Monday 20 September 2010

Sweet Child O' Mine [Draft]

Black and White grainy footage for the intro, ideology behind this could connote it is representing some form of social issue, perhaps racism?
Signifiers of a rock band: long hair, leather jackets, tattoo's, smoking, bandana, studs, male jewelry, etc.

Performance style of video, rehearsal? no audience. Good use of behind the scenes footage.

Sexual intent connoted between band members and attractive females, eye contact, cheeky smile.
Perhaps song title and lyrics refer to love interest, Sweet Child O' Mine, maybe they are flashbacks? Possibility that it is a narrative form of music video.

Sub-genres of Heavy Metal

I found atleast 25 sub-genre's of Heavy Metal music, there must be many, many more.

Black Metal - High pitched vocals, similarities to rap.

Celtic Metal - Music mixing traditional Irish folk music with that of Heavy Metal.

Doom Metal - Downturned tempos and thick, heavy musical sounds. Influenced by Black Sabbath.

Gothic Metal - Flamboyant/Melodramatic, with a dark dress sense, vampiric, devils, bats, etc.

Grindcore - often growling in the background and high pitched screams. High Speed tempo and distorted guitar sounds.

Hair Metal/Glam Metal - traditional hard rock music mixed with Punk Rock, strong emphasis on a certain style of dress, long back combed hair, studs, spandex, etc.

Metalcore - Extreme Metal and Hardcore Punk music. Sepultura and Integrity are good examples.

Nu-Metal - Mixture of Grunge and Hip-Hop

Power Metal - Found in mainland Europe, Brazil and Japan. Lighter music with melodies and keyboard music prominent.

Progressive Metal - Guitar lead sounds with complex and unusual structures.

New Wave of British Heavy Metal - Harsher sounds, elements of Punk and a turned up tempo to traditional British Heavy Metal like Led Zep. Examples of this being Iron Maiden and Saxon.

Thrash Metal - Megadeath, Metallica. Deals with social or political issues, trying put a point across, like Megadeath's song "Peace Sells (But Who's Buying?)

Groove Metal - Hard Rock mixed with dance and hip-hop

Industrial Metal - Ministry, Godflesh, Nine Inch Nails

Pirate Metal - Scottish band Alestorm would be a good example of this, they also did a very good version of the Flower of Scotland!

Post-Metal - distorted guitar, gradual build up of the song, least amount of emphasis on vocals.

Sludge Metal - Originating from Southern states of the U.S.A., quite aggressive music, shouted rather than sung vocals and contrasting tempo's.

Speed Metal - Influenced by Motorhead, and to an extent Iron Maiden. Very fast form of metal, use of sounds that are challenging to create.

Stoner Metal - Slow music, with low guitar music. Seen as quite retro.

Avant Garde Metal - also seen as experimental metal, using unconventional sounds, instruments and structure of songs.

Christian Metal

Soft Rock/Adult-Orientated Rock/Arena Rock - Good live performances, with loud audiences participating, use of pyrotechnics, smoke bombs, etc. A lot of focus of chorus and vocal harmonies.

Funk - Red Hot Chili Pepper's is a very good example of this mixing classic heavy metal with african american originated Funk music.

Grunge - classic example would be Nirvana, the sub-genre originates from Seattle, Washington in the 1980's, the idea of heavy distorted electric guitars.

Skateboard

Wednesday 15 September 2010

Summer Task 2010

Down Under - Men at Work
Narrative form of music video, however argueably it also had aspects of performance due to the characters within the video are singing on screen. It is lighthearted, not offensive to a younger audience and also good use of bright colours, quite comical too.
Target audience children but maybe also family? Also use of The Kookaburra Song in the song connotes younger more innocent audience, however could also be irony as the song refers to the drug 'zombie' in the first verse. Polysemic.

Father and Son - Cat Stevens
Performance, also aspects of narrative, no strong clear anchorage as to whether the people on screen are father and son or whether this is the three stages of Cat Stevens life?
Metaphorical with the Chessboard? Whitewash background connote emotionless environment?

Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Performance, but also narrative to an extent through signifiers, being more subtle than purely telling the story. Maybe also some aspects of concept? Bright colours and clothing mixed with the binary opposition of sexual theme and adult suggestive images, youth 15-34 target audience? Reminds me in some respects of Moulin Rouge similar theme and style of clothing, portrayal of characters and setting.

God Save the Queen - The Sex Pistols
Performance video, but with flashback footage which adds aspects of narrative to it, almost a sense of irony, showing Institutions and British icons like the Monarchy, Parliament, British Police Force, etc in a binary opposition to the Punk revolution. Shakey camera work, social realism within the video? More harsh and offensive, trying to make a point.

Born in the U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen
US Flag is the first thing we can denote, the symbol and icon of the United States, irony here in the sense of the song being in fact anti-American to an extent and yet the Star-Spangled Banner is seen as the heroic powerful flag and liberty and freedom, and yet the song is about the US inflicting form of tyranny and oppression in the Vietnam war. Use of flashbacks and also setting up exposition, images of US industry, army, Vietman war against performance of Springsteen in concert.

Alejandro - Lady Gaga
Performance and concept, not enough clear anchorage to signify narrative. Metaphorical symbolism, dark setting, pale skin, metallic costumes. Military style of clothing and background harsh objects like spikes, blades, etc. WWII European uniform clothing. Nazi? Soviet? symbolising persecution of the gay community within the Catholic church.

Candy - Paolo Nutini
Performance and narrative style. Lighthearted, love and marriage signifiers. Blue sky, cheerful. Purity and happiness, bright colours.

Dirty Old Town - The Pogues
Performance, location changes, slight metaphorical symbolism? possibly concept?
Dull colours, street lights, traditional old fashion clothing, not uplifting, mature audience.
Emphasis on the instruments throughout.

You Were Always On My Mind - Pet Shop Boys
Performance and concept. Three shot in a chauffeur driven car, front seat passenger is singer/performer.
Song doesn't seem to connect to images, concept, very 1980's. Styles and costumes and colours.
Pop music and lighthearted.

Three Little Birds - Bob Marley and the Wailers
Narrative/Concept. Black/White linking to social issues? racism? oppression? connoting skin colour? rivalry.
Cartoon images, cheerful song. Young audience, children on screen. Deeper meaning to a happy song?

Rough Ideas for Coursework:

Wild World - Cat Stevens
Could make this quite lighthearted mixed with maybe flashbacks and a binary opposition of more concerning issues. Maybe political? Religious? World poverty, war, freedom, natural disaster, etc.
Could make it about love and loss.

Wherever you will go - The Calling
Nice fast paced music, concept/narrative could work nicely with flashbacks to performance.
Image of a man running through streets, adrenaline making him run for love. Flashbacks of him with his girlfriend being happy contrasting with him being worked up and upset, feeling hurt.

Whiskey In the Jar - Thin Lizzy
Good hearty song, could easily be a nice narrative form of music video with flashback to performance, but also could work well in a concept style. Could add in aspects of Irish culture mixed with modern and traditional.