Music Research

Today in session, we covered:

• Music genres

• Analysing music, and building the skills to understand the subject you are designing for

Class Research

We looked at three different songs from different music genres, and we were asked to analyse the lyrics and identify the genre.

The first song we looked at was 'Let The Mystery Be' by Iris Dement. The bluegrass song is also the theme song from HBO's The Leftovers. The song has a life and death theme, with the singer questioning life after death. The song linked well to The Leftovers, a show about people who have vanished, and their families trying to find them.

"Everybody is a worryin' 'bout where

They're gonna go when the whole thing's done

... I think I'll just let the mystery be"

We also studied the title sequence for 'The Leftovers', and as a class, we identified the digital software and techniques that the graphic designers used. For example, Photoshop was used to create a clipping mask for the 'missing people', and a video was put inside the clipping mask.

The same process was done for the last two songs: 'You Were Right' by Badly Drawn Boy and 'Like a Rolling Stone' by The Rolling Stones (music video by Michel Gondry).

We looked at the song's respective genres, lyrics and music videos to analyse the songs' meanings, and the message from each music video.

Music Genres

As a group, we came up with lots of different music genres. To the left is the list we came up with. Afterwards, I thought of a couple more:

- Shoegaze

- Britpop

- EDM

- Funk

- R&B

- Dance

- Grime (under Rap)

My Chosen Musical Artist

This project's brief is to create pieces of merchandise and artwork for an unsigned and/or up-and-coming musical artist. My aim for the following analysis is that it will help me to formulate design ideas for my chosen band.

I have decided to base my project around the band Set It Off, an up-and-coming pop-rock band who, in 2014, soared to the Billboard charts with their song Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. Set It Off are still growing, but they have a loyal fanbase that continues to expand.

Themes

The following quotes sum up the band perfectly. As a huge fan of their music, I see the difference between their first albums, which were very rock and anger driven, to Upside Down, a pop-driven album, to Midnight, a combination of pop music and that original rock they started out with. If someone asked me to describe Set It Off's music genre, I would say exactly that - it's a pop-rock band!

"With Cinematics, [...] you could compare us to a gothic band"

"You look at Upside Down, and we were really pop"

"I think we've managed to take everything about who we are and perfectly fuse it together into what we've been throughout our career. We have our aggression, we have my sass, and the lyrics that mean so much to me and I think will mean so much to everyone else"

~ Cody Carson, Set It Off