London is a city that is full of and thriving off of colour and art. Living in London has put us at an advantage because we have so much option to use for our video. All around the capital, urban art and architecture has inspired me into producing a narrative that fits perfect for our song of choice.
When looking for a song to use for our music video, we were asked to go away and do individual research on unsigned bands and artists. Using Soundcloud, I found three differing artists. For each song, I was able to think of an idea for a sample promo video.
Lil Peep is an american rapper who produces his own music and uploads to Soundcloud. In terms of success, his music receives a lot of listens and he has almost 50 thousand followers on his Soundcloud.
I initially liked the song because it was slow-paced, however, because the lyrics are so meaningful, they carried a story already. Whilst listening, you already have a pre-conceived idea from the vivid imagery.
This song is definitely my first choice for our music video as so much could be made from the short track, however, this may be too time-consuming and not effective for our frame of time we have to film.
I used bestofbritishunsigned.com to search for some artists/bands within the UK. The first band come from London. Dr!ve like to classify their music as Nu Disco, EDM and House.
I initially liked this song as it had a nice, catchy beat, however
The song we have chosen for our music video is The Him feat. Oktavian - Balance(Bastian Lorenz Remix).
They say watch and learn
Who can hustle hardest
Who can shout the loudest
I try to watch and learn
Guess I've been lacking
Never liked to practice
So
Do I gotta change
Just To make a change
To Evolve my game or evaporate?
In the first verse, it talks about trying to stand out and not conforming to society just to fit in. However, the singer (character)watches by and tries to do the same "I try to watch and learn" and somewhat fit in, whilst trying to be himself.
Or do I follow my own
Put my blindfold on
Run the marathon
Try to prove them wrong
Tell me what if there never was a truth
And everybody just guessing what to do
And makin it is just different points of view
Guess I'm
Trying to keep
Trying to keep my balance
Here the singer is questioning what to do. He sees people conforming and copying each other out of fear but is also doubting whether it is worth the risk because they are trying to stick to the status quo.
So I walk the tight rope trying to be who I want, trying to keep the lights on
Do I gotta change, just to make some change,
To assimilate, or evaporate?
Or do I follow my own
Put my blindfold on
Run the marathon
Try to prove them wrong
Tell me what if there never was a truth
And everybody just guessing what to do
And makin it is just different points of view
Guess I'm
Trying to keep
Trying to keep my balance
From looking at the lyrics, I think that our idea can be based around breaking the norm. This can easily be orchestrated as we can show difference in costume, for example, everyone can wear one plain, singular colour, something dull like white or grey whilst the singer in the promo could wear a bright colour. A video that has a similar sort of idea is The 99 Souls video for 'The Girl is Mine'. In this video, everyone is seen to be living like in reverse/walking backwards whereas one main character lives normally and finds help to follow the social norm. He meets a girl just like him when in the treatment centre and they leave together to live their lives as they see as their normality. I think this is something we could embed into our own video.
Drum and bass is a genre and branch of electronic music which emerged from rave and old school jungle scenes in England during the early 1990s. The usual conventions of drum and bass are:
• fast breakbeats (typically between 150–180 beats per minute) • heavy bass and sub-bass lines • sampled sources • synthesizers.
Drum and bass subgenres include breakcore, ragga jungle, hardstep, darkstep, techstep, neurofunk, ambient drum and bass, liquid funk, deep, drumfunk, funkstep, sambass dnbnoise and drill 'n' bass. From its roots in the UK, the style has established itself around the world. Drum and bass has influenced many other genres like hip hop, big beat, dubstep, house, trip hop, ambient music, techno, rock and pop.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a growing nightclub and overnight outdoor event culture gave birth to a new electronic music style called rave music, which, much like hip-hop, combined sampled syncopated beats or breakbeats, other samples from a wide range of different musical genres and, occasionally, samples of music, dialogue and effects from films and television programmes. But rave music tended to feature stronger bass sounds and a faster tempo (127 to over 140) beats per minute (BPM) than that of early house music. This subgenre was known as "hardcore" rave but from as early as 1991, some musical tracks made up of these high-tempo break beats, with heavy basslines and samples of older Jamaican music, were referred to as "jungle techno", a genre influenced by Jack Smooth and Basement Records, and later just "jungle", which became recognized as a separate musical genre popular at raves and on pirate radio in Britain.
By 1994 jungle had begun to gain mainstream popularity and fans of the music (often referred to as junglists) became a more recognizable part of youth subculture. The genre further developed, incorporating and fusing elements from a wide range of existing musical genres, including the raggamuffin sound, dancehall, MC chants, dub basslines, and increasingly complex, heavily edited breakbeat percussion. Despite the affiliation with the ecstasy-fuelled rave scene, Jungle also inherited some associations with violence and criminal activity, both from the gang culture that had affected the UK's hip-hop scene and as a consequence of jungle's often aggressive or menacing sound and themes of violence (usually reflected in the choice of samples). However, this developed in tandem with the often positive reputation of the music as part of the wider rave scene and dancehall-based Jamaican music culture prevalent in London. By 1995, whether as a reaction to, or independently of this cultural schism, some jungle producers began to move away from the ragga-influenced style and create what would become collectively labelled, for convenience, as drum and bass. As the genre became generally more polished and sophisticated technically, it began to expand its reach from pirate radio to commercial stations and gain widespread acceptance (circa 1995–1997).
Examples of well known drum and bass groups/artists that even perform live are:
A digipak is used to package CD albums and DVDs. They typically consist of a folded paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.They usually contain: the CD/s, a booklet and a poster.
Digipak's were very popular and commonly used during the 2000s and helped bring in sales for the music.
This advert, for the 1994 album The Bends
by British rock band Radiohead takes very much the opposite approach to the
methods used by Kanye West for his advertising campaign. Radiohead have placed
a greater emphasis on the album cover, placing it towards the background of the
advertisement. The imagine of the band to the foreground on the other hand
perhaps suggests that the music on this record takes precedence. The quote in
the foreground too is used to draw the audience's attention, as well as being a
classic sales technique in advertising. The reference to the lead single, High
and Dry, is designed to remind the audience of this song which they may have
heard, as well as encouraging them to purchase the album.
Lil Peep is an american rapper who produces his own music and uploads to Soundcloud. In terms of success, his music receives a lot of listens and he has almost 50 thousand followers on his Soundcloud.
By 1994 jungle had begun to gain mainstream popularity and fans of the music (often referred to as junglists) became a more recognizable part of youth subculture. The genre further developed, incorporating and fusing elements from a wide range of existing musical genres, including the raggamuffin sound, dancehall, MC chants, dub basslines, and increasingly complex, heavily edited breakbeat percussion. Despite the affiliation with the ecstasy-fuelled rave scene, Jungle also inherited some associations with violence and criminal activity, both from the gang culture that had affected the UK's hip-hop scene and as a consequence of jungle's often aggressive or menacing sound and themes of violence (usually reflected in the choice of samples). However, this developed in tandem with the often positive reputation of the music as part of the wider rave scene and dancehall-based Jamaican music culture prevalent in London. By 1995, whether as a reaction to, or independently of this cultural schism, some jungle producers began to move away from the ragga-influenced style and create what would become collectively labelled, for convenience, as drum and bass.
This advert, for the 1994 album The Bends
by British rock band Radiohead takes very much the opposite approach to the
methods used by Kanye West for his advertising campaign. Radiohead have placed
a greater emphasis on the album cover, placing it towards the background of the
advertisement. The imagine of the band to the foreground on the other hand
perhaps suggests that the music on this record takes precedence. The quote in
the foreground too is used to draw the audience's attention, as well as being a
classic sales technique in advertising. The reference to the lead single, High
and Dry, is designed to remind the audience of this song which they may have
heard, as well as encouraging them to purchase the album.
