GENERIC RESEARCH: Industry Research

How has the music industry changed?

The music industry has changed a lot over time, especially in the last 10 years. Streaming has changed the way we listen to music, and is more popular than ever – Spotify currently has 130 million premium subscribers. Streaming currently makes up 80% of the music industry’s revenue, and CDs, which have drastically declined in sales over the past decade, now only make up 9% of the industry’s revenue. Vinyl has made a comeback, but nowadays most artists make the majority of their money through streams and selling merchandise, whereas this was previously made by selling CDs and vinyls.
These are all things I will have to bear in mind when designing my website. Having links to streaming platforms will be essential, and will encourage people who visit the website to download the music (especially since streaming is very popular amongst my target demographic). Featuring a merchandise store on my website will also be a good idea, as this is one of the main ways artists make money. On this merchandise store I will feature products such as t-shirts and hoodies, as well as the option to purchase the album digitally, or purchase the physical copy on vinyl. Vinyls may not make as much money for artists as they used to, but they are still quite popular amongst my target demographic (my website research showed me this, as all the websites I looked at had the option to purchase vinyl albums on their merchandise store).

What role does Warner Music Group play in the industry?

Warner Music Group (WMG) is a record label conglomerate owned by Warner Bros. It’s one of the ‘big three’ recording companies along with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, and WMG owns some of the largest and most successful labels in the world, including Atlantic Records, Parlophone, Warner Records, and Elektra Records. There are a lot of big mainstream artists signed to Warner, such as Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, and Charlie Puth, but the label also signs some smaller artists, such as Cavetown and Hobo Johnson. This means that there are a range of music videos produced by artists signed to Warner, from large scale productions intending on appealing to a large mainstream audience, to smaller productions made mainly for fans of the artist. My music video will be more like the latter, because of both the record label and my target demographic (a socially conscious, 16-25 year old, middle to upmarket demographic, rather than a big mainstream audience).

PLANNING: First Ideas

GENERIC RESEARCH: Language and Digital Convergence

How do media producers use language to communicate meaning?
Media producers use language such as shot types, camera movement, angles, intertextuality, lighting, colour palettes, editing, and mise-en-scène to help create meaning. For example, intertextuality helps media producers create and communicate meaning by borrowing meaning from other media texts. Music videos are a short form, meaning that they often don’t have time to establish a clear narrative and create meaning, so intertextuality can help music videos establish these things by borrowing meaning from other media texts. Intertextuality also allows audiences to feel a sense of gratification if they understand the reference. Shot types and editing can also change the pace of a music video to help it fit the song nicely.

How do media producers use digital convergence to link their products?
Media producers use digital convergence to link their products in many different ways. Some examples include using a similar house style/colour scheme in both a music video and on the website, linking social media on an artists website, and bonus content (like an interview with the artist) or Easter eggs on the website that link to things in the music video.

Revision of Pitch

Following up on my generic research and audience research, these are my current ideas for what I will feature in my music video and on my website.

I still want my music video to focus on narrative, but I think I will also include a performance aspect throughout the video. This was something that my focus group liked the idea of, and it would also allow me to get more close ups of the artist, reflecting Andrew Goodwin’s theory. The narrative of my video will focus on a teenage boy struggling to come to terms with his sexuality. The lyrics of the song I’ve chosen (‘Boys will be Bugs’ by Cavetown) address the issue of toxic masculinity and it’s effect on teenage boys, and my video will feature a gay main character who gives in to the pressures of toxic masculinity, but eventually ends up being proud and expressing his identity. Since the song I’ve chosen is in first person/from the perspective of a character (eg. the lyrics ‘I’m a dumb teen boy’), the main character of my video (the artist) will be lip-syncing the majority of the lyrics. I want my video to have a clear aesthetic and colour palette, so I will have to bear this in mind when choosing specific locations. At the beginning of my video, I would like to feature the titles (‘Boys will be Bugs by *name of fictional artist*’) as a hand-drawn animation as this is something that would show of my skills in other areas, and would also interest the audience from the beginning of the video.

For my website, I will feature all the regular codes and conventions of an artist’s website, including the artists logo in the top left hand corner of the website (in the same hand drawn style as the titles in the music video – digital convergence), a navigation bar with tabs such as ‘About’, ‘Music’, ‘Tour’, and ‘Store’, and the music video on the homepage. The homepage will also feature photographs of the artist, and a short audio-visual clip – a few of my ideas for this are a behind the scenes montage, an interview with the artist, or a tutorial on how to make a ‘bug friend’ (these bug friends will be featured as a prop in the video, so showing fans how to make their own would be a nice idea). The website should have clear house style, using similar colours and graphics to those featured in the music video, and should be easy to navigate.

GENERIC RESEARCH: Summation

In my research, I have identified many codes and conventions of music videos, including:

·        A range of shot types

·        Many different locations

·        Intertextual references

·        A distinctive colour palette and aesthetic

·        A focus on narrative with performance aspects

·        Close ups of the artist/band (Andrew Goodwin’s music video theory)

·        Features the artist as the star of the video (Richard Dyer’s star theory)

·        The use of stereotypes, which are then later undermined (this is more common in protest videos)

·        Makes a statement (again, this is more common in protest videos)

·        Makes references to social/cultural/historical context

·        Visuals that illustrate the lyrics (Andrew Goodwin’s music video theory)

I have also identified the following codes and conventions in my research into artist’s websites:

·        A clear house style

·        The use of similar fonts throughout the website (often similar to the font on the artists most recent album cover)

·        A distinctive colour palette (often reflecting the colour palette/style of the artists recent music videos/album cover – showing digital convergence)

·        The artists logo (usually in the top left corner) acting as a home button

·        A navigation bar, usually featuring pages such as ‘About’, ‘Tour’, ‘Music’, ‘Video’, and ‘Store’

·        A simple layout making the website easy to navigate

·        Images of the star

·        The artists most recent music video(s)

·        Links to stream/download the artists most recent album/single

·        A page dedicated to all the artists music, featuring song lyrics and links to stream/download

·        A merchandise store

·        A page showing the artists upcoming concerts/tour, including links to purchase tickets

·        Easter eggs

·        The option to sign up for email updates

·        Links to social media

I will use these codes and conventions in my music video and website, such as:

·        Featuring the artist as the main focus of my video, and using close up shots of the artist (relating to Andrew Goodwin’s theory).

·        My music video will focus on narrative, and should include a few shots of the artist performing throughout the video.

·        I will use intertextual references that my target demographic should understand (but even if they don’t understand these references the video will still make sense).

·        My video will feature several different locations, including a garden, a science classroom, school halls, a bedroom, and a few others (depending on what I have access to).

·        A lot of the visuals in my music video will illustrate the lyrics (relating to Andrew Goodwin’s theory).

·        The website will have a clear house style that reflects the music video, using a similar colour palette and similar fonts to those used in the video.

·        The website will feature the music video on the homepage (digital convergence).

·        The homepage will also feature a navigation bar, featuring links to pages such as ‘About’, ‘Tour’, ‘Music’, ‘Video’, and ‘Store’ (making the website easy to navigate).

·        I will feature images of the artist on the website, as well as a short behind the scenes video from the making of my music video.

·        I will also create social media accounts for my artist, which will be featured on the homepage of the website, encouraging fans to interact with the artist.

GENERIC RESEARCH: Websites Research

The Regrettes website analysis

·       When you first enter the website, a pop up appears promoting the band’s latest album (sense of commercial imperative). The pop up allows you to click on ‘Listen Now’, which takes you to a separate site that then asks you to choose a music service (including Spotify, Amazon Music, iTunes Store etc.) where you can then stream/download the music. There’s also an option that takes you to the music video for ‘I Dare You’, one of the band’s latest releases.

·       Another pop up appears when you scroll down to the bottom of the website, offering you the opportunity to ‘Get on the list!’, where you can input your email address to get on The Regrettes mailing list and receive ‘exclusive information’ about their tour, video premiers and special announcements. This mailing list offers fans the ability to be apart of a community and makes them feel like they’re getting exclusive interactions with the artist.

·       The home page of the website has quite a conventional layout, with the band’s logo (that acts as a home button when you click it) in the top left-hand corner, and a navigation bar in the top right, making the site easy to navigate.

·       There is also a main image of the band that is at the top of the website across all pages (establishes the band’s star personas – links to Richard Dyer’s theory).

·       As you scroll down the website, one of the first things you see is an image of the band’s latest album, and two hyperlinks that take you to a page where you can stream the music (again promoting the album and encouraging people to stream/download).

·       The band’s latest album cover features a bold, 80s style sans-serif font, and a primary colour scheme which is reflected by the house style of the website (bold, sans serif fonts, colour scheme consisting mainly of black, white, and primary colours) – this reflects the band’s brand image, and is also an example of digital convergence.

·       Below this, there is an option to subscribe to the bands mailing list. Unusually, the band’s website doesn’t feature any links to social media (other than YouTube), so this is the only way fans can ‘interact’ with the band directly from the website. However, linking social media is the most obvious way to create digital convergence and would make it easier for fans to interact with the band, so I do intend to link my artists social media accounts to my website.

·       This part of the homepage features videos from The Regrettes YouTube channel (another example of digital convergence), including recent music videos and home-made infomercials promoting their album. These short videos could be seen as Easter Eggs, as most people would probably just watch the music videos, and not take notice of the shorter promotional videos unless they were fans of the band.

·       If you click on the ‘Video’ text from the navigation menu, it scrolls you down to this part of the homepage, rather than opening a separate page.

·       At the bottom of the homepage there is a list showing some of the bands upcoming gigs, with hyperlinks to a ticket agency where fans can purchase tickets.

·       If you click on the ‘About’ text in the navigation menu, it takes you to this page that tells you about the band, and explains the meaning of their latest album. This is something I could feature in my website, perhaps explaining the meaning of the latest video rather than the album – this could even be done in video format with an interview from the artist.

·       This is the page that opens when you click on the ‘Music’ option in the navigation menu. This page shows all the band’s recent music, with hyperlinks to stream/purchase the all the songs/albums.

·        As well as options to buy/stream the music, fans can also view the lyrics to all the songs. The play button next to the song titles also allows them to listen to the song whilst reading through the lyrics. This encourages fans to listen to the songs but also take a closer look at the lyrics.

·       When you click on the ‘Store’ option in the navigation bar, it takes you to a separate merchandise website where fans can purchase the bands latest album on Vinyl and CD.

Cavetown website analysis

·       This is the homepage for Cavetown’s website. The website doesn’t have a very conventional layout, with Cavetown’s logo (that also acts as a home button) at the top in the centre, and the navigation bar not visible until you click on the circle in the top left corner. When you click on this circle icon, the navigation bar shows options for ‘Tour’, ‘Store’, ‘Photos’ and ‘Music’. Personally, I prefer the navigation bar to be visible at all times (like on The Regrettes website), as this makes the website easier to navigate.

·       The first thing you see on the homepage is the artists most recent music video (an example of digital convergence), promoting the single and Cavetown’s upcoming album, and encouraging fans to engage with the video. When you pause the video, an option for ‘more videos’ pops up, and four other music videos from Cavetown’s YouTube channel can be seen.

·       Below the video are three hyperlinks that take you to different streaming websites where fans can pre-order the artist’s upcoming album.

·       The house style of the website is a mainly navy-blue colour scheme, with white text in a sans-serif font. This colour scheme reflects Cavetown’s latest album cover, which features mainly navy blue and white (among other colours), creating a clear brand identity. The navy-blue background of the website even features a repetitive print of a sleeping cat, again reflecting the artists most recent album cover, which features a similar sleeping cat. The majority of the text on the website does not include capital letters, most likely for aesthetic reasons, but perhaps also because a lot of teenagers (who the artist is most popular with) also type in this way.

·       There is also an Easter Egg above the Cavetown logo, which I will explain in more detail in a minute.

·       Below the music video is the artists merchandise, which is unusual, as most artists/bands have separate websites (linked in their own websites) where their merchandise is sold. I like the idea of featuring merchandise on the homepage of a website, as it means fans will definitely notice it, and probably be more likely to purchase it than if it was on a separate website that wasn’t as easy to find.

·       A few of the clothing items are even modelled by the artist (for example the hoodie in the top left of this screenshot), which would probably make fans more likely to purchase merchandise, as it would make them feel like they’re part of a community with the artist.

·       At the bottom of the homepage, there are links to all the artists social media, which is something very important in the digital age, especially if your target audience is teenagers and young adults. I definitely want to have links to my artists social media on my website as this is something very important to my target audience, as it allows fans to interact with their favourite artists/bands, and is also a good way to incorporate digital convergence.

·       This is the page that opens when you click on ‘Tour’ in the navigation bar, showing all the artists upcoming concerts, with hyperlinks to ticket agencies where fans can purchase tickets. This page also features an Easter Egg – if you click on the text that says ‘going to a show in the us this fall? get involved!’, a separate page opens that looks like this: 

·       This page tells fans about a project the artist has set up, where fans who come to their shows can donate items for animals and people in need. I really like this idea, and if I set up a list of tour dates on my website, I might do something similar.

·       This is the page that opens when you click on the ‘Photos’ option in the navigation bar. These photos help establish the artists star persona (Richard Dyer).

·       The photos featured on this page are all from concerts, encouraging fans to go to upcoming gigs by showing happy fans in the audience watching the artist perform.

·       This is the page that opens when you click on the ‘Music’ option in the navigation bar. This page allows fans to listen to short clips from all of Cavetown’s songs, and also gives them the option to stream the full songs and albums on Spotify. It’s unusual that this page only give fans the option to listen to the song on Spotify, as most artists websites give you the option to stream/download from various different services.

·       As mentioned previously, there is an Easter Egg above the Cavetown logo on the homepage – if you click on the text above the logo that reads ‘which cavetown artwork are you?’, it takes you to this separate website. This interactive feature allows fans to take a short quiz to determine which Cavetown painting they are, based off of things like eye colour, hair colour and favourite animal. This is a fun Easter Egg for avid fans who know that Cavetown is also a painter, and has painted a lot of his own album covers.

·       This is the results page you see after taking the quiz, where fans can then share the painting they got on Facebook or Twitter – encouraging social media interaction. I really like this feature, and I think it’d be nice to include an Easter Egg like this on my website (perhaps a quiz like this one, or one that lets fans get to know the artist a bit better).

Conan Gray website analysis 

·       This is the homepage for Conan Gray’s website. The website has a conventional layout, with the artists logo (that also acts as a home button) in the top left-hand corner, and a navigation bar in the top right. The navigation bar has 4 options, ‘Tour’, ‘Music’, ‘Video’, and ‘Store’ – ‘Store’ is the only option that takes you to a separate website, ‘Tour’ takes you to a different page of the website, and the other two just scroll you down to the relevant section of the homepage.

·       The first thing you see on the homepage is the album cover of the artists latest album, and a hyperlink that takes you to a website where you can choose which platform you want to use to download/stream the album – as soon as fans enter the website they are encouraged to stream the artists latest release. As well as the links to the latest album, there are also 3 other singles that can be streamed/downloaded if you swipe across your screen.

·       The house style of the website is quite simple, consisting of a black and white colour scheme, and a black italic sans-serif font. This colour scheme is clearly reflected in the latest album cover, which is mostly black, white, and grey. It gives the website a clean, minimalistic look, and creates a clear brand identity for the artist (this is also an example of digital convergence). The font used for the ‘Conan Gray’ logo is quite different from the other fonts used on the website, but is similar to the one used on the album cover for the ‘Maniac’ single, so it still ties in with the overall look of the website.

·        In my previous research, I looked in more detail at a music video by Conan Gray, which has a very different aesthetic to this current website, but this is because the video I looked at was from 2018, and the style of his videos has changed a lot since then.

·       Below the links to stream Conan Gray’s latest album, there are two of his recent music videos, another example of digital convergence. This also encourages fans to interact with the music video and acts as a way of promoting the singles and album.

·       Like all the other videos featured on artists websites I’ve seen so far, this music video is from YouTube, confirming my research that suggested YouTube is the most popular platform for music videos.

·       Below the music videos is information about the artists upcoming tour, which can also be seen in more detail by clicking on ‘Tour’ in the navigation bar. There is a personal message from the artist (establishing his star persona) about the tour being postponed, followed by an image of the tour poster (reflecting his brand identity).

·       At the bottom of the homepage, there is the option for fans to subscribe for email updates. This allows fans to receive more information about their favourite artist, and gives them a sense of community. I like this idea, and I intend on making it a feature on my website.

·       Below this, there are icons linking the artists social media, another example of digital convergence. This encourages fans to interact with the artist, and allows them to be a part of a community where they are able to interact with other fans, and share things such as fan art or fan made videos (Henry Jenkins fandom theory). 

·       This is the page that opens when you click on ‘Store’ in the navigation bar. This store is separate from the artists website, and features a range of merchandise, including the album on vinyl and CD, and lots of different clothing items. I would like to feature a few items of merchandise for my artist on my website if possible.

·       This page also gives you the option to sign up to a newsletter, similar to the one at the bottom of the homepage on Conan Gray’s website.

·       

AUDIENCE RESEARCH: Summation

After asking questions to my focus group, and looking at the consumption habits of my target demographic, I have made a few decisions that I will keep in mind when moving forward. One thing I noticed after looking at the answers to my focus group questions was that my target demographic seems to prefer music videos that show both a narrative and an aspect of performance. Initially, I had wanted to make a video that strictly focused on narrative, but after seeing that the majority of my focus group liked a mix of both (but leaning towards narrative), I will think about adding a small aspect of performance to my music video (I have a few ideas for this). I also saw that YouTube is the most popular platform for watching music videos, so I intend on uploading my video to YouTube. My focus group and audience behaviour research have also showed me that Spotify is the most popular music streaming service used my target demographic, so I’ll put a link to the song on Spotify on the homepage of my website. One answer to my focus group questions reflected the idea of interaction with social media, which I know is something quite important to my target demographic, so I intend on making an Instagram account for my artist, and I’ll try to get a link on my website that takes you to the account. Since the majority of my focus group said that they only really watch music videos by their favourite artists, social media will also take a vital role in promotion. I will need to create some social media content that stands out and encourages my target audience to watch and engage with my music video.