Monday 7 February 2011

.3 What makes a good pop promo

A good pop promo contains a variety of conventions increasing the chance of not only it being repeated in viewings but to also develop the popularity of the band and to increase its numbers of fans and numbers of earnings.
The relationships between visuals and musichelp portray the message or story the song is trying to bring across to the listeners.A great band in doing so would be Coldplay.
Whether it’s a pop promotion of themselves or a live performance. Messages are always included such as the markings on lead singers Chris martins hand. Instantly this caused interest and when asked he exclaimed it to be about fighting for fairer trade as well as looking after the environment. All this from having two black lines on your hands which are always on show due to him being a pianist.

Musical genres each have their own codes and conventions which help cause an understanding to the viewer on what type of music they are listening to just from how the band are dressed. Mise en scene is most likely to be the m
ost important part of a pop promo due to its ability to instantly create
the genre of music through what you are seeing from the get go.
For example if you were to see slipknot come onto your screen you’d know straight away that it is definitely not going to be classical. Also due to their brilliant advertising they have managed to develop their own star iconography due to you instantly knowing who they are and what their genre of music is.
Slipknots star vehicle would be the music videos that they have created which mainly consist of out of control parties or disruptive families in poverty.
Music videos in its own right helps many bands to further their career and earnings due to it constructing bands and driving them towards their own iconography that’s seen today.

The star power consists of a variety of different aspects of the music industry but also business in general.
Firstly the power of economic increase create further revenue for the band which in turn means that they will be around for longer and this is in the form of CD sales, gig tickets sales, merchandise of the band etc.
Secondly the power of the artist. This allows them to develop their own image (or how their owner wants them to look) and how they want to be portrayed and as mentioned before, slipknot have chosen to bear masks which can only be described as modifications from films such as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Jason X which also covers the star image.
An artists star image is very dependable on how they are to be viewed from the public though other influences can depend on their star images also.
Some require extra textual publicity such as Jordan aka Katie Price whose character feeds of media publications and stories being made about her such as those from glossy magazines like heat. If these magazines weren’t to write about her then her celebrity status would not exist. Some artists or celebrities strive for this media spotlight whilst others do-not.
Excess media stories can have a detrimental effect on an artists image, causing them to be seen under a new light which they may not have wanted to be under.



Intertextuality within some pop promos help to hide messages that either do or do not want to be seen within
them. With this if something is believed to be seen this causes deeper attention to be attained from the viewer leading to the overall bands song to be listened to and their performance to be watched. Examples of this would be Bjorks ‘ its oh so quiet’ which incorporates a lot of old style America in the 50’s as well as intertexuality from films such as the wizard of oz.
Voyeurism and exhibitionism also generates a deeper ability to hold
someone attention due to the fact that if someone beautiful is placed onto screen then this will draw the persons attention to it. This understanding has then been converted into pop promo’s to gain a wider viewing of the song, especially if a certain celebrity is to be seen within the clip.