Post 4: The Pop Music Genre

Pop music is sometimes perceived only as 'chart music', when in actual fact, it is defined as any type of commercial popular music. There are also many sub-genres of pop, including art pop, new wave pop, teen pop and orchestral pop.

The genre originated in both the United States and the UK during the late 1950s, deriving from rock and roll.   

Pop music has a hybrid nature and often borrows elements from other styles of music such as urban, dance, rock and country. During the 80's, there was an increase in the use of digital recording, meaning that synthesisers and other electronic features were often heard in pop tracks. 

Pop music is aimed to appeal to a mass audience, and commonly, it attracts a large teenage audience.

'Queen of pop'

'King of pop'

Famous pop artists of 2019 include Ariana Grande, Shawn Mendes and Billie Eilish, who are currently dominating the UK charts. There are also several successful bands in the industry, including Panic! at the disco and Little Mix.

Below, I have embedded my research into the pop genre, where I gained a better knowledge of the codes and conventions of pop music, pop videos and pop artists.

I then looked into how pop artists create content that conforms to the pop genre. I chose to do some extended research on Shawn Mendes and Rita Ora. Mendes is a 21 year old singer-songwriter from Canada, who has been named one of the most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, and Ora is a British singer who has been nominated for three Brit awards. I chose to study these artists in particular as they are young, stylish and could be very inspirational for me when I come to constructing my star persona.

I also looked at some of their most popular music videos to see which codes and conventions they use in order to conform to the pop genre.

Rita Ora - Anywhere

There are lots of beauty shots used in this music video. These shots help to sell the star persona to the audience as we see the artist up close.

We also see a lot of voyeristic treatment of Rita's body

And finally, a bold colour palette is used throughout the video, making it look high budget and glossy. 

Shawn Mendes - Senorita

This music video has a narratuve that is based on love and romance. E.Ann Kaplan says that this is one of the main kinds of encoding in music videos, making it very conventional of the genre.

There are also lots of MCU's and CU's of Shawn, also known as 'money shots'

Finally, there are intertextual links to the 1970s, with the classic 70s American Diner. This is also seen in films such as Greece, so that could be another link.

From this research, I have discovered how artists construct their image to conform to the ideal of a 'pop artist'. This is done through their mainstream fashion, the events that they attend and the work that they do in society. I have also learnt about the codes and conventions of pop music videos, which will help me when it comes to shooting my own music video.

The genre has influenced my ideas on my star persona, the song that I will use, the music video I will create and also the website. I intend to use a chart-topping song for my music video, as pop songs are usually commercially successful. I will also use Andrew Goodwin's music video theory in order to make sure that I am using codes and conventions correctly. We can see these being used in the existing music videos that I analysed. Furthermore, Rita has inspired my style choices, both for the outfit in the music video and for my social media posts . I will wear fashionable and bold clothing to conform to genre conventions.