Synergy is very important when releasing a new song or album. It allows the artist to promote their new content, while also promoting their older content. However, in order for the artist top be known, they need to keep up the same style throughout all of their media outlets. They can't have a bright, joyful pink website, but a dark and gloomy CD cover, without it matching up in some way.
The Weeknd's website advertises his latest music video straight away, and then advertises his latest album underneath. Throughout most of his media outlets he contrasts dark colours, with bold, bright colours. He continues this throughout his website, by using a black background. This also allows his latest album cover to be more prominent, and catch not only the users attention, but also the attention of anyone near the device that it is being viewed on. The contrast between the light and dark also reflect the hidden story behind The Weekind's music videos, which have been explored in a previous post. The story tries to show an ongoing fight between The Weeknd's conscience and the devil (his fame). The darkness represents the devil taking over, whereas the bright colours (along with the bright crosses) are The Weeknd's conscience trying to regain control.
The Weeknd continues this theme throughout his 'Starboy' album cover, and any album covers for his singles that he has released (such as 'Party Monster', 'I feel it coming', and 'False Alarm'). This allows the audience to recognise his image when in a shop, making it easier for them to find and purchase his products. This is also the theme he tries to use in his music videos, as he contrasts colours. This is especially shown in his 'Starboy' music video where he has a giant, bright pink cross in a dark room. This religious icon helps to show the fight against fame that The Weeknd is a part of.
Some music videos follow a narrative, intended to link the lyrics and visuals to tell a story. This needs to be easy to follow as the only sound it contains, are the song, so this is why the lyrics must match. If a music video is pure narrative then it won't contain any lip syncing at all, as it tryies to create a sense of realism. However, the most common type of narrative is performance narrative which includes some sort of performance, but also tries to tell a narrative. The music video often tries to include a meaningful story.
For example, Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal tells the story of a 1930's gangster. The video was directed by Colin Chilvers who had previously directed films such as 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' and 'Superman'. This is where he got his inspiration from, and why the music video is so narrative based.
The Weeknd also creates many narrative music videos. However, his are different as they all link together, following one big narrative. His videos tell the story of someone who has sold his soul to the devil (his fame). All of his videos follow the narrative, and although he hasn't confirmed this fan theory himself, he continues to play with this idea.
The narrative starts with 'The Hills' which starts of the video with a car crash showing The Weeknd and two women in the crash. As he starts walking away from the car the two women start pushing and blaming him, but he seems completely unfazed and continues to walk away. The rest of the video shows him walking to this unknown destination, until near the end. He enters a large house, and walks up the stairs to a red room. We then see a POV shot of a man on a sofa with the two women from the car with him. The man is holding and apple, which refers to the story of genesis in the Bible, where the snake gets Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. This suggests that this man in the red room is the devil, and he has been expecting The Weeknd to show up.
The next video in the narrative is 'Can't feel my face'. This video starts of with The Weeknd standing on stage singing in a club in front of an audience. At the beginning of the video most people seem disinterested in the Weeknd's music and don't interact with it. He then continues to sing and the 'devil' from the previous video appears and sits at the front. He watches The Weeknd as he continues to sing and get a drink thrown on him. As the devil continues to watch, he sees the audiences disinterest. This is the part where the Weekend starts to give in to the fame./To show the Weeknd how good fame is, he throws his lighter and sets him on fire. The audience take interest and get up and start dancing as the Weeknd continues to sing and dance while on fire. Although he is burning, he has gained the fame and power form the devil. However, as he continues to dance, he becomes too deep into his dealings with the devil, and continues in this path.
After 'Can't feel my face' we get 'Often' which is an NSFW music video, showing the Weeknd's fame in action. After the devil helped him to succeed and become famous, IN this video, the devil can be seen bringing the Weeknd Champagne and glasses. This shows that he is continuing to feed The Weeknd and give him false ideas of how good the fame is. He continues to create the illusion that everything is great and although the devil is helping him, he is actually making The Weeknd's life better.
The next video is 'Tell your friends' This video starts of with a burning bush, another Biblical reference. In the biblical story this is where God told Moses to lead the Israelite's out of Bethlehem to save them. This is where we believe that the Weeknd has been told to do the right thing, as he goes to bury someone. This someone is believed to be his old self, the one consumed by fame, who sold his soul to the devil. As he finishes burying himself, we see the devil walking towards him. He they both start walking together and as they come close, the Weeknd shoots the devil. He tries to put a stop to his old self. As the song starts top end, the music changes and we see what is asumed to be the devils Bentley. This creates a link between music and visuals as Andrew Goodwin said, as the music gets faster in pace, and we see the Weeknd decide to become the devil, as he gets in the car and drives away.
The next video is 'In the night' which adds to the illusion the The Weeknd is now the devil. The Weeknd has now been completely overrun by fame, as we see him being bombarded by paparazzi, girls and money. He is being hunted by other people who want this fame from him, but he is being protected by multiple women. However, two off the women who protect him are from the previous videos, they are the women who used to serve the devil. This continues to create the illusion that The Weeknd is now the devil as hye now has power over these women.
After this we have 'Starboy' which is the first video from his new project. This video continues the story as he tries to get rid of the devil inside of him. At the beginning of the video we see him killing himself by placing plastic over his face and suffocating him. His new hair is also an icon for his new self. He has changed and he wants to leave all of his fame behind him, as this is what made him be consumed by the devil. To do this he starts smashing up all of his trophies and awards won by his career with a massive cross, a symbol of Christianity. This is a metaphor, to show that he wants to leave his fame and fortune behind him, but he can't quite let go as we see him driving away in a sports car at the end of the video.
After this, we have 'False alarm' which follows The Weeknd in a first person view of a bank heist. The video is after he has given up his fame and fortune, so he turns to theft. he robs a bank, but his conscience got in his way, as he ended up with no money at the end. Throughout the video we see many people dying and we see a hostage which although she is used as bait at one point, The Weeknd doesn't actually want her dead. We see this because at the end of the video The Weeknd and the hostage are the only ones left. He gives her the key to the handcuffs and she takes the money and leaves. He has the opportunity to shoot at her but he doesn't as he still has a conscience. We then see that it is The Weeknd as he looks in the mirror to his right, just before he shoots himself.
The next video is 'Party Monster' where The Weeknd has died and gone to hell (literally). After he shot himself in the previous video, he has now gone to hell and is starting to try and have fun. However, he still has his conscience, and he keeps trying to hang on to it, as we see the red crosses appearing throughout the video. He is also seen with multiple women and is seen driving around in a sports car. He is now trying to embrace what he has became, but is still struggling. However, because he is the devil, hell is not a bad place for him, the only bad thing for him is his mind.
This satanic view also connects with his cover art for the physical copy of Starboy. The Weeknd uses cross media convergence to help further prove this theory, as his physical copy displays three rows of six symbols, which is the devils number 666. Also the star on the vinyl refers to Lucifer (the devil) as Lucifer means morning star in Latin, as the devil was supposed to have fallen from the sky like a falling star. This is another reason why he calls himself starboy.
The whole of The Weeknd's story is a metaphor to show the audience how fame is the devils work, and how it has taken over his life (not for the better). He tries top tell the audience that there is more important thing, and when you start top do wrong, eventually it takes over and consumes you (as he eventually became the devil).
Intertextuality is the way in which media texts refer to another. This can either be obvious or just small, subtle hints throughout the text. Intertextuality may refer to other the same texts or different texts such as music videos, movies, literature, TV shows and even historical events.
POP 101 - Marianas Trench
Marianas Trench song POP 101 is supposed to be a song which teaches us how a pop song is made. Throughout the music video it gives many references to different popular music videos of the time.
At the start of the video Marianas Trench makes reference to Iggy azalea's Fancy music video, as he parodies it to show that he is going to be teaching us how to create a pop song.
Later on we see the 'iconic' party scene from pop songs. This part of the video uses iconography to show the use of alcohol through the plastic red cups. In this scene we also see a slow motion builder spraying alcohol on himself to try and create a sexual look. This gives reference to the satisfaction music video which was highly sexualised.
Marianas Trench then continues to make reference to the black eyed peas by copying their I gotta feeling music video, and even linking the visuals with the lyrics which go 'guitar and strings like these to sound like black eyed peas'.
After this they make reference to Mumford and Sons by making it look like they have recorded it in a barn, and by copying the instruments they have used. This also shows that, as Rick Altman said, there is no more pure genre. Mumford and Sons is a cross between pop and country which is shown by the location, as barns and hay is an icon for country music, as is the banjo which is used in both videos.
Marianas Trench then continue to recreate even more music videos by creating the controversial 'Blurred Lines' music video. This was controversial for many reasons, the main one being the high amount of nudity in the video. However, in the Marianas Trench POP 101 version, the cover up the nudity.
Marianas Trench even pay homage to Katy Perry by recreating her as a person with bright pink hair. This is another example of how popular artists have specific icons, such as Katy Perry's bright hair from her California girls video.
He then tries to recreate another controversial music video which was Miley Cyrus' We Can't Stop music video by copying the close up shots of her face. After she changed her image from a 'good girl' country singer to a pop artist who doesn't care about what people think, a lot of people judged her so she continued to do what she wants. However, because of the controversy, Miley Cyrus ended up being plastered all over the news and therefore ended up being well known and managed to get we can't stop up to number two on the billboard hot 100.
Pop 101 also reflects the zeitgeist by showing twerking. This dance move originated in the 1980's but then came back when Miley Cyrus started twerking at the MTV music awards in 2013 and has since became a popular dance move.
Theyt even try and duplicate LMFAO's popular music video, sexy and I know it. They use the same hair and glasses, to make it obvious what they are doing.
Can an artist change their image without loosing their fans?
Many artists have a certain image to represent, sometimes decided by them and sometimes decided by their record labels. These images are also mainly influenced by their genre of music. Many artists keep the same image and genre of music throughout their career, as changing it risks them loosing fans. However, this is not the case for many artists, as some (such as Kanye West, David Bowie and Michael Bolton) managed to change their genre, but keep their career.
Taylor Swift is also another popular artists who has changed multiple times but still kept her career. She started off as an opera singer when she was younger, after following in her grandmothers footsteps. She then decided to become a country singer and released her first song called Tim McGraw which became a top ten hit in the country charts.
She then went on and decided to start changing her genre by creating country pop music. In 2008 she created the album 'fearless' which stayed at the top of the charts for 11 weeks. This shows that even early on, as she was developing she could still change her genre.
In 2009 at the music video awards Taylor Swift's speech was interrupted by Kanye West which helped boost her career, as it gave her more publicity.
In 2010 she released 'speak now' and then 'red' in 2012, both of which stayed with the country theme, but still moved closer towards the pop genre. These helped her to receive the CMA pinnacle award in 2013 for her positive impact on country music.
She then moved even further away from her country roots and released 1984 in 2014 which was a pop album. However, changing her genre had managed to help her keep her music new and not outdated. This helped her win album of the year.
And in 2017 she released 'Look what you made me do' which completely changes Taylor's image. She's changed to pop music completely and decided to change her image to show that she shouldn't be messed with.
To first establish how artists portray genres, and how to create my own I need to know what a genre is, and what different types of genres there are.
A genre is something that identifies and can help to categorise different types of music. Similar genres usually contain general conventions and characteristics. There are many different types of music genres such as reggae, pop, heavy metal, punk and so on. However, even these can then be further categorised, like pop can then be further categorised into teen pop, latin pop. pop punk etc. However, these classifications are only labels, and although they can be used to classify songs (for example on spotify) and can make it easier when finding similar music, some people may disagree on what genre an artist is.
How do artists manage to create their own image? What do we expect to see depending on the genre?
In this section we are talking about album covers, and how these are different depending on the genre. Most different genres are shows through the different iconography.
Typography - This is important when creating an image because it can often represent the music. For example, dance music often uses geometric typography which represents the structure of their music.
Image (portraits) - Many record labels use images of faces and bodies as a selling point for albums. This is because the notion that 'sex sells' is indeed true. However, some people (such as catfish and the bottlemen in the first album) decide not to show their faces in the album cover as they believe that their music is more important than their looks.
Colours - Colours are very important when creating an image or trying to sculpt a certain genre to the audience. Bright colours are often used to create a feeling of content and to show that the album will give off a positive message. Whereas many grime artists use dark colours to show that their music isn't going to be upbeat. This also helps to give a quick impression to the audience as to what music they will be listening to.
Although music genres and classifications can be used for good (when looking for similar music) it can also be a bad thing. Sometimes the classification of certain music can stop it from being found. Some listeners won't listen to music if its not classified as being their preferred genre. This means that there may be loads of music out there which you aren't listening to because it is 'completely different' to what you usually listen to because it is a different genre. Genre can also influence how artists behave or look and may restrict them from changing their music or their appearance. One artist who has changed her music and her appearance many times is Taylor Swift but I will go into more detail about that in a separate post.
John Hartley (1994) supported the above statement by saying 'genres are agents of ideological closure - they limit the meaning-potential of a given text'. Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress (1988) also supported this by saying that genre 'control the behavior of producers of such texts, and the expectation of potential consumers'.
Another interesting thing is how are genre's decided? The record labels and artists help to choose a genre, but this is influenced by their music. The artist can try and decide to create a certain genre of music but if the audience decide that it belongs in a different genre then there is nothing that the artist can do about it. However, now many different algorithms are used to decide which genre music fits into the most. These algorithms use many different factors such as similar music to it, volume, instruments etc. These algorithms are what companies like Spotify and Apple use when selling music under certain genres.
However, Rick Altman (1999) now argues that there is no such thing as 'pure' genre anymore and that genre is now progressive, meaning that it will always be changing. He continues to say that generic conventions are now a thing of the past, as hybrid genres are taking over. Hybrid genres borrow conventions from other genres, therefore resulting in new genres being made.
