After finalising our choice of song for the music video we are producing for our A2 course work we identified its genre and have researched into various artists of the same genre and their music videos. The chosen genre is Dance-Pop and the song is ‘N N Neva Baby’ by Kesha, from researching Kesha we found that Katy Perry and Lady Gaga produce music within the same genre, each artist presenting a different spin and creative edge to the genre itself.
Katy Perry recently produced a very popular chart topping single, Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F) which was released with a creative, fun and imaginative music video to match the catchy and enthusiastic lyrics of the song. Katy Perry is known to be an idol for young girls and represented as a fun, down to earth celebrity, however, within this particular video Katy is represented as a young teenage girl, unknown to the stereotypical life of a teenager, drinking, partying and socialising, she initially comes across as a ‘nerdy’ shy girl, as the video continues this representation is completely changed and she becomes what we know as the common teenager which is stereotyped in today’s society.
The video itself has a fragmented story line to it, beginning with the morning after and then flicking back to the previous night where everything had happened and the story then flows smoothly from there on. Cleverly, the story has an entertaining comedy sketch throughout, mainly showing at the beginning and the end of the music video, this is thought to draw the audience in more and have a more effective edge to it rather than a video with a bland, or even no story line.
When it comes down to the music, visuals and lyrics, again, these had much thought behind them and it appears that they were taken into great consideration by the producers. Throughout the entire video the visuals and lyrics are linked extremely well, as the story is told through the lyrics of the song, each lyric is presented on screen by a series of actions from the cast, for example, the line ‘This a hickey or a bruise?’ we see Katy Perry pull down a turtle neck jumper showing a bruise/hickey on her neck, another example could be the lyrics ‘There’s a stranger in my bed’ and the actions on screen showing Katy Perry looking blankly at a young man in the bed next to her. Moving on to the connection between the music and visuals, this again was used very well and created a smooth flow to the video, when watching the video we can clearly see as the tempo of the music beings to slow down the visuals on screen do the same.
After looking into Katy Perry and how she is represented throughout her video’s and how her video’s had been produced we decided to compare her style to another artist of the same genre to find similarities and differences between the two, therefore we looked into Lady Gaga and her music video of ‘Just Dance’.
Lady gaga had her first hit single ‘Just Dance’. In this video she turns up to a party where everyone is passed out. She then starts to play her music and sing, waking everyone up who then carry on partying all through the night. In this video she is represented as a popular, wild, sexy, strange, drunken party animal. She is represented as who she really is as a celebrity in real life; she is the queen of pop!
Lady Gaga’s video follows a fragmented storyline, it shows her singing on her own in a small corner and then goes to the house party, continuously flicking back to each scene. Throughout the video we are shown different party goers dancing & drinking and then Lady Gaga herself joining in and demonstrating a choreographed routine with two other women. The video is very attracting to the audience as there is always something happening, there is never a scene when the audience would look away.
When considering the music, visuals and lyrics we are shown numerous occasions when they associate with each other. The producers linked the lyrics and visuals in continuous scenes of dancing when Lady Gaga would sing the title words ‘Just Dance’. The use of music and lyrics helps to keep the song flowing and increases the audiences understanding due to this constant reference. Another link between the lyrics and visuals is when the song says, ‘where are my keys?, I lost my phone’ you can see 2 girls emptying their bags and looking through mess on the bed and table to obviously find their keys and phone.
There are many similarities and differences between these music video’s but the majority being similarities. Both artists are at house parties being represented as wild and drunk. They are the typical teenage party scenes. Both story lines are fragmented which keep the viewers pulled in and interested to watch. Finally, there are plenty of links within the music, lyrics and visuals. All of these factors are conventions of the genre, Dance-pop.
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