Analysis of Music

Genres: Rock

Rock Genre

In the majority of Rock music videos and songs we find a lot of the same conventions. Things like the same sort of clothing, and props and locations are the same. I have been researching into the music genre of Rock, and this mind map is going to be showing some of the key conventions we find in an average rock song, and music video. I am interested into looking into the genre of Rock because I have not looked into it before, therefore it is testing my skills and I am able to explore different genres.

When watching music videos under the category of rock we can see some things that run throughout different music videos of the same genre. Some of the same things we find in Rock is; that they are all mainly performance videos.

Most of the time in rock music videos we see their songs as being quite aggressive, and it comes across this way through the use of mise-en-scene, as we can tell by their use of body language.

Rock musicians and bands are often located in typical places like on top of roof’s, stages, and carparks.

Their songs are sometimes mostly about sex, drugs, and alcohol.

In most of their music videos we can see that the atmosphere is mainly dark and dull, and it also entails a dark content.

We can see that through the use of mise-en-scene that they all wear similar clothing like leather jackets, ripped jeans and all have long hair.

Their music is very loud, and can be sometimes classed as heavy metal.

They often use low key lighting or sometimes natural lighting to get the full grunge effect. This ties in well with the types of locations, as they are most of the time dangerous, and abandoned.

Some of their songs sing about their range against authority, love ballads and anger.

I have been looking at some different rock bands and artists, and the ‘Ace of Spades’ is my first pick to analyse. This is the first print screen showing one of the key conventions we find in Rock genre styles of music videos. This music videos is not an official music video, but it is a video of them performing. They key convention shown in this is the use of props, being the microphone and the guitars and drums. I am going to be picking out specific examples throughout the music video of what I think are key conventions of the music video, and how it makes that specific music video that certain genre.

Motorhead - Ace Of Spades: Analysis

This print screen shows one of the key conventions that I have established in my mind map; which is the persona and looks about the actual artists themselves. In this image we can see that the band members all share similar haircuts, which could be reinforcing the idea of because they are a Rock band they all need the same hair cut, to give them that star image and effect when people look at them. Also the lighting in this image is dull, again reflecting on some of the key conventions. Also we can see the location of it being on a stage.

We can see through the use of props that they are again living up to their genre of music, with it being rock. The music itself is fast, loud and sounds aggressive. They are wearing black clothing and we can see the dark background, with some srtificial lighting, but most of it is dark and dull.

AC/DC - Rock or Bust: Analysis From this video of AC/DC we can see that they also fulfil the typical conventions of the Rock genre, even from first glance. They are set up on a stage, and are performing to the surrounding audience. Even from 20 seconds into the performance we have already heard what kind of music we will be expected to hear from them, as it it loud, sound aggressive and shouty. Even though the setting is a concert we can see the dark atmosphere surrounding them and the dull lighting.

Their songs sing about sex, drugs and alcohol a lot, again living up to their expectations of what we would find in an average music video for the genre of rock. We can see the use of props, which is shown the mise-en-scene, as we can see the use of drums, guitars and microphones - which all connotes to the idea of it being loud and kind of like heavy metal. Through the music video we get a sense of the bands fashion taste, which is typically the leather jacket, and ripped jeans look, to fulfil their conventions.

Although this setting is not staged, and it has been filmed from some sort of concert we can still get the feel that it is a rock band because of them being on a stage.

Bon Jovi - It’s My Life: Analysis Bon Jovi are a popular Rock band, who are very popular in the charts. I am going to be looking at their song - ‘It’s My Life’. I think this song shows them as a group and what they do. We can see this through the many angles and shots that they are a rock band, and this music video fulfils different conventions of the rock genre. Firstly, the location of the video is on a stage, but at the same time we see a narrative going on in the background; we see a young boy wanting to go and watch the band close by, and then we see snippets of the band performing. This shows what they actually do in real life; showing that they are a typical rock band.

Throughout the video we see what kind of fans Bon Jovi attract, which is mainly middle aged people and young adults. We can tell that from the first glance the band could be rebellious types of people as their music is loud and they do not seem to care about how loud it is, also they don’t really have a set uniform in comparison to someone like Katy Perry who always has a pristine outfit to wear. They all have long-ish hair, which again implies the conventions of the rock genre.