Stereotypes in Music

A stereotype is a typical view on a group of people. There are many different stereotypes used and represented in pop videos. This includes stereotypes for black men and women.

Black men.

Black men were viewed to be wearing gold chains around their necks and in music videos with flash cars and baggy clothes with women surrounding them. The expensive jewellery would be to show off their money and the women would be to show how irresistable they are to women.

Black women.

Black women are portrayed in a very sexual way in music videos dancing sexually for example twerking like in Miley Cyrus' video or Lily Allen. Also, they are usually wearing very little clothing and are expected to have big boobs and big hair.

There was a newspaper article by Ikamara Larasi a black female ages 24 who disagrees with the way black women are portrayed in music videos which are seen by young children who may imitate them. In the article she says people must assume that she is from East London and and is carefully managing her urge to twerk all the time; she probably smokes, comes from a broken home and is a homophobic. She exclaims that these assumptions are racist and so are the use of black men and women in music videos being violent and the use of crime. She is part of Rewind&Reframe, a group challenging the content of music videos.

Tony Henry Audience

Tony Henry is an artist who targets the youth, and the younger generations, that ranges between 15-25, this can be seen through his lyrics and calibrations with Chamillionare, a rap artist, conventionally targeting the youth, an iconic artist that fulfils the american gangster/rapper stereotype

Michael Jackson - Album Art

Michael Jacksons Album covers through the Years

This was Michael Jackson's first album cover, in the late 70's. Michael Jackson was typically a soul and disco artist at this time and the album cover reflects this, wearing a suit with a bow tie, and a big diva afro in front of a brick wall, is somewhat groovy, reflecting the boogie aspect to his music.

 Michael Jackson's Thriller cover, the biggest selling album of all time! Michael jackson was well established after his last album, and this album in the early 80's reflects that, his pose is relaxed as though there is mo competition and he clear looks like the is on top of his game, most importantly the album doesn't look 'naff'. notice how light is entering through the left, this is a artistic device that promotes the artwork to look more pleasing as in the western world, we read from left to right and this is imprinted into everything we look at, if it were the other way around it would cause a discomfort to look at. Also note that michael jackson touches the top of the frame and falls into a triangle, another artistic device, the rule of three, it makes everything more pleasing to look at. the album name is also written in  Michaels handwriting to make it look like a signature making people want it as it feeling like it is personal to you, he has signed it for you, of course this isn't fact, but it makes you feel this.

This album cover is important to the Michael Jackson movement, as perviously music was disco, soul and blues, a new genre was taking stage, rap and hip hop, Michael would need to compete with this to attract an even larger audience, Michael believed there was always room for improvement even if his pervious was the greatest selling album of all time. Michael needed to match the 'tough' image rappers gave and this cover does so and well it does. The chains, studs and zips all over Michaels outfit match that punk, bad look, the fact that he is wearing all black whereas before he wore white shows the development in appearance, white is a pure and innocent and black being its binary opposite gives the opposite impression, an negative figure. the white background against the black title and outfit is also every harsh to look at, the is no blend between the two colours, its incredibly sharp and forces the viewer to almost turn away from it, the white makes the black sit forward. Also the red 'bad' red is a colour that has high volume and sits forward against black and white, this makes the 'bad' draw the viewers eye, and the fact that it is in a spray painted font makes it advocate that it is bad and the colour red is closely associated with danger. Finally Jacksons pose makes you feel he has attitude, ultimately the whole album cover consists of attitude and breaking convention, Michael did compete and for many modern day artists this album was their inspiration.

Here are the Michael Jacksons other album covers

Tony Henry CopyRight

Copyright is a legal concept which grants the creator of original work exclusive rights to its use and distribution. This is the 'right to copy' but also gives the creator the right to be credited for the work to determine who may benefit from the work and the complete rights to this work. This is why I have contacted my artist and he has given permission for me to use his music for my music video.

Creating Our Digipak

In order to create our digipak we needed to take photos that reflect our music video throughout it. in order to do this we have to have the scenery of the music video parallel to our photos to give the same atmosphere as the video. the primary link between the two is location, fundamentally consisting of a 'run down' area to force the feel of being 'stuck in the ghetto'. secondly we added filters, black and white for most with minimal colour, also taking the positive atmosphere away from the photos and becoming alto more sinister and depressing. for one of our photos the figure is off-centre and the foreground is black whilst the background, what the artist is looking into, is in colour, soft and calm, to show that this is what the figure aims for. with the other photo's, the figure is in the corner and and isolated by the surroundings, the setting overwhelms the figure and drives him into a state of thought and over looking, a key theme in the lyrics and music video

Digipak Photos

Out to Film!

On sunday we set out to start filming in our local town centre, perfect weather, overcast, everything seemed to be on our side. we eventually found a perfect location and so we began to set up. In the process of setting up we found that we were missing a fundamental piece to placing the camera upon the tripod. this piece of equipment ensures the camera to remain still throughout our shots, it seems my partner has forgotten/miss-placed this fundamental piece so we cannot film altogether.