Natalie Lungley (artist) Biography

'A mix of Mazzy Star meets Portishead’ - Liam Howe

Natalie grew up in south London and had a huge passion for photography and nature.

 Has interests in a range of music from Fiona Apple to Deftones,

she began as quite an introverted and private person who wouldn't want to get in front of a camera and perform herself

singer-songwriter and producer brother Matt came home and heard her singing in her room one day and encouraged her to put a video up on YouTube,

 

Natalie and Matt have started writing and arranging together and have built over 6 million views so far, building a worldwide fan base with their covers and originals.

 The Seattle grunge scene led by Nirvana was a major influence on her, as well as bands like The Smashing Pumpkins and Pixies. in contrast  Matt’s production style had developed with a strong connection to Trip Hop and Portishead, Massive Attack and The Fugees.

 

 I chose this track because it's unique to the genre with how it sounds,  the song itself is slow enough that it will be easy to create a music video for but also quick enough in places to be exciting and allow us some creative risks.

Importance of Genre

Genre is the categorey list in new media, made up of typical conventions. In music terms, genre is the type of music you are listening to, for example: if you are listening to Fall Out Boy you are listening to the Rock/ Pop-punk genre. you can get single or hybrid genres.

Genre is a useful concept when looking at music because it helps us find typical conventions for each genre, how people follow these, and how the these are used to appeal to the target audience.

The concept of genre benifits both audience and producersb as it helps audiences easily find out whether artists or songs are in their taste of genre and helps producers target the audiences that like that sort of music.

repoitoire of elements: what an audience expects to see.

indie have : acoustic, urban areas and lack of expensive sets, more interlectual lyrics and that indie hipster look

Audience: Gem Natalie Lungley

Analysis of music videos

The conventions, genre and style of music video are all dependent upon each other to some extent with most conventions and styles being genre specific. This is important with how audiences get a familiarity with how the music videos of their favourite artists are created and can recognize the styles easily through conventions used.

Here is the music video to the song Lane Boy by Twenty One Pilots. It is largely a performance video with some elements of narrative in a disjuncture style. This is a common convention throughout their videos, being largely performance based as both artists in the band play instruments, with disjunctured storyline that hardly relates the actual lyrics except through synaesthesia, where the feelings evoked from the visuals of the video are reminiscent of the themes of the lyrics however not related enough to be amplification. In this video Tyler, the lead singer, is performing throughout the video whilst two men in hazmat suits back up dance to him. This is an example of the disjunctured storyline, and is an example of the commen convention of having unusual costumes in their music videos. overall the video does follow the common conventions of the alternative/rock genre. The dancing is limited to the important lyrics to emphasise them and the meaning behind them. its not a common convention that the singers dance in alternative indie video.

Here is the music video Sprectrum by Zedd featuring Matthew Koma. it is a closed narrative video with a linear storyline, it is also an example of amplification wheras the video follows the lyrics loosely. The video follows common conventions of the pop/ EDM genre with an easy to follow and understand story that relates to the lyrics and has synaesthesia with how most of the videos in this genre usually have a protagonist that we root for. Audiences like this style of music video as its easy to understand and doesnt take much thinking to realize what is happening.

These to music videos are polar opposites in their conventions, genre and style however they are both successful with how they follow the conventions of their genre that their audience is familiar with and expects. This is a great example of how important the style and conventions you follow when creating a music video are.

Intertextuality has a huge effect on the audience with it being an enjoyable/ humourous experience recognizing other forms of media or popculture in music videos. The best example is from the music video Irresistable by Fall Out Boy, which is a disjuncture, closed narrative based music video. It features many references to pop culture in memes, people amnd famous things from the internet. This is satirical and humourous for the audience watching and is successful if the video is not supposed to be serious

Music videos that inspire me are Car Radio by Twenty One Pilots, Heartbeat by Childish Gambino and Light 'em Up by Fall Out Boy, as they are all amplification and disjucture videos which require more thinking to understand the meaning behind the video and give off more synaesthesia.

Analysis of music artists and music magazine adverts

Adverts in music magazines are an important part of promoting an artist and presenting the artist to their audience. Artists follow conventions in their magazine adverts in order to appeal to their audience and promote themselves. overall through this promotion of themselves they are promoting their music, which is the goal of the music artist.

 Here is a magazine poster from the music magazine Rock Sound of the Alternative rock band Twenty One Pilots. It uses the conventions of showing the artists themselves, where they are are performing on stage here. It also shows the bands logo which is on the drums, so something is easily associated with the band, to make them more recognizable through this promotion.  There is also the magazines logo in the corner to show where the poster came from if it is removed from the magazine.

Here is another Music magazine poster which follows similar conventions to the previous. It is a poster of the rap artist Childish Gambino for his new album. it follows the convention of showing the artist themselves, where here he is in a performance pose. It also shows his new album name for the recognition and promotion of him and his music. It also has the Magazines name small at the bottom.

here is a magazine poster for the well known pop boy band One Direction. This follows the conventions with the artists being shown, although they aren't in any performance stance it still follows the convention. Their band name is also displayed large and bold typography for recognition and promotion. The magazines name is also shown in the corner. so although this is a lot different to the posters from the other genre it still follows the basic conventions of what a music poster is.

The importance of following the conventions is so that the artist promotes themselves successfully. having an image of the artists themselves allows the audience to recognize what they look like, what their style is and what type of personality they are trying to show. The audience is more likely to listen to your music if the recognize you and like your style and such. Also, having the artists name of logo allows the audience to associate that with the artists music, meaning even if they don't see an image of the artist they can still recognize them.

Music posters that inspire me are:

These posters all inspire me because they empower the artists and make a statement.

Preliminary Music Promo and Poster

Music Video theory: Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin says that Music Promos (Music Videos) interpret the lyrics to songs in many different ways.

Music Videos usually come under one of three types of Promo all based on synaesthesia:

• Illustrative
• Amplification
• Disjuncture

Illustrative Promo's will fully illustrate exactly what the lyrics say. For example in Eminem's "Stan" where what is happening is literally being described by the lyrics. This can be a good way of creating an interesting narrative but restricts what imagery can be shown such as there can be little performance.

Amplification is when the theme or emotions evoked by the lyrics are used to create a narrative within the promo that doesn't illustrate what is being said exactly. An example is Twenty One Pilot's "Stressed Out" whereas the lyrics relate to what's being shown however the narrative is interesting and fun when it would've been dull if it had been illustrative. These are best as they have narrative that is interesting and can be just as powerful as the lyrics, and also usually have less restrictions on what can be created.

Disjuncture is when the lyrics and Promo are completely unrelated with no narrative, just some form of abstract imagery. This is used in Patrick Stump's "Spotlight" where the lyrics don't match to the imagery of people who have skills and are showing off them. Disjuncture is good for creating extremely interesting and vibrant videos even though they don't relate to the song completely. 

He also says how Music Videos often represent the common conventions of their genre. For example a rock/metal video will often feature areas of performance such as Mallory Knox in their video Wake Up, or a Rap video will feature money and women. This illustrates to the audience what kind of genre they are watching alongside the music, especially if it is a blur between two genres.

Music videos can also be intertextual, whereas they show links to other media in pop culture. A great example is the song "Hey Mama" whereas the narrative resembles films such as Mad Max. These are interesting as they give context to the audience and make the video more enjoyable if they understand the reference.

Lastly he describes star quality, whereas the star(s) of the music videos have a star quality that makes them memorable, usually a common themed style such as with Lady Gaga, Patrick Stump or Twenty One Pilots. This gives their fans a common theme to look for in the artists videos and gives familiarity to them.