Genre

Definition of Genre:

Genre is a style or classification of something, usually a form of art for example: films, music, books, television etc.

Brief History of Indie Pop

- The roots of Indie Pop go back to the post-punk hysteria in the late 1970s.

- In this time  many magazines (or 'fanzines') were being released . One of which was called 'Record Business' and started an article showing weekly indie singles and albums. The introduction of these charts got a lot of people interested in independent music.

- In 1986, NME Magazine released a cassette called C86 which featured new independent British bands. This is said to be the birth of Indie Pop in the UK.  

- Pop historian Jon Savage said the origins of indie pop go back to the Velvet Underground's third album.

- Power pop, punk and post-punk were all influences for the genre

- Indie Pop is much more melodic than Indie Rock
 

Typical themes/lyrical content

Indie pop is such a vast genre that it cannot easily be pin-pointed to one typical theme. Instead there are a number of common ideas. As a branch off pop music, it does share some themes with it. For example relationships will always be major inspiration for songwriters of the genre. This can be interpreted negatively or positively. Our chosen song, Kate Nash's 'Foundations' and Lana Del Rey's 'Born To Die' are examples of the theme conveyed in a negative way (linked to heartbreak and relationships ending). Quite a few Pulp songs, The Moldy Peaches 'Anyone Else But You' and   Cat Power's version of 'Sea of Love' are all examples of a more positive portrayal of the theme. Even though this is a popular theme, there are wide range of styles to the genre that lots of themes can be involved in it. Some of the songs by Bjork (Army of Me, Hunter) seem to have empowering lyrics about the strength of the performer herself, while Belle and Sebastian's lyrics seem to be of quite a depressing nature sometimes. Another Indie group are Peter, Bjorn and John whose most well-known song is 'Young Folks' which is a much more light-hearted song, with an upbeat tempo and cheerful lyrics.

Musical style/characteristics

It has been said that the word 'Indie' has become a way of describing music with the following conventions: 'chiming' guitars, 60s pop inspiration, and power pop song structures. Power pop is a definite influence in not only the structure of indie pop music but the catchy melodies. Indie Pop combines sounds of various different groups and sub-genres, for example The Jesus and Mary Chain used the 'melancholy noise' of Velvet Underground and the pop melodies of the Beach Boys.    

Ideologies

Because Indie Pop came about just after the punk phase, it shares its ideologies with the genre. They both value the idea of creating all of the music yourself, and trying to avoid conforming and becoming manufactured. It aims to be unique, hence the 'independent' title and not make music in order to please others.  

Representation

The style of Indie artists is not as clean-cut or purposely aesthetically pleasing as pop artists. Because they have this ideology of being independent and being themselves they try to avoid conforming to mainstream styles. While pop artists are likely to have a team of stylists, indie artists are more likely to make these decisions themselves and have more control of how they want to be represented. Female indie pop artists sometimes dress in a tomboyish style, as if they don't want to adhere to the extreme feminine style and are willing to prove this by being the opposite of what is expected.   
 

 

Target Audience

Because of the unique and original nature to indie music it tends to appeal to a younger age range. The fact that it is less mainstream, and seeks to subvert the typical expectations of popular music young people (teenagers to those in their twenties) can identify with it. They can relate to the rebellious attitude because they do not want to fall into an easily defriend category.

Example

Gotye is a solo artist and his genre is described as Indie Pop, meaning that it falls into the same category as ‘Ink Settles In’ by Andrea Storm Kaden, our chosen song. Looking at the video shows what is expected for music promos of this genre and I can look back at it for inspiration, because it is very successful and we are aiming for something of this style.

This is the first shot from the music video. It is a close panning shot of someone’s body – which we soon realise, is Gotye himself. It catches the viewer’s attention because it is already quite unusual. The viewer questions why we are seeing a seemingly naked body. Also the images are very simple and plain colours so we can focus purely on the subject which is the artist’s body. It sets the theme for the video as being set all in one room with a very simplistic nature. Because the performer has no clothes on, it gives an organic nature to the song and the video, making a point that this is an indie artist that has not been manufactured. 

After the camera has panned from Gotye’s feet to his head, we finally see his face. This is when it becomes clear that he is the performer because we see him miming the lyrics to the song. It is at this point that we learn that the narrative and the performance of this video are combined. This suits the genre because it has the feeling of the artists not being manufactured at all as they play their own instruments and write their songs, therefore they would want to be seen as the main part of the video with the narrative or any events being focused on them. It is also notable that the frame is composed so that Gotye’s face is central; again reinforcing that he is a non-manufactured artist, he is a solo indie artist with meaningful music. The basicness of the shots highlight this as well, and  make the viewer pay more attention to the lyrics and the meaning of the song. Indie pop tends to have more meaning in the lyrics and structure itself, as opposed to typical pop music which conforms to a distinctive tone. They tend to have the same message and sound while Indie pop has a little more meaning and emotion, so it follows that the videos tend to be deeper and less conventional.

This is when we see a new part of the narrative beginning. It uses stop motion to show a line travelling across a wall while other lines soon join and create a pattern. Eventually paint comes on the wall too and fills in the shapes that have been formed with the lines. When watching the video, you start to wonder what this is going to lead to, what it could cause and how it can be combined with the performance. It shows the disjunctive style of the video because viewers are likely to be trying to link the stop motion events to the meaning of the song, but finding they don’t seem to relate.

 

This is the point when the performance and narrative come together. We see what the stop motion was leading to, and yet there still seems to be no relevance to the song. It is a popular convention for indie music to be quite bizarre, because they are then more memorable. Despite the video not seeming to have a clear connection with the song, it can be said that it fits with the atmosphere; the paint and lines build up in time with the rhythm, the camera moves in time with the music, the artist is still and the miming is emphasised by the close-up so that we listen to the words. 

 

The camera pans out very slowly so that we see the second artist: Kimbra. Again, the camera moves in time with the music, being steady as it moves during the instrumental. Up until now, Gotye’s face has been central and the focus point of most shots. He was the most important part of the video but now Kimbra has joined and they both have half of the screen. Because there are now two artists, they both have equal share of the frame. The shots here last for a long time- the editing is very much of a slow-pace so the camera adheres to this. The artists stay within the lines drawn on the wall which lead onto their bodies. However, as the song becomes more fierce and loud, the female breaks out of the lines and moves towards the male. The editing also becomes choppier with straight cuts to shots of varying lengths. These changes are used to reflect the pick up in tempo and the more aggressive dynamics of the song.  

One of the last things we see is the paint gradually disappearing from Kimbra’s back. An editing technique has been used here to split the screen so Gotye remains miming in normal time while stop motion is used on Kimbra for the paint to disappear. This enhances the strange atmosphere seen throughout in the video, and again follows the idea of the style of the promo matching the sound of the song. The paint disappears gradually but jerkily which matches the detached jumpy sounds of the music. Indie pop videos do not necessarily have to show the song in a literal way, but the overall tone of the promo should enhance the music by emphasising the meaning of it.