I researched the pop industry in order to find out and discover what was currently popular and the codes and conventions that my products would have to follow. In order to do this, I decided to look through the history of pop to see how trends have changed.
I looked at the history of pop from the 1960s in the UK as the brief states that my artist will be under Sony UK specifically. I found out that pop in the UK had three major spurts (known as the British invasion) where its popularity invaded and influenced other countries such as the USA. The first wave was in the '60s with rock 'n' roll, led by The Beatles in a phenomenon called Beatlemania. The second wave was in the '80s with post-punk rock and new movements, led by Queen and David Bowie. Finally, the third wave is considered to be the 2010s with the rise of Britpop bands such as Arctic Monkeys and Coldplay alongside the rise of grime and rave.
Overall, the British music scene has been massively influenced by rock, soul and world music which has helped create many subgenres of music unique to the UK. The UK has also been very successful with the use of a group format, which was it was heavily relied on in the '70s, with successes like Queen, Spice Girls and One Direction.
Pop has always used genre hybridity in order to make a song's sound unique. In the '90s there was a huge trend of incorporating Latin music with pop which popularised artists such as Shakira and led to Sony's decision in buying out Columbia Records. Lately, there has been a trend of incorporating electronic music with pop, most notably shown with the rise of Clean Bandit. The genre hybridity helps the song open up to a larger audience by combining two different interests into one, therefore opening up the song to two different audiences and therefore increasing the audience size, following Goodwin's theory on intertextuality.
Indiepop has also been popularised in animated films as many indie bands have written for the soundtrack of films (eg. the soundtrack for the film 'Epic' uses 'What If The Storm Ends - Snow Patrol'). In response, many bands have used animation in their music videos, such as 'Strawberry Swing - Coldplay' and 'Fell In Love With A Girl - The White Stripes'. This has inspired me to use animation in my own music video to create genre hybridity.
Pop is widely enjoyed and is made for mass consumption resulting in it being 19% of all music listened to and having a total worth of $19.1 billion. This is notably due to the fact that most pop songs follow a conventional structure of verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, bridge and then chorus within 3-4 minutes. By keeping to this structure, it helps to create a sense of familiarity for those listening as they know what to expect, This sense of familiarity is then further amplified as many music videos usually include intertextuality to popular culture.
I decided to look at Britney Spears who is a worldwide popstar. Most of her songs are between 3-4 minutes and follow the classic pop song structure. Her songs are also influenced by other genres, for example, 'Toxic' has electronic dance and bhangra influences onto it.
Within the music video, there is also use of a lot of different shots types and strong use of colour to convey different moods. Britney also has shots which sexualise her body, connoting her ideals as a pop star.
The music video also includes a lot of intertextualities. For example, Britney's red hair personal is dressed in a superhero costume and stars in an action spy storyline. This coincides with the popularity of superheroes at the time, especially Spiderman and Daredevil. Furthermore, action films with female star leads gained mass popularity with blockbuster films, such as Charlie's Angels and Kill Bill, leading the way. Finally, Britney's black hair persona is reminiscent of Cat Woman, for which there was large anticipation for as the Halle Berry rendition was due to be released the following year.
Overall, through looking at the conventions of pop music and music videos, I was able to understand what gives pop its USP and how it has managed to stay relevant and trendy for such a long time. Through looking at pop, I have decided that my song choice should have influences from rock, soul or world as those genres are most prominent in the British music scene. Furthermore, I need to ensure that within my song, I use a variation of shots and have fast pace editing, on beat with the song, as they are both conventions of pop.
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