Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Analyse promos of same genre in detail

Rihanna's song 'Cheers (Drink To That) is also in the pop rock genre and something I've researched into to see what typical conventions are used which will hopefully help me create my music promo from the same genre.

The song contains characteristics of Goodwin's theory.

The song is called 'Cheers (Drink To That)' which is about Rihanna drinking to the weekend - it shows her having fun outside of her performance life. It also shows her enjoying life in different surroundings. It then also has the glamours side to it of her being half naked and performing on stage to thousands at her show and everyone singing along - showing a relationship between her and her fans.

Rihanna is a pop artist but in this video she uses characteristics of a hip hop video for example,  she has herself performing in front of a large crowd. It also follows the common characteristics of a mainstream video which is to have the artist  on screen most of the time which helps the record label sell the artist. This makes the video more mainstream as it easily recognisable  as a hip hop/RnB video even though Rihanna is a pop artist. Rihanna also looked glamours/rich which is shown in most hop hop/RnB videos to show the artists wealth. 

The main relationship between the lyrics and visuals was when Rihanna would sing 'Drink To That' and then the visual would be her or someone else with a glass filled with liquid (alcohol) and then drinking it. This would allow an audience member/viewer of the video what it is about. This also helped to amplify the fact that the song is called 'Drink To That' as you can see people drinking as she sings 'Drink To That'. The only other relationship between lyrics and visuals was when Rihanna says 'Got my ray bands on and I'm feeling 'hella cool tonight, yeah' and then on screen we has Rihanna and people in the crowd wearing them on screen at the same moment.

The link between the musical and visual isn't shown until the music starts around 00:30. At first we just have normal cuts from scenes of the crowd being loud and active, to Rihanna getting ready for the show, to Rihanna at different places (bar, back stage). During this time, what is shown on screen is being cut to natural sounds as the main song hasn't started yet.  This helps show the artist in her natural environment and helps show people who don't know the artist, gain an understanding of who the artist is. When the song starts at 00:28, we then get the visual being cut to the beat/tempo of the music and the cutting rhythm is fast as the drums in the beat of the song are fast.

Rihanna's notion of looking into the camera showed a relationship between Rihanna and her fans as she would look directly into the camera which made it feel as if she was looking directly as us, and this helps to build a relationship between audience and artist. 90% of the time Rihanna was constantly on screen whether is was her performing on stage or her behind stage having fun, or her on holiday having fun. Either way her face or body was always on screen, which helps to sell the artist as people watching this video can gain a better understanding of the artist and those who don't know about Rihanna, can now see what she is about and recognise her if they see another video of her.

There was no portrayal of voyeurism as Rihanna was wearing very short shorts, bras, doing sexual dances whilst on stage and showing a lot of 'flesh' most of the time on screen. This helps to sell the artist more as showing the female body attracts males (mentally/sexually) and as a mainstream video this would mean that she would gain a lot of attention in the male viewers eyes. By attracting males, this helps to sell the artist and let the artist become more known for what she does and her music.

There wasn't any intertextuality references as it was a performance video and all about Rihanna and her everyday life.


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