Choosing the Pop music genre:

Genre

For my music video, after much consideration, I decided to choose the ‘Popular Culture’ music genre – as termed because it was renowned for ‘popular appeal’. In Britain the term began in the 1950’s, however in 1926 the term was used for much blues and folk songs in America as they were most popular within that era; it can be deemed that this may be why pop music nowadays seems to regularly be hybrid with other genres, such as folk, or rock (pop rock).

I chose this genre as it is arguably the most accessible and marketable genre of music within the 21st Century. This can be seen within the successes of famous artists such as: Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift

Pop is also an easily recognisable genre as there are specific styles and ‘pointers’ alongside the music videos and advertising that tell an audience that it is the specific genre. Through research into pop music videos I found that commonly the conventions used are: artists playing their instruments within the shot, the location is often very natural and rural, often destinations of pleasure and paradise, they often play with the idea of the artist having a dream or fantasy, lived throughout the song. Importantly most pop videos follow a narrative story, most commonly that of two lovers. There are often different stories throughout the video, the artist themselves, they’re life lived out and a heightened, glamorous version of themselves, in a high budget, almost ludicrous scene. Pop music style often contains synth music and inorganic instruments to create tempo and beat.

I am aware that Dani Scharpf’s music is very similar to that of the hybrid genre ‘Indie-Pop’ however, with the advice of Dani she has decided to promote herself as a pop artist. This decision is clear in the pop video I have created ‘Into You’ as we focus on stereotypical pop conventions, such as bright colours, nature, love, life and embellishment.

For the narrative telling of the story within the pop music video I chose to use Black and White. I did this with the desaturate filter on Final Cut Express. Conventionally black and white represents a flashback or symbolises memory or hopes, which is why I have decided to subvert this by using it to show what is actually happening. As a convention of the pop genre is to have an almost ‘dream’ of the ideal life, as is seen in pop videos such as Britney Spears’ ‘Hit me baby one more time’ I thought it would be interesting to have a sense of ambiguity of whether or not the black and white does represent truth or dream. It is of course open to interpretation, however my vision is that it represents the truth: stripped of all colour and glamour, showing real people.