Artist development research

Looking at this list of the top 15 singles in the chart on the week of the 4th September, its easy to see that while the charts do seem heavily male-dominated, there are many young female artists with popular singles including Rachel Platten, Jess Glynne, Demi Lovato and Little Mix. These artists are obviously popular for a reason, and part of that reason is the artist/group’s image.

Rachel Platten Platten’s single, Fight Song, is

currently no.3 in the UK. Her image appears to be fairly natural. This is reflected in the music video for the song, where her clothing is fashionable with an edge. Various

shots of her writing in a notebook show she is wearing big rings.

Here she is seen wearing a basic t-shirt.

Her hair in the video is shot with tousled waves, a style popular right now & seen on other artists and famous young women right now. In the video

she wears basic clothing but accessorizes too with hats, necklaces and other jewelry.

Throughout the whole video she wears laid-back, unsophisticated clothing that is reminiscent of day-to-day fashion. This is something to consider when we plan our artist’s clothing for our music video because I think it works well in making the artist relatable. Not only this, but it will make it easier for us to find the clothing, which will be a benefit.

Jess Glynne Glynne’s song ‘Don’t be so Hard on Yourself’ is currently no.5 on the UK chart, which her image appearing to be heavily hip-hop influenced. This is seen in the music video for the song, as well as other music videos she had performed in.

In the video for Don’t be so Hard on Yourself, her hair is natural and tied in simple styles.

Her eye makeup is fairly elaborate, but in neutral tones that suit her face.

Similarly as with the Platten video, Glynne wears clothing that is fashionable, however with an urban edge to match her image, and could be found in highstreet shops by fans.

In the video she also accessorizes with rings/bracelets and necklaces.

Glynne’s urban style is also seen in Tinie Tempah’s video for Not Letting Go.

Glynne’s whole image shows her as a ‘trendy’ and fashionable young artist with urban/hip-hop influences. Her natural and bright hair stands out, making her look unusual, which is something we should consider with our artist.

Demi Lovato Lovato’s song ‘Cool for the Summer’ is currently no.7 on the UK chart. Her image generally is heavily rock/punk influenced, which can be seen in this music video.

In the video, Lovato wears heavy makeup.

Her tattoos are visible in this video, which accentuates the ‘rock’ style she has.

The outfits are mostly made up of underwear paired with jackets/skirts. She also

accessorizes with long earrings which contrast her shorter hair. She is seen

here wearing a leather-style body suit with fishnet boots, which gives her a sultry edge.

Demi’s style in this video isn’t really what we’re looking to apply to our own video. Really, we want a contemporary style with a clear unique edge, whereas in this video she fits the conventions of being typically ‘rock’ or edgy. Despite this, I think the fact we could see her tattoos did show her individuality, which would be something for us to consider to perhaps highlight our artist’s creative individuality too.

Little Mix Little Mix’s song ‘Black Magic’ is currently no.11 on the UK chart. And each band member seems to have their own individual style.

As the video for this song has a narrative story, the girls in the group go through a ‘transformation’ where their clothing changes and they become more typically fashionable.

Their makeup in the video is light and natural looking.

Some of the outfits appear to have a bohemian influence that is reminiscent of festivals etc.

The members of the group are also accessorized, wearing rings, bracelets and hair accessories that are eye-catching.

The members all have natural hair styles in long length which adds symmetry to them as a group.

The similar colours that each member is wearing stops them from clashing together, which the similar styles of clothing show they’re together.

I think that the target audience for this video is pre-teen girls, as the storyline is quite basic. I think this is reflected in the image choice of the band, as I think their style is likely to be attractive to younger girls. The colours are fairly bright and typically ‘pop’, which isn’t what we’re looking for. However, again, I thought that the use of accessories and light makeup worked very well and so will definitely consider that when making decisions for our video.

Looking at other popular young female celebrities right now, its clear that there are some day-to-day style trends popular that we could use in our music video to make our artist appealing to our target audience, as we want our artist to look laidback and comfortable in her surroundings. If we chose to have our artist dressed in this way, it would be easy to create costumes as all items would be day to day things.

Looking at hairstyle trends for 2015, messy, simplistic styles in natural colour seem to be popular. Although we want our artist to look unique, by styling her hair in a fashionable way, such as these images, would make her more appealing to the fashion conscious target audience. This type of style would also be easy to achieve as they are low-intensity in styling and also look edgy, which would naturally add to the artist’s image. Ideally, we would like our artist to have fairly long hair as we feel that is more eye-catching and so will make our artist’s image more memorable.

Makeup wise, I think we want to keep it fairly natural but give our artist a statement look, such as bold eyeliner/lip colour or using jewels etc. Because we want our artist to look unusual and ahead of fashion, we should avoid the typical popular styles right now, such as heavy contouring (as seen in the picture on the …), and I feel we should focus on having one specific statement thing & keeping everything else natural.