Research into the appeals of music videos to 17-19 year olds

To research the appeals of music that attract people of the ages of 17-18 I conducted an investigation where I gathered a group of the said age range and asked them to write down a music video they liked. I made them do this anonymously so that the group could each guess which three people had chosen the three music videos that I picked out at random from the selection. It was easy for the group to guess which people had chosen each music video due to a range of stereotypes. 
The videos were as follows:

Stormzy - "Know me from" 

The song was chosen by James,  a 17 year old male that clearly falls into the modern grime scene (Supreme hoody, adidas trainers being some fashion conventions of this genre) Everyone in the group assumed he had chosen this video, a song which is a mixture of rap and grime. The music video generally appeals to 17 year old males as their are many conventions and techniques that are placed in the video to attract them.

The opening shot of the video is of the front door of a terraced house, presumably the artist's. This shows his connection to his home, that he is doesn't lead a glamorous lifestyle or that he has come from hardship financially. 

The opening rap lyric is "Peng tings on my whatsapp and my iphone too" which essentially means that he's popular with the ladies. This is an aspect that would excite males of the age of 17 in general, he is trying to gain respect. To stress this point he holds up a cardboard cut out of an iphone and the whatsapp logo before throwing them to the side, demonstrating quiet a "nonchalant" approach to the disposal of his cutouts.

 As he proceeds to walk past the terraced housing he removes his multiple hoodies periodically, to reveal a shirt that says "#merky". The lyric states "Talk about me you better #Merky" - Merky being a term created recently by the underground music scene, the word meaning being "Disgustingly good" (That tune is merky fam) So by the artist using this lyric and revealing this T-shirt he is attempting to big himself and his music up, the aggressive nature in which he reveals his T-shirt aims to excite the audience, again trying to gain respect. 

This shot shows to hooded males wearing masks of characters from well know soap operas - The video appeals to the working class primarily, as do soap operas, the artists is using this stereotype to appeal to his target audience, perhaps subconsciously - either way the target audience understands teh reference and is therefore more engaged with the video. 

 At this point in the video the artist introduces his mother to the music video, she walks alongside him whilst he lip-syncs the song, he is now wearing a new T-shirt which says "#problem", similarly to the other T-shirt the word and the lyric matches and has a specific meaning. When he says "Talk about me you better #problem" he is making a statement about his rebellious actions and persona which appeals to his target audience of 17-18 year olds as that is something that excites them. I didn't explain earlier but the "#" is a modern symbol of social media, when he says "#merky" or "#problem" he means that when people talk about him on social medias (another convention of his particular target audience and genre) they should relate him to those phrases.

 Here we can see Stormzy aggressively kicking over a stack of shoe boxes, again using anger and passion to appeal to the target audience, and also showing disregard for money - "adidas shoes don't ask where I got them", insinuating that he either stole them or used illegally attained funds to purchase them - exhibiting rebellion to the law.

The video was clearly very low budget, so much so that it was shot in one or two takes. The video is one long shot, there hasn't been any kind of editing process, and even the filming time would have been minimal considering they had to break up the shot half way through to explain that "2 cars had blocked their shot"...they couldn't even re-shoot the video. This suggests two things: 1 - that they really don't care about the standard or quality of the music video, or 2 - they deliberately put very little effort into the video to show that they don't care in order to appeal to their target audience, who may find it funny or respect them for not being to "mainstream".

Toward the end of the video we can see Stormzy jumping around wearing a robe kind of thing with his friends around their neighbourhood, showing again the connection to his hometown, also the audience may feel they have a connection with the group of guys - the gang is being celebrated.

Lana del Ray - "Born to die"

The next video that was chosen by a member of the group was Lana del Ray's "Born to die" - in my opinion this music video appeals to a female target audience aged around 17-18. There are three distinct elements that appeal to this target audience throughout, these are: The video is Aesthetically and symmetrically pleasing to the eye, There is a strong sense of regality shown through the appearance of the artist and the environment around her for a portion of the video, and the video also shows scenes of rebellion - a key appeal to youth through music.

Aesthetics.


The first element that appeals to the target audience of the music video are the technical aesthetics. The video is crafted by symmetry. Almost every shot appeals to our eyes as viewers and makes us want to watch on. As you can see below the shot of Lana del Ray shows her sat on a throne in the centre of the frame, with two tigers positioned either side of her. Her thrown is positioned in the centre of a large painting behind her, to the left and right of her are huge pillars and statues. We can see velvet church benches in the foreground. The whole frame is composed symmetrically and to draw focus to Lana del Ray. This is an aspect that I very much intend to bring into my own music video, clean, deliberate symmetry and aesthetics.

Regality. 














As I said earlier, the target audience for this music video is females of the ages 17-19. Girls tend to like all the princess stuff, palaces, dresses, crowns etc. This video is full of that. We are frequently shown shots of the artist draped in a white gown with a crown of flowers on her head. This is quite a feminine aspect, yet male viewers may be attracted to the artist. The artist's image is idiosyncratic and subverts the monotonous half nude persona's of Katy Perry and Rihanna.

Rebellion.

 The third element that appeals to the target audience of the music video is the rebellious representation of the artist which juxtaposes the pristine regality that is demonstrated intermittently throughout the video. We can see Lana del Ray interacting promiscuously with a tattooed man, he embodies all stereotypes of rebellion: Tattoos, piercings, scruffy hair, rugged clothing, smoking, drinking , drugs etc. The target audience is at a stage in their lives where rebellion is desirable, so watching the contrast between stereotypical perfection and apparent subversion to the norm is appealing to them. The message of the narrative is however that a passionate relationship is ultimately destructive, the images of the artist in the church dressed in white is a symbolic representation of her death after a fiery car accident.

Rihanna - "B**** Better Have My Money"

 The last video I looked at chosen by a member of the group is Rihanna's explicitly named "B**** better have my money" - a music video which appeals to both males and females from the ages of 17-19. The video is empowering, comical, sexualised, cinematic, and has an intriguing narrative, this isn't to say that I like the song...but it is a good video. And for that reason I believe that it is a successful video amongst its target audience.




The video is empowering for women, starring the artist as the female protagonist that goes around being aggressive, independent, and dominant. She shows a blatant disregard for laws and rules, seen smoking marijuana and performing crimes such as abduction, assault, arsen, torture, armed assault and ultimately murder.  But as an audience member i'm more focused on the subtle rebellion, similarly in the other videos there is an appeal to youth by glamourising rebellion (smoking marijuana, being violent, standing against the law) Some of these aspects will be included in my music video as my intended target audience is 17-19 year old males, they will be wanting to see some rebellion. Rihanna is represented here as dangerous, stylish and powerful, creating a bold artist image.



There are snippets throughout the video where comical incidents happen, this is to uphold a film like quality to the music video, and to engage the audience. 
A moment in the video where comedy is used is when a police car drives past the abductors and abductee, the abductee gets up to shout and one of the abductors hits her over the head nonchalantly with a glass bottle.


We can then see that they've put sunglasses on her and are waving her limp hand at the police officer. This is a funny little scene that hasn't really got any relevance to the narrative so it has purely been added to make the video a little more diverse.

The video is highly sexualised, a device that appeals to both males and females. The sexualisation of the video makes it exciting for the audience to watch, males are attracted to the women on screen, and women may feel empowered or may admire the female form which is presented to them.

The music video has a been filmed in a style that emulates a high budget feature film, this is to make the video visually more impressive which will draw in audiences of both genders. Similarly to the Lana del Ray music video there has been a great deal of thought put into a lot of the shots used as they demonstrate clean examples of aesthetic symmetry. I very much intend to use this technique in my music video, creating a filmic narrative rather than a chaotic mess of fast cuts and pretty girls.