Genre Analysis

By Holly Horne

Analyzing Genre in Music Videos

Basic analysis of Digi Paks and Music Videos

Lorde – Royals Digi PakArt/Image – As for Mise en Scene the only element of costume is a silver chain, this connotes strength and a sense of belief. The lighting is low key and throws a silhouette over the bottom of the persons face, this creates an enigma and an elusive nature. There is water dripping from the face of the person, connoting purity and heavenly. The setting is unclear, adding another enigma.

Colour Scheme – A dark colour scheme is shown here. Deep blues and black silhouettes connote a darkness to the album.

Typeface – The DigiPak has a very bold and strong typface, the reasoning being to portray an elegant yet bold feel.

Copy – The song/album title is ‘Royals’ shown in capital letters, the title is significant because the word is creating a picture of queens and kings. The connotations of kings and queens are powerful, strong, rich, these all contribute to the star image.

Effects/Filters – a washed out effect is used alongside the dark grey colour. Also, on the front cover the background is sent out of focus.

Representation – Through the digipak, the ideology is shown through imagery, colour and many other aspects. The values of wealth are shown through the white and grey colours also the typeface. The small font throughout shows attitudes of individuality, also religious beliefs as the small font demonstrates big beliefs around it.

Music Video Iconography – a close up of the lead singer is iconic and helps in creating the star image for the band as the close up is very well recognized worldwide. Also the pale face and simplistic fashion makeup is iconic to the band. By doing this, they are proving Richard Dyer’s star theory of a star being both ordinary and extraordinary creating an overall star image and showing that a star is also a brand within itself.

Camera and Editing – The tracking shot through the town contradicts the lyrics about being royals. The quick yet well timed cuts that switch on the beat show a sporadic yet orderly lifestyle of the lead singer.

The Sound - The genre of art pop is reflected through instrumentation, being played through synthesizers. The repetitive beat mirrors the repetitive and dull lives of the singer yet also sounds royal and structured. Narrative – The narrative of the video is of a boy in his daily life. The boy lives a very dull and uninteresting life to the audience member but the lyrics are juxtaposing this idea by explaining that the way they live is how they enjoy living.

Star Values – The attractive aspect of Lorde is that she is different and inspires a certain group of people to be more individual and be happy with the choices you want to make. Lorde shows us in every video/appearance/interview etc. that she is unique. She wears what she wants and says what she wants. Her confidence is a huge aspect of the inspiration her fans feel towards her.

Performance – As for the star image a medium close up of Lorde is a recurring feature to each video and comes back to the Richard Dyer star theory and part of Rick Altman’s theory about an audience seeking predictable pleasure from an artist. The performance being very simple is conventional to Lorde and adding to her star image.

Rick AltmanRick Altman is a theorist from Iowa. One of his theories taken from his book Film/Genre is about having a semantic/syntactic approach to genre. The semantic element of this is that the conventions of the genre portrayed to the audience through different signifiers such as setting, props, characters etc. On the other hand, the syntactic element is about the relationship between signifying features and the narrative, also. The theory by Altman also demonstrates the fact that audience enjoy consuming a product that has predictable narrative. The text may be rejected on the contrary if the generic contract of not shaping their expectation is broken. Overall, genre is communicated through a number of ideas, aiming to minimalize the risks of genre failure and communicate it soundly.

“Genre theory is limited as it does not allow for the acknowledgement of a hybrid” - Rick Altman