LYRICS - Translation from French to English
Monday, 18 October 2010
Textual Analysis Four - Carla Bruni
Carla Bruni - L'Amoureuse
LYRICS - Translation from French to English
LYRICS - Translation from French to English
Textual Analysis Three - Sistars
Sistars - Skad ja Cie mam
CONVENTIONAL IMAGERY of 50's and 60's STYLES
TWINS
An image from the video
Ingrid Bergman with her twin daughters - picture taken in 1952 by David Seymour
LINE 'A' DRESSES
Louis Vuitton - fall/winter 2010 ad campaign
Friday, 15 October 2010
Textual Analysis Two - Koop
Koop - Come to me
Koop - I see a different you
This video was directed by Marcus Söderlund in Costa Rica.
Koop - I see a different you
This video was directed by Marcus Söderlund in Costa Rica.
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
LYRICS analysis
Nouvelle Vague - Just can't get enough
Here I have included the 'tags' from the music website last.fm, as the actual music genre of might chosen band might seem a bit fuzzy, I believe it helps to clarify what kind of music my chosen band creates.
Here I have included the 'tags' from the music website last.fm, as the actual music genre of might chosen band might seem a bit fuzzy, I believe it helps to clarify what kind of music my chosen band creates.
LIIAR - JAZZ MUSIC VIDEO
LANGUAGE - Consists of everything we see within the frame i.e. cinematography, mise-en-scene and editing.
What particular medium are you looking at?
Music videos which are jazz and jazz related.
What are distinguishing features of your medium?
The most distinguishing feature of jazz music videos is that the majority of them include artist performance. Assuming that probably many music video directors draw from historical examples that might be the reason why they stick to the same convention for decades. Also the fact that jazz is the “father” of popular music means that the videos are more “traditional”. Unlike some modern examples from different music genres, jazz videos don’t really use intertextual references, such as; parody or pastiche. [Intertextuality - The way in which texts refer to other media texts that producers assume audiences will recognise.] They might use intertextuality in a sense that they refer to some old movies, soundies or musicals, however these references are not usually very direct comparing to the example from our handout, which is Madonna’s music video of the song “Die another day”. In this video we can clearly see the reference to the specific scenes from one of the Bond movies.
IDEOLOGY – It is about all the values a particular music video tries to convey through to the audience.
As jazz and jazz related music genres are usually addressed to more mature audience (24 – 40/50) , the ideology behind it would be again more traditional, maybe not as controversial as it would be in for example indie rock music videos which are clearly addressed to a younger audience (16 – 24)
What values are explicit?
Most of today’s jazz and jazz related music videos doesn’t show any explicit values, their content is again more traditional than in rock/pop mainstream music videos. They are not as much ‘showy’ as the mainstream videos: there is no sexually explicit or ant-establishment imagery like there often is in hip-hop or rock music videos. Those traditional values (love, friendship, family, slow-paced way of life, happiness) are shown in a rather implicit way.
INSTITUTION – Institution is very important, when it comes to the process of shooting. It can influence the ideology behind the music video.
The institutions behind any music video will be the record labels, as they are responsible for selling the music of particular artists.
AUDIENCE – The people who consume a particular product in this case – jazz music videos.
Who is it for?
Jazz and jazz related music is usually aimed at an audience with already established musical taste, university graduates from higher economical model (A B C)
REPRESANTATION – It is about what a particular music video represents
Which individuals/groups/issues appear in it?
People who appear in jazz music videos are young adults and adults ( 18 – 35) If they are any issue represented they concern traditional values – love ( eg. Koop – Come to me), friendship etc.
How are they portrayed?
History of jazz and jazz music videos
Considering that the band (Nouvelle Vague) whose song I’ve chosen to do, evolves around music genres like lounge, new wave and bossa nova, I am focusing my initial research on jazz music as it is a stylistic origin to all of this styles.
‘Jazz is a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of blacks with European music”.’ – definition by Joachim Berendt, German jazz critic.
Blues and jazz history reaches back to XVII century, when the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch competed for control of the Atlantic slave trade. An outrageous number of Black Africans were transported mostly to the Caribbean Islands and Spanish colonies in Central and South America. Far from homogeneous, they were diverse in linguistic, ethnic, and spiritual heritages. This diversity was reflected in their rich musical traditions.
Slavery looked differently in various colonies all over the world. It took a slightly different cultural turn in the French-dominated city of New Orleans, founded in 1718. Here, free colored people called Creoles co-existed with whites and slaves. Creoles were the racially mixed children of French slave masters and enslaved African women. These biracial children were given more privileges than black children. They were often educated in the finest schools, trained as musicians, and allowed access to white society. According to custom, many French slave owners would free their slaves—and, especially their Creole children--immediately prior to their own death. With freedom, Creoles were able to achieve opportunities in society and wealth that approximated the status and rights of white people. However, when the Spanish took over New Orleans in 1764, Creoles lost their social and economic status, a change that forced them to look for work. Many became travelling musicians, a phenomenon that would evolve into the Southern minstrel show.
These Creole musicians and their descendants became the primary inventors of early jazz.
___________________________________________________
History of music videos
‘A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a piece of music.’ – quoted from Wikipedia.
Nowadays music videos are primarily made and used to promote a particular artist or a band. Although the origins of music videos reach as far as 1894, they became widely appreciated in 1980’s, when MTV decided to base their format around this medium.
In 1894 sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern, hired various performers and an electrician George Thomas, while promoting one of their songs “The Little Lost Child”. Thomas came up with a project of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performance. This idea would be later known as the “illustrated song” - a medium very popular back in XIX and XX century. Illustrated songs were the first step towards music video.
In 1926, with the invention of a sound film many musical short films were created. Warner Bros. has its own way of processing musicals and it was called Vitaphone. They featured many bands, dancers and vocalists. “Spooney Melodies” was the first true musical video series, produced by Warner Bros. in 1930. These short videos were usually six minutes in duration, and featured Art Deco-style animation and backgrounds combined with film of the performer singing.
The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and especially Fantasia, which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films. Warner Brothers also produced the cartoon "Three Pigs in a Polka", set to Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dances. Live action musical shorts, featuring such popular performers as Cab Calloway, were also distributed to theaters.
Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period.
Later, in the mid-1940s, jazz musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film Lookout Sister. These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video.
Here is a poster for 'Lookout Sister' film. The tag line says:
"When he's not singing, he's shooting
When he's not shooting, he' loving"
‘Jazz is a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of blacks with European music”.’ – definition by Joachim Berendt, German jazz critic.
Blues and jazz history reaches back to XVII century, when the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch competed for control of the Atlantic slave trade. An outrageous number of Black Africans were transported mostly to the Caribbean Islands and Spanish colonies in Central and South America. Far from homogeneous, they were diverse in linguistic, ethnic, and spiritual heritages. This diversity was reflected in their rich musical traditions.
Slavery looked differently in various colonies all over the world. It took a slightly different cultural turn in the French-dominated city of New Orleans, founded in 1718. Here, free colored people called Creoles co-existed with whites and slaves. Creoles were the racially mixed children of French slave masters and enslaved African women. These biracial children were given more privileges than black children. They were often educated in the finest schools, trained as musicians, and allowed access to white society. According to custom, many French slave owners would free their slaves—and, especially their Creole children--immediately prior to their own death. With freedom, Creoles were able to achieve opportunities in society and wealth that approximated the status and rights of white people. However, when the Spanish took over New Orleans in 1764, Creoles lost their social and economic status, a change that forced them to look for work. Many became travelling musicians, a phenomenon that would evolve into the Southern minstrel show.
These Creole musicians and their descendants became the primary inventors of early jazz.
___________________________________________________
History of music videos
‘A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a piece of music.’ – quoted from Wikipedia.
Nowadays music videos are primarily made and used to promote a particular artist or a band. Although the origins of music videos reach as far as 1894, they became widely appreciated in 1980’s, when MTV decided to base their format around this medium.
In 1894 sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern, hired various performers and an electrician George Thomas, while promoting one of their songs “The Little Lost Child”. Thomas came up with a project of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performance. This idea would be later known as the “illustrated song” - a medium very popular back in XIX and XX century. Illustrated songs were the first step towards music video.
In 1926, with the invention of a sound film many musical short films were created. Warner Bros. has its own way of processing musicals and it was called Vitaphone. They featured many bands, dancers and vocalists. “Spooney Melodies” was the first true musical video series, produced by Warner Bros. in 1930. These short videos were usually six minutes in duration, and featured Art Deco-style animation and backgrounds combined with film of the performer singing.
The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and especially Fantasia, which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films. Warner Brothers also produced the cartoon "Three Pigs in a Polka", set to Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dances. Live action musical shorts, featuring such popular performers as Cab Calloway, were also distributed to theaters.
Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period.
Later, in the mid-1940s, jazz musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film Lookout Sister. These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video.
Here is a poster for 'Lookout Sister' film. The tag line says:"When he's not singing, he's shooting
When he's not shooting, he' loving"
Buzz me baby - Louis Jordan
Buzz Me (1945) reached the panoram jukeboxes a year after it had been seen on the big screen as part of a two-reel film. The number starts on a high note from Jordan's trumpet player, then the band is going full out jump-jazz blues:
"When I saw you this morning, baby, why did you walk away/ When I saw you this morning baby, tell me why did you walk away/ Can't believe that you don't want me/ I thought our love was here to stay."The scene cuts away to a gal lounging on a wonderfully odd sofa, hovering over a phone as Louis sings on, "Buzz me buzz me buzz me baby, I'll be waitin' for your call/ Buzz me buzz me buzz me baby, I'll be waitin' for your call/ If you forgot the number, come on over you won't have to call at all."
This was a #1 hit on the R&B charts, staying on top for nine weeks, and was a crossover hit on the national chart at #9. Louis had a large number of R&B hits and several were crossovers, for which reason he gained the title "the Jukebox King," which led him naturally enough into soundies.
Panoram visual jukebox was a devise that played one-song films called "promotional clips". It became extremely popular within the United States during the 1940’s. These clips were short films of musical selections, usually just a band on a movie-set bandstand, made for playing. Thousands of "soundies" were made, mostly of jazz musicians, but also of torch singers, comedians, and dancers. Before the soundie, even dramatic movies typically had a musical interval, but the soundie put the music in the forefront; virtually all known jazz performers appeared in soundie shorts ( e.g. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Cab Calloway). The Panoram jukeboxes with eight three-minute soundies were popular in taverns and night spots, but the fad faded during World War II.
Musical films were another important precursor to music video, and several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of the best-known examples is Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl" (directed by Mary Lambert) which was closely modelled on Jack Cole's staging of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Several of Michael Jackson's videos show the unmistakable influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark "Thriller" and the Martin Scorsese-directed "Bad" which was influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story.
Marylin Monroe - "Diamonds Are Girl's Best Friend"
So far mentioned examples were just precursors of modern music video. It is considered that the first actual music video is Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. When in 1975, Queen was unable to appear on Top of the Pops as they were on tour. They worked over two days and spent the considerable sum at that time of £4,000 on recording their latest single, Bohemian Rhapsody, on the relatively new medium of video tape.
In the next posts I'll put some examples of modern jazz music video. Many of them actually draw ideas from their historical precursors (musicals, music shorties, panoram jukeboxe films). In “Buzz me Baby” we can see how the main singer performs with his band. In Norah Jones’ “Sunrise”, she is accompanied by her musicians and her back-up voice girl. This way of presenting a song is clearly a convention within jazz music videos.
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