Lily Allen Analysis

Lily Allen released 'Alright, Still' in 2006, with the song 'Smile' featuring on it. "The lyrics tackle her dealing with the betrayal of her boyfriend, while enjoying his misery." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_(Lily_Allen_song) Lily Allen's music video 'Smile' has been disabled by request, so I can't embed it. Instead, I have pasted a link from youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsqeVYe7bJM

This picture tells the audience a lot about her image as an artist. She is eating a chocolate bar in the clip which differs her from other female artists and models in this day and age as they are portrayed separately from them as a real person, and them as a star. Lily Allen aims to be seen as a real person.

This image backs up my previous point of Lily Allen representing herself as a real person. As a media student I know that the video was purposely engineered this way so the audience and fans can relate to her, and see her as one of them. This is a mid shot of Lily Allen in a cafe which is very basic, again showing she is not representing herself as someone who goes out to glamour expensive places, making it easier for the audience to relate to her.




More info.

• On Tuesday 28th September I went onto youtube and Lily Allen's music video 'Smile' had 72, 912 views.
• To get a better idea of what audience listens to Lily Allen, I clicked onto the comments underneath her video 'Smile' and I looked at the profile of the commenters to see their ages. The ages range between 13-32, and the average is 20 years old.

Reviews

To gain wider knowledge on Lily Allen and her album 'Alright, Still', I googled and researched reviews.

Here is a link to Metacritic-
http://www.metacritic.com/music/alright-still

Lily Allen's album scored a high 79 out of 100 on metascore. (These figures are based on 27 critics)
One critic said that her album 'Alright, Still' is 'really good' with 'unique' lyrics. This was a users review, which suggests that the album pleased fans.

The Guardian also reviewed Lily Allen on Metacritic saying : "The female Mike Skinner? She's far, far better than that." This is extremely useful for research as The Guardian are a popular, well established newspaper with influence on a variety of audiences. Therefore, with a positive review from them goes a long way to promote her credibility as a leading artist.


Lily Allen's album cover of "Alright, Still'

Lily Allen's image is shown through this album cover as laid back and unique. The animation on the front cover gives a different side to her masculine image as it is more relatable to a different audience. The fact she is wearing a dress with trainers shows she is unique with her dress code and doesn't want to be seen as a typical female artist.

Audience Research and Video Ideas

 Here are a few examples of the notes taken by our class when we asked them to listen to our song.





Common ideas came up when asking our media class to individually listen to our song 'Take me on a train'. They were:

• The artist walking.

• It being set at night.

• Acoustic guitar.

• Romance.

• The seaside.

• I believe this task of asking what other people imagine has been very useful for our research into video ideas.

• I have taken these ideas into consideration and from this I have decided that a good idea for our music video would be to have our artist sitting on a bench beside the seaside singing with his acoustic guitar looking bitter and resentful on a gloomy day.

• I think a flashback of the artist with his girlfriend at night on a pier would be very effective, especially if we edited the clip into black and white to make it clear to the audience that its a memory of the past. This would link well to the clip of him looking resentful by the seaside as it would suggest he is remembering being with her and now feels negative towards that memory.

• I also imagine a busy street with the artist looking confused and lost, I believe a good way to incorporate the lyrics would be to have the artist walking towards a train station and ending with either him waiting for someone at the station or leaving on a train. 

The Kooks Analysis

'She moves in her own way' is a song by The Kooks and is featured on their first album Inside In/Inside Out. After researching into the song I discovered the video features the band in Mexico. I went on to youtube to embed the video of 'She moves in her own way', however the 'Kooks Official' page has disabled embedding by request, therefore I have linked the video instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6-QM0_Prp0&ob=nb_av2n

This image is of the main singer/musician Luke playing his guitar. Indie artists are usually associated with playing their acoustic instruments at local gigs and this is portrayed in this video to make the artists seem less materialistic. His natural scruffy image allows the audience to relate to the band on a more intimate level. This image also goes against Dyer's theory that a star is not the real person, it is an image created to make money. However, this instead gives the idea that the star is the person and he plays music because he enjoys it rather than to make a profit.  As a media student I know that the video was deliberately designed to make the audience believe this illustration.

This image again highlights the fact that The Kooks are doing everyday things, like eating. The video is engineered purposely to give this impression, and uses voyeurism to connect with the audience. This then makes the audience feel in a privileged position, and they then take more from the video as fans.







More info.

• On Friday 24th of September I went on to this official page and the views for it currently stand at 1,723,048. 
• To get an idea of who listens to The Kooks I also looked at the comments written on this particular youtube page. I went on to the commenters profiles and collected 16 ages. The ages range between 14-50, and the average is 22.

Reviews

To help me get an idea of the audience and their opinion on The Kooks I went on to google and researched in to reviews of the video 'She moves in her own way'.

Here is a link to one of the first websites I looked at -
http://www.reviewcentre.com/review206291.html

On here the song was given a 5 star rating, and said to make the reviewer want to 'dance around' because they 'love it'. This research is from a fans point of view, which suggests their involvement and loyalty to the band.

Stylus Magazine reviewed The Kooks first album Inside In/Inside Out-

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/the-kooks/inside-in-inside-out.htm

It speaks of their 'one million European sales' and 'the magic of the group'. This research is useful as it emphasises The Kooks popularity.

Drowned in sound also reviewed The Kooks album Inside In/Inside Out-
http://drownedinsound.com/releases/7023/reviews/591891-

This review speaks of The Kooks cooking up 'their own sound' and writing 'great British pop songs'. Again, this research is useful as it portrays The Kooks and their music positively, implying that their genre and image is successful. This helps us gain an idea of what a certain audience prefer and expect.  

The Kooks album cover of  'Inside In/Inside Out'

I decided to look at the actual cover of the album to get a greater idea of the way the band represent themselves. From the image on the front cover you can tell immediately that The Kooks are musicians as a main focus of the image is the guitars and the base. The mise en scene of this image is used to show the band in an informal way. Their costume is casual, and in the image you can see jeans and jumpers, this is important when researching in to artist image as its clear that their image as musicians is more important than vanity. Indie artists tend to pride themselves on individuality which links to their image. I have noticed similarities between The Kooks and The Kinks, because their choice of clothing hints at the fact they have been influenced by the band as they are now wearing vintage clothes with large collar shirts and blazers. Another generic convention of indie artists is making themselves known through local gigs and playing acoustic instruments, and this is emphasised in the front cover image. In this image treatment signs have been used, the colour of the image is black and white and this affects the meaning of the image as it implies the band have a 'what you see is what you get' attitude and this is portrayed by the use of the instruments.