Secondary Research
11, Record labels
Record labels are the lifeline of any musician, or, at least, they are for the mainstream artists. In essence, record labels are companies which record, create, and distribute the recordings for various artists affiliated with them. For example, Joji is affiliated with Warner Records who record and sell his music. Record labels not only sell the music of the artists that it signs but sell the artists themselves as well. A famous example of this is with the pop boy band One Direction, whose record label, Columbia Records, not only sold their music but also sold the band themselves through merchandise and appearances in films, television shows etc. to increase profits (ah yes, capitalism is everywhere).
Record Labels essentially serve as the financiers of artists as they carry out the entire process of creating and releasing a song. This includes the initial recording, editing, marketing as well as distribution. Record labels also provide guidance to artists who are new to the industry and help them establish themselves. Signing with a record label makes it easier for the artist to create music, as the costs of producing are covered by the record label with additional marketing helping boost popularity as well as their sales. This help is often not without its drawbacks as record labels as the end product whether it be a single or an album are owned by the record label and not the artist. This can result in said music not being released or heavily altered. An example of this can be with seen with Taylor Swift’s albums Red and Fearless which were re-recorded versions of her previous albums and her true vision. Examples of record labels include the aforementioned Columbia Records as well as Atlantic Records and Def Jam records among others. Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group are categorized as the "Big Three", which are 3 major record labels that dominate the industry.
With the description I’ve provided of record labels it may seem that these are vast enterprises who exert control and micro manage their artists. This is often the case, yet, there are some notable exceptions as Mute Records, Sub Pop Rough Trade, among others are considered Indie Record labels due to their small size in comparison to larger record labels. This results in indie records offering more artist friendly contracts which often contain terms such as allowing the artist final ownership of products, more creative control and artistic freedom etc.
12, Hey, can you fill a form for me? (Part 1)
Audience research was a vital part of our research so that we can have qualitative and quantative statistics from people who will be interacting with our music video, digipack, and social media page. This was essential considering that our friends, families, and acquaintances were going to primarily interact with the video, and their input was important to ensure we create a product that they would actually enjoy consuming. Tashfa and I created a form together so we could conduct a survey and see how people around us perceive music videos.
Tashfa primarily wrote all the questions after a mutual discussion, and I designed the form and spread it around. I opted to use google forms so it was easy for Tashfa to collaborate if she wanted to make any edits. I also designed the form to match the colour scheme we planned to have and after shooting the video, I changed the header (if you haven't guessed already, I like designing)
Spreading around the form was my job, and I did not particularly want to restrict it to simply my own peer group, because having input from different demographics was important. I therefore put the form up on Reddit's "SurveyExchange" and "A-level" groups. This allowed us to go beyond the scope of having just one target audience. I also sent a text on various WhatsApp groups and put the form up on my personal Instagram account.
We were able to gather 79 responses within 2 days (I promised people a lot of chocolates for filling the form that they will never get, my word is not binding.). We received responses from different age groups and genders, who all had their own unique takes on many questions. These will be further explored in the next post.
13, Hey, can you fill a form for me? (Part 2)
This post will be analysing the responses of our survey which were extremely insightful when it came to making important decisions for our music video.
The form was filled out by people from the age of 13-30, which gave us a good pool of responses to work with. This meant that we had to cater to the youth and young adults, therefore we need to incorporate references and follow trends that they will understand and admire. 67.1% of our respondents were women, therefore we had to ensure that we create a video that they would like and would be able to relate to.
Although a significant number of people said that they prefer a purely narrative based video, we felt that it would be harder to execute, and we had already been considering a more concept-based video. People who said they like "A combination of the above/other" mentioned that they like videos with a meaningful concept, and we had 16.5% respondents prefer conceptual videos.
Above everything else, aesthetically pleasing visuals were important for our respondents, which meant that I had to keep this in mind while taking shots and editing the video and had to ensure that the video should be pleasing to watch. Thought provoking themes, intertextuality etc. was also important for over 20 people, therefore we had to ensure to accurately portray a strong concept filled with references to other media and literary texts.
One thing that a lot of our respondents did not want was the objectification of women and the use of slurs and profanities, therefore we made sure not to include any factors that may contribute to this in our video to appease the majority of our audience.
This question was essential for me as it allowed me to watch music videos that our potential audience liked and make notes of the visuals and technical codes so I could create something along the lines of them.
Although we plan to center our music video around social issues, we had to see if our audiences deemed it essential to have appropriate representation. Majority of them were neutral, which meant we had space to explore our concept and retaining viewers.
14, The Genre Research
After spreading around our form, Tashfa and I made the ultimate decision of choosing alternative/indie as our genre of choice. This offered us considerable flexibility, and was a genre both of us personally listened to and enjoyed. Alt/indie music is a vast genre of music with artists that are signed to an independent label. Many alt/indie artists have their start with making music on their own and putting it up on the internet and being discovered by bigger record labels. Although the essential definition of alt/indie is music that isn’t mainstream, more and more indie artists are being discovered due to the “generation Z” deeming them cool and relatable. Alt/indie has therefore became a profoundly subjective term.
Alternative rock and indie often go hand in hand with one another. Conventional and famous genres such as rock, pop, or country can be labelled as alt/indie given that they’re represented by independent record labels. Alt/indie music often embraces nonconformity and tends to challenge typical genre conventions (this is dependent on the artist). Music videos in this genre tend to have a lo-fi aesthetic to connect with the audience by portraying the artists emotions. There is a considerable amount of effort put into song-writing and lyrics that tackle social and personal issues and places a lot of thought towards them. They often tend to feature intertextuality and utilize recurring motifs.
The following are examples of Alt/indie music, and more artists, albums, and music videos have been discussed in detail in the posts below:
15, Conventional Traits
Music videos tend to have typical conventions according to their genre as identified in my codes and conventions post in the primary research category. This post will talk about alt/indie music video conventions.
Codes and Conventions
of Alt/Indie Music Videos
It is important to note that alt/indie artists typically follow their own personal style given the creative liberties they possess. A music video does not essentially have to follow typical conventions. Some artists such as the Neighbourhood have a particular editing style for all their videos, such as the band The Neighbourhood has black and white filters on top of their music videos.
16, The Instrumental Feat
Instruments are an essential component of a song that separates its genre from others, and gives listeners a rather pleasant experience. The following is a presentation (yet another one) on the instruments used in Alt/Indie Music.
17, Alt/Indie Artists and Their Art
Alt/indie artists have started gaining more recognition with the proliferation of YouTube Music and Spotiy, which each having their own distinct style in the industry. This post will primarily be focusing on female and gender-fluid Alt/Indie artists because we plan to make our own artist a female for our own music video and promotional package.
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beabadoobee
Beatrice Kristi Ilejay Laus (beabadoobee) is a Filipino-British alternative singer-songwriter who primaly has music in the Alt/Indie genre. Her most notable work is her debut single "Coffee". Powfu, a Canadian rapper collaborated with her to create the song "Death Bed (Coffee for your Head)" which has 1.4 billion streams on Spotify alone. Her second album "Beatopia" was released in 2022.
LP
Laura Pergolizzi, or LP, is an American singer/songwriter who not only has written songs for Cher, Rihanna, the Backstreet Boys, Céline Dion and more, but has sung songs that have been used in television shows such as Orange Is The New Black and The N's show South of Nowhere. LP is represented by Warner Bros. Records. LP has produced music that challenges typical conventions.
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LP has 6 Albums and 3 EPs, the following of which are my favourite. Lost on You is Lp's most notable work.
Clairo
Claire Elizabeth Cottrill, better known by her stage name "Clairo" is an alt/indie artist who began her career by posting her music and covers online from the age of 13. She was signed by Fader Label and her debut album "Immunity" had a track "Sofia" which charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Her second studio album was also a part of the top 20 of the US Billboard 200. Diary 001 is one of her most popular works which contains popular songs including "Hello?" and "Flaming Hot Cheetos"
Music streaming services, such as Spotify and Apple Music, have playlists on alt/indie music as well. An example is the alt/indie mix by spotify below:
18, Alt/Indie Music Videos
Alt/Indie music videos generally apply elements of Andrew Goodwin's music video theory, and tend to follow most conventions laid out for their genre. They still manage to be distinct from one another and are unique to the artists songs, record label, and set the mood accordingly.
Lost On You by LP's music video was released on 1st June 2016 and has over 506 million views on YouTube. The premise of the video is LP's relationship with her ex-girlfriend, and captures an array of emotions including love and grief. She is seen drinking in the video, and there is considerable focus on the red-headed woman smoking and the emotions on her face. Much like the name of the song suggests, they appear to be "lost" in the music video, and the dull and gloomy colours complement this.
Washing Machine Heart by Mitski has 61 million views on YouTube and revolves around the themes of unrequited love and identity in a relationship. The music video has a black and white filter which makes it mellow and pleasing to watch, whilst it simultaneously portrays darkness. She is alone in majority of the music video which symbolizes the feeling of loneliness coupled with a rather intense and dramatic ending.
The music video for "we fell in love in october" by girl in red was released on 21st November 2018 and has 97 million views. The video features girl in red, in well, a red outfit and is about her first relationship with a woman, therefore it portrays the raw emotion of love. The video contains titles and utilizes fall colours which are not as intense during the day so that her red outfit is prominent. The video also challenges conventions by not following the typical ratio of 16:9.
When the Night is Over is a performance-based video of the band which is not typically seen in indie/alt music videos unless it also incorporates rock. The video was released on June 9th 2018 and has 6.9 views on YouTube. It makes use of the camera and editing in a way that makes it seem that it has been shot in a different era, and may seem like found-footage to viewers today, giving it an intimate live performance feeling.
The video for Another Love by Tom Odell has a striking 710 million views on YouTube and was released on 5th November 2012. It shows Tom Odell's journey in his relationship while he sits on a chair for the entire duration of the video and time passes by. The visuals and editing match the pace of the song, and the lighting progressively gets darker to portray the end of his relationship.