Genre

Genre

What is Genre/sub genre?

 A category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.

Genre we have chosen and why?

The electro-pop and dance-pop genres are the dominating genres of the year 2010 so far with artists like Lady Gaga, Kesha,The Black Eyed Peas, Taio Cruz, Usher, and Katy Perry topping the charts. 

We chose to do Potential Breakup Song by Aly and Aj not only because electro pop is a popular genre of music, but also because we liked its upbeat lively tempo. We felt that a more upbeat song will be more fun and dynamic to work with and so we feel that this genre is well suited for us.

What are the main generic conventions of a music video in your chosen genre? 

Background research:

Although synthpop in part arose from punk rock, it abandoned punk's emphasis on authenticity and often pursued a deliberate artificiality, sometimes using synthesizers to replace all other instruments. It owed relatively little to the foundations of early popular music in jazz, folk music or the blues, and instead of looking to America, in its early stages, it consciously focused on European and particularly Eastern European influences. Early synthpop has been described as "eerie, sterile, and vaguely menacing", using droning electronics with little change in inflection. Later the introduction of dance beats made the music warmer and catchier and contained within the conventions of three-minute pop. Because synthesizers removed the need for large groups of musicians, these singers were often part of a duo where their partner played all the instrumentation.

Characteristics:

The lyrics often involve issues of love and peace, dancing and partying, or expressing and overcoming difficult emotions. The Synthasizer is usually the dominant instrument used in electo pop music. Electro pop music emphasizes percussion and rhythm with the percussion generally being a "kick" bassdrum with some variations on a 4/4 time signature. While the percussion is always done by synthesizers, it is a sound more typical of dance music and not the "beat box" sound typical of rap music. The tempo is typically around 140 beats per minute, but may vary.

Iconography used in the music video's of our genre? 


Electro pop is all about technology, connectivity, optimism and brightness. Lots of bold, vivid colours and graphics, kaleidoscopic patterns, postmodern art influences with bold colour contrasts, edgy black and hot white, retro kitch and urban chic all rolled into one bright and twisted style. Electro pop is quirky and fun, drawing on the surreal strangeness of artist Slavador Dali, and the intensely saturated pop iconography of Andy Warhol! We will see a huge amount of influence coming in from the likes of comic books, graphic novels and pop art! A lot of these features are seen in Aly and Aj's Potential Breakup song music video, with the paint splash effect and black and white colour scheme.

Is your chosen song's genre typically narrative, performance, concept or a combination?


I think that our genre is a combination of narrative, performance and concept, however our the music video for our song was all performance, there was no separate scene going on to show a 'break up'. When we come to make our music video for this song we are hoping to use a combination to make our music video less repetitive and more fun to watch.