to the audience and was recognized straight away.

Intertextual reference is used by artists in their music videos for many reasons, which are;

·         Personal views.

·         Own entertainment.

·         Clearer understanding.

·         Strengthen fan base.

·         New and original.

·         Tells the artists story.

Criticism:

·         Too controversial for audiences eyes.

·         Offensive to audiences or other artists.

·         Influencing other people’s opinions on political or social views.

·         Spreads negativity publicly.

·         An artist can lose a fan base.

Personally, I think that an intertextual reference in a music video is very clever and is interesting to point out as a spectator. However, I can also understand how some intertextual references may be offensive to people. For example, when George Michael mocks the Royal family/parliament, they are very important for Britain so many British citizens, as well as the royal family and parliament themselves, may have been offended by the mockery.

I would like to use intertextual reference in my music videos because it’s never been done before and I would love to try it out in an interesting/clever way. If possible, I would like to refer to a celebrity or maybe a past event in a part of the music video, just to represent a something significant. My ideas of using a trap song and maybe using the idea of crime in my final product, a past event in the crime industry could be referenced, this would be interesting to add to the music video. Also, I would possibly like to reference a celebrity if that can possibly be linked with my narrative. Overall, an intertextual reference is a very clever piece of input for a music video.

Research - Mulvey's Male Gaze

The theory of the male gaze by Laura Mulvey started in 1975. The theory shows a feminist view of how women are represented. The camera is seen from a heterosexual male and lingers around female assets. Woman are both passive and active towards the way women are represented in music videos through mulvey's theory due to young women copying and portraying actions from women in music videos such as; Twerking. The women represented through this theory as seen in three different ways due to who the person is, such as;

·         From a man’s point of view, the women are seen as sexy, pleasurable to look at and are seen as an ‘object’.

·         From the female on screen’s point of view, they see themselves as sexy, they are confident within themselves to show off their body to the world through music videos, feel powerful and also feel good because they are making money by representing their own assets on camera.

·         From another female’s point of view, they look at the women in these music videos as promiscuous women that do not respect their bodies, disgusting and disagree with their way of making money.

My first example of a music video that shows Mulvey’s male gaze is ‘Satisfaction’ by Benny Benassi. The whole video is based around half naked women using building equipment in a promiscuous way. The women use phallic objects which represent sexual movement between a man and a female, which also represents these woman as promiscuous and interested in sex. For example, the drill is a phallic object. Many close ups are used to show detail in female assets such as bottom, breast and lips which mime the lyrics to the song.

My second example of a music video that shows Mulvey’s male gaze is ‘Partition’ by Beyoncé. The camera around Beyonce mainly shows her female assets being touched by her husband jay z which is representing her as very sexual and promiscuous in this music video. The whole video is her being very sexual within herself and towards her husband Jay Z, which is not only shown in the visuals but also heard in the lyrics.

My third example of a music video that shows Mulvey’s male gaze is ‘Pour It Up’ by Rihanna. The camera focuses on her twerking on poles and chairs which is phallic and represents her as promiscuous. This completely shows Mulvey’s theory due to the whole music video being on pole dancers and their bodies moving in slow motion and at a normal pace, doing very various movements such as; twerking, whining and promiscuous dancing which is appealing for a heterosexual male.

Criticisms of the theory:

·         The theory is only for heterosexual male’s eyes, going against/not considering gay or lesbian people.

·         Excludes cultural, social and religious views.

·         The theory says men are never sexy, which isn’t true.

·         Doesn’t consider female opinion.

·         Some women enjoy being looked at.

·         Doesn’t include female empowerment, however, Beyoncé tries to portray this in her image.

·         Exposing to younger generations.

·         Going to effect a female opinion.

Only some genres use the male gaze theory, such as; R&B, Hip Hop, Rap, Salsa and Bashment. Whereas, some genres do not use the male gaze theory, such as; Jazz, Classical, Country, Metal and Soul. Also, some genres are in the middle as they will only use the male gaze theory in some music videos, such as; House, Pop and Dance. I have used these genres because of the fact that the lyrics usually relate to love and sex, so the movement and representation of this theory will link with the lyrics, creating as relationship between the lyrics and visuals. Also, the relationship between the music and visuals could represent mulvey's theory and fit together due to the movements being created on certain beats which makes a sexual atmosphere for the audience.

My genre of trap music won’t really be needing this theory, but this might be used due to the constant visuals of women powering over men and being rebellious. However, this all depends on the way we want to portray women in our music video.