H A N N A H W A L T E R S

Music Genres“an expressive style of music”

Indie Rock

Well known Indie Rock Artists:

Arctic Monkeys

Modest Mouse

The Strokes

MGMT

The Killers

Two Door Cinema Club

The main conventions you would see in an indie rock video are either a band playing on location, or a story been told which is taken from the lyrics not involving any member of the band. You wouldn’t expect bright colours or complete, solid blacks, it would tend to be low tones of colours or pale ones. It is also seen as ‘alternative rock’ which influences their quirky videos reflecting their audience’s alternative and different tastes in music.

R&B

Well known R&B artists:

Beyonce

Rihanna

Jay-z

Lil Wayne

Usher

Drake

Kanye West

In an R&B video you would expect to see the artist surrounded by either other artists or groups of their opposite gender. In a male’s video, you would expect to see girls in very few clothes dancing. However, in a female video, they tend to dance with backing dancers. They are usually on location in the sun or around a pool or party with signs of alcohol and drugs; this tends to be because their audience are similar to them and share the same interests of a ‘party life’. Furthermore, we would expect to see expensive items such as jewellery, clothes, cars and houses.

Dubstep

Well known dubstep artists:

Skrillex

Skream

Flux Pavilion

Modestep

Borgore

Datsik

Dubstep videos tend to have a scenes of crime and violence with dark lighting and scarce locations. Skrillex – Bangarang, for example, features children robbing an ice cream man and, after growing up, step up and rob a bank. However, they are good-feel at the end of the videos, as they are supposed to be uplifting stories.

Reggae

Well known reggae artists:

Bob Marley

Buju Banton

Beenie Man

Dennis Brown

Sizzla

Sly and Robbie

Bob Marley and the Wailers

Reggae videos tend to be of a low quality and are mellow. They tend to feature a lot of natural things such as plants or natural drugs such as marijuana. It also features a lot of love and harmony within a group of people being close and together to show their mutual relationship. A lot of natural light is used you wouldn’t see strobe, unnatural lighting; it is the complete opposite as they originate from the Caribbean and therefore don’t have advanced technology.

Electronic Dance

Well known electronic dance artists:

Example

Nero

The Progidy

Chase and Status

Sub Focus

David Guetta

Calvin Harris

The videos feature a lot of strobe lighting and dance scenes mainly on a live set with a crowd at i.e. a concert or festival. It reflects the audience as it is jumpy and the audience would dance to it therefore the video contains people dancing and raving expressing their happiness like the song itself does. On the other hand, it can contain women in provocative clothing around fast, expensive race cars. Conventions of electronic dance is high paced editing which has a high contrast between light and dark.