R&P Post 12: Artists/bands that have influenced my ideas

Catfish And The Bottlemen

This band is my primary inspiration for the decisions upon the representations and overall image of our band. I really like the marketing of this band and there are many influences I have drawn from them. Firstly, I think that their alternative-indie genre is connoted very clearly and carried out in synergy across all platforms, through careful manipulation of their style and look. They use a variety of different tools to do so, one of which is their constant black and white colour scheme throughout their logo, album cover and gallery pictures. The idea of a colour stylisation is something I am very keen to adapt for our band as I feel that it strengths the bands synergy as well helping the audiences to differentiate the band from other, less unique indie bands.


Secondly, I will take inspiration from their performance style. The first thing I like is the way Van McCan (Lead Singer) conveys his emotions. As can be seen in the images to the left, he really sings into the mic, he squeezes his eyes shut very often and he is constantly dynamic and moving. Through these subtle techniques he manages to connect to the audience and involve them, making the performance more engaging. I am extremely influenced by this purposefully created dramatic effect and the affect it has audience.

In addition, I have also been inspired by the guitarist's performance. I am very keen to adapt some of his more dynamic and conventional rock dance moves that really aid the anchorage of the genre. As well as this, his own natural gesturing has really inspired me as I had not yet realised that individualised movement could be just as effective when trying to connote character.

Cage The Elephant

This band has mostly inspired me in terms of performance. Brad Shultz (the lead singer) is very clever in the way that he interprets his lyrics and adapts his performance to every line. In the music video for 'In One Ear' he interchanges between 3 different personas throughout different lines in the song.


One side of his character is quite serious and passionate and through his sporadic movement and constant straining he appears to be overtaken by the music. This results in an intensification of the emotion in the video, which helps to engross the audience an gratify the need of diversion.



In addition, he has also created a very sarcastic persona that acts as comic relief throughout the video. As a consequence of these shots, the constant intensity is softened in specific areas and a more dynamic and diverse video is further developed. In my opinion, this personality    characterizes and visualizes the ironic nature of the lyrics "in one ear and straight out the other".


The last stylization of Brad is possibly the most significant and affecting to the viewer. He is depicted dancing around crazily and just letting go. Due to the culture of dancing that surrounds rock music, for fans of this genre, this representation with satisfy personal identity gratifications. In addition, it improves the overall enjoyment of the video. It will encourage the audience to dance along and at best, encourage them to act and buy concert tickets.

This band has greatly influenced my ideas as they show a strong example of how clever acting can be used as an effective tool for more intense storytelling. Furthermore, having seen this music video I would definitely like to create a performance aspect to my video and use detailed acting in order to enhance the meaning of the lyrics.

Haim

The third band that has greatly developed my thought process is Haim. They are an American pop rock girl band that reached fame in 2013. There are many inspirational aspects of this band, however I think that the single most significant influence is the representation of females. All of their marketing, most crucially their sound and style, works in symbiosis to promote the presence of women in rock music, which is typically unconventional.

The music video for 'The Wire' is a clear example of sound and styling converging and being used to twist stereotypical gender roles to create a funny yet meaningful storyline. As can be seen in the video below the melodramatic males in the break-up juxtapose the traditional conventions of the over emotional and obsessive girlfriend.

This is not the only example of irony in gender roles and strong feminist expression, instead it something carried across their whole campaign to offer girls and women, that are fans of rock music, some aspirational figures that portray personal identity gratifications.

Finally, their look and style has been really important to my ideas and I have created the spider diagram below in order to graphically depict they different, more specific nuances that have influenced me.

{SPIDER DIAGRAM}

To conclude, I am really interested in their post-modernist and feminist values and I really like the fact they are not presented as 'one of the guys' nor 'girly girls'; they are just normal women.  These connotations and values that are highlighted most clearly through their sound, their style and look are things that I am very keen to develop and replicate.

Arctic Monkeys

As a big fan of the Arctic Monkey I decided to explore what attracted me to the band and why I like them. I found that this technique has been very effective in bettering my understanding of target audiences and developing my own ideas.

The first area I investigated was their sound and I found that their songs are highly dynamic, exciting and upbeat without being demanding to listen to and too overpowering. In addition they use a range of instruments and tones to create a complex overlay that is appealing to a wide audience. The sound cloud track below is just one of their many songs that follow this same formula.

Through breaking down the effect of the sound, I have been able to greatly develop my ideas surround the translation and emphasis of the music through the visuals in the video.
In addition, Arctic Monkey has inspired the genre I would like to choose and  I am very keen to find a  song that has a similarly strong dynamic range.

Secondly, their look and style have greatly inspired my ideas. Their 'star' image has been constructed to appear quirky and cool, but also slightly cocky. Initially it seemed odd to me that a band would be purposefully represented as a little arrogant. However, I have come to the conclusion that through this persona, Alex Turner excites and entices the audience to enjoy his rebellious and typically rock n roll antics that also offer the audience a sense of nostalgia.

In addition, their edgy characterization is anchored further by the way they dress. As can be seen through the picture on the right, they wear quite stereotypical clothing for the rock genre; leather jackets, aviators, denim shirts and jeans, however due to the nature of the genre and their image, they still appear alternative and counter-culture. In addition, one can see that Alex Turner (lead) has be cleverly styled to mimic and modernize very typical Elvis Presley signifiers, the most evident example being his hair style. This has hugely developed my thinking, as I am beginning to understand that star representations are often re-rendered and
used on many different artists with only slight
alteration being made.