The Music Industry, Marketing

Due to the high demand for music, bands/artists seem to be giving away their music for free. The majority of people, mainly of the younger generation, are no longer going into stores and buying albums, instead a new phenonemon has been discovered. Downloading music is now the most popular of accessing music as it takes a matter of minutes and can be done without having to go out. However as technology has developed for the downloading problems have occured. Some sites such as 'Linewire' allow people to download music for free, no charge at all. This therefore has a ripple effect as major music labels such as Sony, Universal and Motown are not making enough royalties therefore not making any profit. Reportedly Richard Branson had to drop the Virgin Megastores which lost him more than £50 million in 2007, this was one of the first visible signs that illegal downloading was not going to let up. Bands/artists have now had to develop another way to make money from their music. One of the positive effects illegal downloading has had on the music industry is that bands/artists are now known as their music has been free people are able to download whatever they want and therefore if they like the song they download more from the same band/artist. Which provides great publicity for them. This consequently means that bands/artists are known and can set up gigs and concerts in which people would have to pay for their tickets, this would lead on to merchandising and make profits this way. Bands/artists are now longer making money out of their music but now through their popularity. Sites such as Facebook and Myspace are popular ways for bands/artists to promote their music and upcoming events. http://www.myspace.com/madonna Madonna was one of the first artists to use Myspace to promote her music and this soon became popular. YouTube is also a popular site for bands/artists to promote their music, you can't download straight from the website but there is a link leading to the iTunes website to download the song. YouTube allows you to listen to the music before you buy it and you can continuously listen to the song repeatedly as well as view their music video if they have created one. http://www.facebook.com/madonna Her site on Facebook allows fans to access photos of her and can see the dates of her concerts and single releases. This benefits her as it is publicity for her. A band that have been successful from viral file sharing is the band Nizlopi with their song 'JCB', they didn't want to be signed with a record label as they saw what was happening with the downloads and how bands/artists weren't making much money. So they decided to record their song and they then sent it in an email to 20 people and they then sent on to their friends and this was repeated, which created huge success. http://www.jcbsong.co.uk/ http://www.nizlopi.com/ These sites are for the band and the 'JCB' song, both advertise new songs and downloads

Narrative Idea

VV Brown - Shark In The Water Lyrics

Sometimes I get my head in a dilly
Feeling so lost, ticking you off
Now boy, you know me well
Said, I’m that kind of feeling
That kind of soft, that kind of silly
But when I’m in doubt, I open my mouth
And words come out, words come out like

Baby, there’s a shark in the water
There’s something underneath my bed
Oh, please believe I said
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
I caught them barking at the moon
Better be soon

High in the sky, the song that I’m singing
A sweet little lie, I cry wolf, cry
Rather have you lie yeah, so that’s why I’m bringing
Some tricks up my sleeve, for noticing me
I wouldn’t cause you any harm, I just want you in my arms
I can’t help, I can’t myself
www.musicloversgroup.com

Baby, there’s a shark in the water
There’s something underneath my bed
Oh, please believe I said
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
I caught them barking at the moon
Better be soon

(Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do ,do)
(Better be soon)
(Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do x2)

Right is right
Rules are rules
This is more like April Fool’s
I’m just winding you up, oh
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Please don’t make too much of it
It ain’t that serious

Baby, there’s a shark in the water
There’s something underneath my bed
Oh, please believe I said
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
I caught them barking at the moon
You better get here soon

Baby, there’s a shark in the water
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
I caught them barking at the moon
Better be soon






These lyrics were the inspiration behind the narrative of our music video. We decided that it would be more appealing and interesting to the viewer if we had a narrative. The lyrics and V.V. Brown's actual music video imply that she is or was involved in a relationship and the guy was seeing someone else as well as going out with her. He is referred to as the shark. As we are a girl band we decided to be involved in the narrative as this is what V.V. Brown did in her music video, she was able to be involved in the narrative and to be separate as the artist. I researched Goodwin's theory that the video should convey a relationship between lyrics and visuals. I believe that this theory is applicable to our music video, as this is our first one we should follow some conventions. Our main aim is to make our narrative clear for the viewer to understand.

Choosing a music video

After analysing many music videos I have decided along with my group 'JMDL Records' on an artist and a song. VV Brown is our chosen artist as her style is unique from her appearance to the style of music. After much deliberation we chose 'Shark In The Water' for our song as our record company is based around the indie style. VV Brown is an indie pop singer and the song suits our record label as it has a laid back style but is upbeat. We have decided to film a narrative with our music video as it links in with the lyrics and also I feel it makes the video more appealing. We will construct this through camerawork, lighting and mise-en-scene. The lyrics also play a big role in constructing a music video narrative as they introduce the general feeling or mood, only key phrases or lines can be associated with the narrative of the video. It has been decided that we will film the song as a band, therefore already creating and adding a new element and slant to the song. The singers in the band will be the story tellers and therefore uses first person mode of address which helps the music video stand out.

Points to consider in my music video

Functions and meanings of music in editing:

• "quick cutting on the beat"
• Every cut or edit in a music video needs to be in sync with the music.
• There is a "rhythmic basis closely connected to the song".

Editing:

• "Edits in music videos come far more frequently than in film"
• "Music video editing bears a far greater responsibility for many elements more than clasic Hollywood film editing".
• There are lots of very short, quick edits in music videos. These build up a montage and often tell the story of the video (progress the narrative).

Balanced:

• "The editing in music video works hard to ensure that no single element (the narrative, the setting, the performance, the star, the lyrics, the song) gains the upper hand".
• When i come to creating my own music video i will ahve to focus on creating a balance between my images and the song itself.
• The video cannot distract from the song but must also grab the audience's attention.

Graphic Match:

• When editing sequences connect objects through colour and shape, this therefore creates fluency.

Match on action:

• Using a series of edits where different people/objects are doing the same thing. For example a close-up on Subject A's feet running then a cut to a close-up on Subject B's feet running.

180 degree rule:

• I have to ensure that i do not disorientate the audience by breaking this rule, the audience should maintain a position between edits in terms of orientation.

30 degree rule:

• If you break the 30 degree rule it is called a jump cut a sharp awkward edit that looks clumsy.
• The camera should move 30 degrees between edits to avoid this.

(Jump Cuts draw the audiences attention to the techniques being used.)

Album Analysis

An album cover represents the artists/bands image that they want to portray.
Aims of album covers:

• Tries to draw audience in
• Establishes album/artist and music genre
• Persuasive element in selling album
• To 'look good' as it portrays creativity and originality
• Establishes the credibility and artistic merit of the artist
• Codes and conventions are used to communicate with the audience
• Conventions - Artists name, album cover, artist on it, lists of songs on the back

Choosing our Track

We have found it hard to choose a song for our music video. We went through eachothers ipods to see what music we liked as a group, as we felt that we should choose a song that we all like therefore wanting to do it justice. We then decided on a genre as we needed to make a choice soon, it came apparent that we liked a wide range of music but we all liked and agreed on indie as this genre of music has become quite popular. We found the song 'Shark In The Water' by V.V. Brown which we have all heard of and like the upbeat rhythm. We also liked the fact that she is a British artist and therefore we have more in common and a further understanding of our artist. The idea of creating a band came from the fact that the song is indie-pop and most indie songs are by bands and we felt that others in our class would be focussing on single artists, therefore we thought we would break away from this and challenge ourselves. Other artists and bands we considered:

• The XX


• Lily Allen


• The Big Pink


• Florence and The Machine