Album Covers

Rock Star Album Cover

Dyers Star Theory

Adorno and Hebdidge's Theorys

I’m going to look at an example of a synthetic artist who follows the theory of Theodor Adorno. This is that, Music industries create Artists that will appeal to mass audiences, and they therefore create an artificial image for their artists that is sure to sell records, His theory dictates that people all follow the same tastes and therefore artists are made to look and be the way that will appeal to this mainstream audience. Justin Beiber is a clear example of a synthetic artist, He is signed by the record company Island records which is owned by Universal one of the big 3 institutions, Justin Beibers target audience is particularly girls, he is therefore made to follow the conventions of a typical boy band image, with his skinny jeans and floppy hair, he is able to attract a mainstream audience by following the stereotypes of his target audience, Justin Beiber is not made to threaten his target audience and is constructed to make money. We see from his song titles such as “Baby” and “One less lonely girl” his image is constructed to make girls feel sympathetic and want to be his girl this is an example of how Justin Beiber is conforming to what the mass audiences what and is being made to conform to the conventions of a typical boy band image in his videos he is portrayed in a way that will make girls want to be with him he is shown as innocent and easy going but also heartbroken this image is created by record companies to enable Justin Beiber to conform to what they think the mass audience want and not take risks and eventually gain more success. By having no individuality and conforming, this follows Theodor Adorno’s theory that all music is made to be the same to follow a mass audience and is giving artists no independence to be themselves but making them feel they have to conform to what society wants.

In contrast to this Dick Hebdidge argued that, people are not part of one mass culture, and his theory follow that there are “subcultures” made for people with similar tastes and interests that all have different opinions of music, he argued that not everyone has the same opinions on music and artists do not need to be a certain way to create money and target a mass audience, for example Artic Monkeys an organic band meaning they are not owned by a mass record company but owned by independent label Domino, write their own songs and create an image based on what they want not what the industry wants. They follow the idea that they can attract a certain type of audience who group together in a subculture that share the same tastes and musical interest that their music will attract, they therefore will aim to attract there fan base and not a mass audience. Dick Hebdbidge is saying that artists do not need to conform to gain an audience as they can be the way they are originally and don’t need to change, he feels that instead of one big mass culture there are sub cultures within it  which will have a certain opinion to say another sub culture, he says that artists can subvert away from conforming to what the mass culture wants and enable sub cultures to feel independent but still conform to a group or a society where they don’t need to be the same as everyone else. However Adornos theory is reiterated in that Artic Monkeys are now very much part of the mainstream in that there image and music has changed to adapt to the audiences and industries needs. There music videos has now got higher budgets and their whole image has changed therefore becoming part of the standardised mass culture Adorno talks about, in that sub cultures do eventually get assimalated into the mainstream once reaching a certain level of success.

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin has the following theory when looking at music videos and what they show: - A relationship between lyrics and visuals (illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics) - A relationship between music and visuals - Particular genres may have their own video style and iconography - A demand from record company for lots of closeups of the main artist - Artist develops their own star iconography in and out of their videos - reference to voyerism (screen within a screen, binocluars, cameras) - Intertextual references When looking at Beyonces Music video "If I were a Boy" we took each of these factors into consideration and tested to see if they worked.


The relationship between lyrics and visuals- In the video we can see the lyrics suggest beyonce is trying to think how she would feel in her boyfriends shoes, and in the video we clearly see beyonce dressed up as a boy, acting like a stereotypical male


Relationship between music and visuals- we can see how the music cuts with the pace of the music,this makes the video more flowing and makes it more enjoyable to watch

Particular genres may have their own video style and iconography- Here we can see how this type of lyrical music video has a much more lyrical sad atmosphere to fit with the genre of the music we see this through the slow pace and black and white style.

A demand from record company for lots of closeups of the main artist- we see a range of closeups of both Beyonce and the other male characters, this creates more of a narrative however most of the camera time is mainly focused on Beyonce

Artist develops their own star iconography in and out of their videos- Here we see Beyonce subverting against her iconography as she is much less sexualised in this video, however she stands for a strong female image which is what she is known for, she is also reversing her role, which subverts her iconography

Reference to voyerism- we see lots of closeups of Beyonce undressing creating a male gaze and objectifying Beyonce we see close ups of her cleavge and how she has adjusted the police uniform to make it sexualised which is typical of a video trying to attract a male audience

 Intertextual reference- the black and white style of the music video reminds us of a black and white film.

Welcome to A2- Analysing a Music Video