Genre Investigation: Rock

Rock music originated in the 1950's as 'rock and roll', after being heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. It also drew strongly on a number of other genres, including blues and folk and incoporated influences from jazz and classical sources.

Musically, rock is centered upon the electric guitar, usually as part of an ensemble including bass guitar and drums. Song structure-wise, rock is usually within a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, with heavy, dramatic guitar and/or vocal solos. However, it has expanded in conventions ever since it's roots; some of the greatest songs were musical experiments which became known for their originality and innovation.

Like pop music, the lyrics are often inspired by romantics/love tales, but also addresses a wide range of other themes including those more socially or politically based.

The generic conventions of rock music videos include:

• Documenting live footage - adds energy and focuses on the talent of the musicians.
• Often focuses on the lead singer, close-up shots of them whilst the rest of the band are represented through more-so through wide shots and mid-shots.
• Focus on the instruments used and the musical element within the piece
• Strong links between the visuals and the music - often cuts to beat.
• Often fast paced to recreate the energetic live performance.
• Shots of the audience/crowd
• Expressing strong emotions such as anger, love, depression or regret.

Modern rock videos appear to be swerving towards creating a narrative within their videos, perhaps to try to gain more popularity through crossing genres, however it is no doubt that the most generic and successful rock videos are heavily performance based. 

Genre Investigation: Dance

Periods of Western classical music
Early
Medieval	(500–1400)
Renaissance	(1400–1600)
Baroque	(1600–1760)
Common practice
Baroque	(1600–1760)
Classical	(1730–1820)
Romantic	(1815–1910)
Modern and contemporary
Modern	(1890–1930)
20th century	(1901–2000)
Contemporary	(1975–present)
21st century	(2001–present)

Dance music is music composed specifically to encourage or accompany dancing, and has carefully expanded into a huge genre with different sub-genres, such as house, techno and drum & bass regularly emerging. It has has to quickly evolve to keep up with the audience demands and modern trends as can be seen in the table to the right.
In terms of it's music videos, the genre of dance has developed many conventions of it's own, including:

• Handheld camera shots - rarely any static shots as the movement gives it a more dynamic and intimate feel
• Energetic
• Colourful
• Large variety of camera framing and angles, however there is a large use of close ups within the videos which again makes teh audience feel involved - as if you were there yourself.
• Often set in a nightclub/urban setting, this being a common concept of dance videos, however there are notable exceptions
• Other settings include summer settings, such as at the beach, pool parties etc
• More than often are shots of people dancing - be it street dancing, cheer leading, roller blading - anything that is energetic and inspires people to dance themselves.
• Modern teenager/young adult stereotypes, such as alcohol, drugs, fashionable clothing and sometimes sexual references.
• Representation of women - often voyerism, girls in bikini's/very little clothes. Male gaze theory comes into play
• High key lighting
• Lively atmosphere
• Repeated basseline beat to keep the audience engaged
• Techno/electric sounds

EDITING:
The editing within dance music videos is ususally fast paced and choppy - usually cutting to another shot every 1-2 seconds. This again is designed to raise heartrate and encourage movement. The editing usually tells a narrative, with common themes including love, gang culture and holidays/escapes.

Here are some examples of popular and conventional dance music videos:

Genre Investigation: Pop

Pop music was originally an abbrieviation of 'popular music' and originated from rock and roll in the 1950's. In terms of it's genre, it is extremely varied and pulls many of it's characteristics from the combination of other genres such as urban, dance, rock. latin and country. 

Despite this, it still holds characteristics which are completely faithful to it's own genre:

• Short to medium length songs: two - four mins long
• Written in simple, traditional & basic style - verse-chorus form
• Repeated choruses
• Melodic tunes
• Catchy hooks
• Usually an uptempo or moderate beat
• Consistent and noticeable rhythmic element
• Mainstream style
• Chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse
• Limited harmonic accompaniment 
• Often focus of simple themes such s love and relationships, although there are notable exceptions.

Pop music is generally thought of as a genre which is commercially recorded and desires to have a mass audience appeal, however this aim is usually contained to the interest of young children, teenagers and adults. 

Although pop music is often seen as oriented towards the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music which has always contained songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs, while pop music as a genre is usually seen as existing and developing separately. Thus "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll.

Examples of typical pop songs are below:

Grenre Investigation: Indie

Indie music is an abbrieviated term for independant music and the name is very much self-explanatory, in that it is unique and unusual - which is often why such tracks slip into this category, as their style is outside of genres which already exist.

Indie music, like most genres has crossed over and separated into several other branches of genre. For example, you can now find indie-pop, indie-rock etc. Alongside this, the style of music has also appeared to converhe out into the fashion world, with the outfits worn by popular indie artists becoming adopted not only by the people who listen to it, but by a large part of the fashion world in general; the codes of dress reflect the codes of the song, and it seems like a natural progression for it's listeners to uptake an individual style of fashion to match their unique taste in music. What I love about this type of music is the almost total artistic freedom to create whatever they feel like, as many indie artists are under smaller, independant labels which mean they for the most part they're not under so much pressure to make a hit single. This arguably means they can push the boundaries further in that the conventions can be totally whacky and surreal, yet it won't face such harsh criticism being in a lower limelight.

Indie music is generally part performance based and predictable as they give their target audience what they expect and what they are used to seeing. A lot of indie music is about live performances e.g: festivals and acoustic sets and is very much about the music itself. When there is a storyline as part of the music video indie music videos can either stick very closely to the lyrics of the song or digress into something far fetched and spontabeous that has very little to do with the lyrics, however this concept would be stuck to throughout, and could represent a more personal venture for the artist.  Below are two examples of well known indie music videos.



Although she is not an indie artist as such, Taylor Swift's collaboratin with 'The Civil Wars' pushed her into the genre in this occasion. The music video meets many of the conventions of an indie music video; a forest setting, innocent blonde lady walking around in a white dress, abandoned house etc. It's very isolated and artsy.

Ben Howard fits the indie genre perfect, and this is personally one of my favourite songs. The visuals differ in terms of desaturatated colours, sepia tones and black/white hues which give the video a reflective, vintage feel. The bike links to journey's and simplicity; he could use a car or taxi but chooses to take it slower so that he can properly take in the city surroundings, which is highlighted in the establishing shots of the location.