Synthpop Digipak Examples

This is a live tour for Depeche Mode 97/98. The front cover shows the band, and going across from the back it shows the bands shortened name and the year from the tour. On the back there is some pictures of the band performing live. The theme of the cover would be the band touring, as it shows the American roads in the background. Like all CD/DVD covers it has the symbol of the DVD and the record label.

This is the front cover for the Calvin Harris - Ready for the weekend. It's an unusual cover at it shows a woman's head with some unusual disco glasses on, but the glasses stand for the fact that she is ready for the weekend.

This is the back cover for the Calvin Harris album. It shows the songs that are on the album. The image on the back cover shows the back of the woman's head with all her hair.

 This is the front cover for Kraftwerk's album Autobahn, and autobahn is the German word for motorway. The image on the cover fits in with the name of the album, it shows two cars on the motorway driving in the perfect weather.

This is the back cover to the Autobahn album, it is different to the front as the image is of the band playing live. it has the songs written on the back and you can clearly see in the image that the band is shown playing on the synthesizer.

What's Typical of Genre?

The following codes and conventions are typical of Genres in music:

• Typical instruments - Synthpop uses the synthesizer
• Typical sounds, pace, volume and tempo of music - Heavy metal is fast
• Typical style of singins - Pop would be very layed back light singing
• Context/ Theme - Synthpop has a very furturistic theme/ context
• The band appearence is very typical of genre - Punk bands are all leather, Mowhawk, black colours

Paradigmatic - What we select from Genre to put into video
Syntagmatic - How you conbime them in the video. How it's edited and filmed.

Iconography

Icons

"something which is really typical of the genre"

Edwin Panofsky

1953

Synthpop - Genre

Depeche Mode
Album Art.

Simple album art that stand out. The bold simple colours are typical of the genre Kraftwerk used red originally. 

Calvin Harris
Album Art.

This isn't as typical of the genre as the Depeche Mode cover. For example there is no colour on it, however the design is still similar as its very futuristic based. 

 

Calvin Harris - Feel so close 

I have chosen to analyse this video because this is the song we are going to make our music video for. 

Camerawork: 

The camerawork in this video used different shots to help focus on things in the video. The camera often focuses on the different people, to show the difference, but similarities between them. Mid - angle, low angle, and panning shots are the most common used ones within the music video. 

Editing: 

The editing in this video had been done well, which it should because its a professional music video. 

Sound: 

The sounds from this video is typical of the genre Synthpop, the upbeat tempo of the song, and the synthesizer. 

Calvin Harris - Acceptable in the 80's 

I have chosen to analysis this music video, because out of Calvin Harris' songs this one best represents the synthpop genre. 

From the video its self we can see the classic iconography of the synthpop genre, the bold colours, and the occur videos, almost like futuristic look. The synthesizer is used. The camera focuses on the characters on the screen. The editing is done, simple match cut.

 

Calvin Harris - Ready For The Weekend

I have chosen this music video as well because like the one above it shows the class synthpop genre. The bright, bold colours of the spectrum. The synthesizer is clearly heard in the background to make the different noises. This video is like the Kraftwerk traditional video's.

Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris, who was born as Adam Richard Wiles, was born on 17 January 1984, in Scotland. He is a singer/songwriter; the genre he does is Synthpop/ Electropop. We have chosen as a group to use Calvin Harris as he is a well known artist and we feel that his songs will be good to produce a music video for. Kraftwerk and Soft Cell were originals for this genre, and bands such as Depeche Mode which is a band I enjoy listening to.

Calvin Harris doesn’t have a certain target audience, but with the type of music genre he sings and the way he is, the target audience would be the younger generation, not elderly people. He appeals to his target audience by his music and the way he dress, because he is young and up to the current trend.

History of Synthpop

The genre Synthpop also known as Electropop first came around in the early 1970’s. The dominant instrument used is the synthesizer which is where it gets its name from. The genre originated in Japan and Germany, with the bands Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kraftwerk. It arose in the United Kingdom during the post punk era during the late 1970’s early 80’s. Early on Synthpop was described as “eerie, sterile and vaguely menacing” later on dance beats were introduced to make the music more upbeat and warmers, to be contained within the conventions of three minute pop.

Synthpop uses very few instruments if only one which is the synthesizer which makes the music much more original. The very first synthesizer was built in the USA in 1955 but they were very expensive and they were hard to handle. The bands use very simple bold, bright colour schemes. The sort of things that make the genre unique is the way it’s very based on future, the sounds of music makes it futuristic and the way the bands dress.

There are a few key artists within this genre. Yellow Magic Orchestra originated in Japan and where one of the first Synthpop bands and Kraftwerk was a German band to use the Synthesizer. Then later on in the early 1980’s bands such a Soft Cell, Depeche Mode appeared. More current artists to come about would be La Roux and Owl City which have come around during the last few years.  Synthpop reached a peak within the UK in the winter 1981- 1982, with bands Soft Cell, Ultravox, Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk reaching top ten hits. Popular songs of the genre would be songs such as, Fireflies (Owl City), Sowing the seeds of love (Tears for Fears), Here comes the rain again (the Eurythmics) Enjoy the Silence (Depeche Mode) and Feel so close (Calvin Harris). These songs and artist are considered to be key because they are originals and stick to the conventions of the genre.   

This is the original Synthesizer 

Busted Music Video

 

This is my edited version of the class video remake we did. 

I feel that we worked well as a team to produce a remake of the busted music video. 

My editing isn't as good as it could of been, but it's something I feel I need to work on.