Stuck

I think I'm really stuck for ideas right now; what I want my artist to look like and how I want my digipak to look.

I looked at bands that were similar to my own.

The Killers:

This is what the band look like; I like this casual style that they wear, but I think it's a little too dressy for my band. I like the use of colour in the album cover and is something that I would like to use on my own. I have an idea of neon colours to be used in my album to adhere to the conventions of the electronic genre. 

AWOLNATION : 

The like the style which AWOLNATION wear; I think it's really casual and laid back - something I want my band to be similar to. I like the obscure album cover and the colour palette, which is conventional of the genre for Electronic Indie Rock. 

Foster The People:

I like the artsy image for the album cover; I would really like to illustrate something so this album cover; if not then play around with editing photographs from the photo shoot I will take. The band also wear casual clothes like AWOLNATION which I really like and think connotes my band well. 

Overall, I think I want my artist to look similar to this: 

I still think that the band Symptom, should focus more on the frontman rather than the band behind it. I think maybe 2 or 3 other guys that look similar to this would be enough to complete the band. 

I think if I take some chiaroscuro images such as these: 

 

I think it could look aesthetically pleasing for my digipak for the band.

More Artist Research

I decided that I wanted my artist to be a band but focus more on the lead singer; like Florence and the Machine. These are the names I came up with.

I eventually decided that our band would be called Symptoms and the album would either be called Ghostland or Spirited Away. 

Symptoms is signed to XL Recordings as they create music and sign music artists in the same genre of rock, indie and electronic. 

The lead band member's ideology is to follow your dreams (as that's what he did, growing up around music and dedicating his education and life to it). 

Symptom's influences are; Arcade Fire, The Kooks, The Killers, Awolnation, Foster The People, and The Filthy Youth. 

Likes: hiding, Halloween, dark spaces, diversity and making music. 

Dislikes: vibrant colours, cheesy music, sun, X-Factor (or processed shows similar)

The next step is to create  music video that shows this. 

Creating Artist

I began to brainstorm all different genres to begin creating my artist. I had the most for Rock genre, so I then started listing off sub genres and artists/bands related to each sub genre.

I found that Alternative rock was hard to define, so I came up with my own definition:

ALTERNATIVE ROCK - CHALLENGING THE NORMAL CONVENTIONS OF ROCK (DOESN'T FIT INTO ANY OTHER SUBGENRE)

I found that I was stuck between two sub genres of rock: indie and alternative. I then created a Venn Diagram for it.

I then circled 5 artists I felt like fit the image for my artist and wrote out any notes or conventions.

Artist Planning

Name: ??????

Age: 23-25

Musical Genre: Indie Rock 

Style: 90's grunge/ tshirt and skinny jeans

Physical appearance: Skinny, white, tall, blonde/brown hair

Album title: ???????

Track Listing: ???????

Artwork: ???????

Background information: From New York (USA). Graduated from College with a Music Tech degree. Started out in the industry as a music technician/ sound check guy for a rock band and continued up the ladder in his career. 

Talents: Playing keyboard + digitally creating music

Interests: Keyboard/ music/ computers

Family: Close family, modern values and atheist religion

Artist NOT manipulated by Culture Industry

Celebrity making machine - Emilie Autumn from Synflame

Culture Industry

During today's lesson we became X-Factor Judges to help us understand how to sell an artist.

(Production of Culture/ Culture of Production - Paul Du Gay, 1997)

As Cheryl Cole my group had decided that we wanted a unique sellable young male artist with a sob story. 

We watched some audition tapes and decided what we would say to the auditionee's face and what would be the plan. The plan for most of the auditionee's was to change their look and target them to a specific audience. 

Introduce Adorno + Horkeimer's (Culture Industry)

There are three stages of this theory:

• Standardization
• Pseudo Individuality
• Capitalism

AN ARTIST IS A COMMODITY

The way cultural items are produced is the same to how other industries mass manufacture consumer goods. As a company might make a car, everything is lined up and then things are changed. So a car would get the engine, then the body and so on and the music artist would get a new body, new clothes, new hairstyle, make up etc. Music has been corrupted by productions and administrative regin of industrial capitalism. The X-Factor has corrupted us as an audience as it produces the same thing the create mass audience taste.

Eventually, we become numb to everything in the music industry and like whatever is churned out. Everything is set in place to make money.

The Celebrity Making Machine stresses the repetitive and routine character of cultural production.

Baudrillard said 'Nothing is original, everything is the same.'

Music is written so it is standardized and becomes catchy - so it gets stuck in the audience's head. Songs are based around repetitive sequences and recurring refrains. The songs imprint and provoke sales.

Pseudo Individuality: Makes claim to originality, but only contains superficial differences.

An example of an artist that doesn't fit the standard (which was then rejected by the mass audience as we all have the same taste) is Maverick Sabre.

v

Cross Media Casestudy

Cross Media Case Study - AWOLNATION from Synflame

Music Video Director

Music video director - Samuel Bayer from Synflame