MUSIC VIDEO: MUSIC LANGUAGE

 

MUSIC VIDEOS: MUSIC LANGUAGE

PREP Explain how music videos use media language to promote their artists. Refer to the pair of music videos you have studied from the list below in your answer.

Our music videos are Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag Avril Lavigne Sk8ter Boi

HOW TO ANSWER: Media language points to consider:

the prioritising of the star / the group; the privileging of the star / the groups in the frame

authenticating the star's performance / the band's performance to show their skills

the use of close ups; lip syncing to camera; eye contact with the audience

Media language is used to promote the artists in these two music videos, this is demonstrated when Avril Levigne makes eye contact with the camera, and the audience, whilst lip-syncing to the song Sk8er Boi. This interests audiences to feel that her singing is very impressive and a display of talent, reinforcing her place as a talented singer, increasing her popularity. In their music video, Wheatus is shown performing the song Teenage Dirtbag in the gym hall of the school that the story takes place in. Audiences seeing the artists play the instruments that are used for the song would urge them to believe that they have large amounts of talent and are compassionate about their work, this show of talent promotes the artists by luring audiences to listen to more of Wheatus’ music.

MUSIC MAGAZINES: MEDIA LANGUAGE

 Look carefully at the front covers of MOJO and RNR magazines. 

QUESTION: How far do MOJO and RNR use different media language to create different connotations? (CONNOTATION meaning: an idea or quality that a word makes you think about in addition to its meaning.)

Answer on your blog. This is a high-value question and should take all lesson to answer. You can use the class blog search engine for more examples of how to analyse music magazines.

In your answer you should have 2 paragraphs:

• analyse the media language in MOJO and RNR magazine. 'Media language' includes the placement of the main image, the type of photography, lighting, colours, fonts, how busy or restrained the cover is, the layout (such as alignment to the margins), how serious or playful 
• make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the media language is used differently in both extracts to create different connotations. Are there similarities in both covers? What sorts of audiences are they targeting? You could think about MOJO's rock aesthetic of living loud and dangerously compared to RNR's folk, rock, blues vibe. 

• In MOJO, it is a very colourful and hectic magazine. In this issue, Dave Grohl is presented as a very energetic person, who looks like he would jump out the magazine at any point, due to his hunched over position and his hands in a claw like pose. The image of Dave is placed in the middle of the magazine, making him the main focus. The pull quote ‘We’ve been to funerals, we’ve been to jail...’ Interests and pulls the reader to pick up the magazine and read more, it is placed in line with his shoulders, depicting that it is not as important as his identity, but largely linked to the band. In the bottom left of the magazine, a greatest hit album (covermount) of the Foo Fighters is seen. It is bright green and has a skeleton playing guitar, so it catches your eye. The words ‘Foo fighters’ in is italics, which emphasises the importance of the band, he’s holding it like he is possessive over it. Dave is lit from the top very harshly, in a colder light tone. The harsh lighting reveals every little detail about his face like wrinkles.

   The RNR magazine is overall very calm in comparison to MOJO. Christy Moore is presented in the centre of the magazine with a pleasant smile on his face. He is lit from the side and his photo taken in eye level with him. The lighting is very warm, and not shying away from showing his facial features like his wrinkles, and he is happily represented as an older man, who is tranquil and lives a simple life. The pull quote together with the image of Christ, further emphasises the tranquillity of the magazine as a whole. The quote, “These days its yoga, camomile tea and three our fathers” illustrates that Christy is older now, and he represents the Christian religion. The background colour is similar to the covermount, which creates an overall theme of the magazine. The beige colour is calming to the reader. The covermount includes a pun of a zebra is the bottom right corner, and the title of it being ‘UN-herd’ which is play on words, as a group of zebras is called a herd, and there is only on the overmount, allowing readers to hear unheard music of the artist.

   I conclude that The MOJO magazine and the RNR magazine have multiple similarities due to them both being very busy and full of information. Also, they both has features that pull in certain reader dynamics, they both have albums/covermounts of the bottom right hand corner, including music from the front cover artist. There is contrast because MOJO has a very chaotic front cover, with multiples pictures, words and phrases and RNR have a very relaxed theme, interesting completely different audience to each other.

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