Usher's real name is Usher Raymond IV but he performs under just the name Usher as this is more mainstream. Usher has sold 45 million albums worldwide making him one of the most successful artist’s in the world. Unlike most R n B singer Usher saw success from a very young age. He recorded 10 songs with the group Nubeginnings. After his early success he competed on Star Search where he was spotted by an A&R representative from LaFace Records, who arranged an audition for Usher to L.A. Reid, the co-founder of LaFace; Reid signed Usher a contract with the record company. Usher’s self-titled album was released in 1994 selling 500,000 copies worldwide. Usher’s biggest breakthrough would have to be his collaboration with Ludacris and Lil John ‘Yeah!’ which spent many weeks at number 1. Usher’s second song ‘Burn’ took over from ‘Yeah!’ at the top of the charts and the two together gave Usher nineteen consecutive weeks as number 1. This album ‘Confessions’ had 4 consecutive number one singles which is phenomenal. Usher brings a certain charm to his music, breaking away from traditional ways of dressing. Usher tends to wear suits when performing and in a lot of his video thus moving away from a stereotypical r & b artist. Usher sticks to a lot of r & b connotations but does occasionally break away from the norm with his innovative storytelling music videos. This shows him in a light where he is more creative than the average r & b artist who would settle for average song that makes enough money and has a video with lots of ‘booty’ girls, Usher strives with every song and video to make it number 1.
This is a magazine poster promoting our artist. It was created by using CS4 and I used the front cover of our cd dig pack to promote our artist single.
In this music video ‘Touch the Sky’ Kanye West tries to make an interesting, innovative and creative short film rather than a music video. This '70s themed video fits the song well and contains clever touches throughout breaking away from generic mainstream r & b and hip-hop.
Throughout the entire video start to beginning the setting is right in the forefront. The setting is of the Canyon that Kanye West will be attempting to jump. The mise-en-scene is constructed to illustrate the beauty of what the character Kanye is playing is trying to achieve.
Kanye’s video opens like an old film and even includes credits. Kanye plays Evel Kanyevel, a daredevil who is about to embark on a dangerous, death defying stunt involving using a rocket to cross a massive canyon. This is an obvious reference to the famous daredevil ‘Evel Knievel’ who was known for going to all lengths to go against human logic and physics. Pamela Anderson makes an appearance in this music video as Kanye's girl in the video suiting the typical blonde, physically fit, glamorous music video girl. During the video, we see Kanye prepare for his stunt called Death Rocket and we are given a visual of Anderson and Mr. Kanyevel argue and deal with the dangerousness of this gigantic stunt which brings a deep reality to this music video which makes a change from generic r & b and hip hop videos.
Despite the degree of seriousness of the video's plot where a man is risking his life to impress the world, there is some humour to be found. The video brings the music to a halt for a brief moment as a reporter interviews ‘Kanyevel’. A subtle reference made to the controversy over Kanye's comments about President Bush is apparent, with some celebrity cameos adding an edge of comedy to this video. Tracie Ellis Ross who made an appearance in Kanye’s video ‘the new workout plan’ makes a brief but funny appearance insulting Mr Kanyevel in the process. Tracie Ellis Ross's dialogue is nothing but comedy as to lighten the mood of the video as the previous scene showed Anderson and Kanyevel arguing.
After the humorous interlude, the video proceeds, as Kanye finally gets ready for the stunt. TV cameras are everywhere and plenty of people are watching the celebration of this huge feat about to be attempted. Then Lupe Fiasco performs his verse with a marching band behind him with his name in bold at the bottom of the screen. We then see Anderson run to Kanye to kiss him as if a final kiss as it seems to of been done out of desperation. The video meets its end as Kanye attempts the stunt.
This music video of ‘Touch The Sky’ has a gritty, cinematic feel that keeps you interested throughout despite it being 5:20 minutes in length which is usually unheard of for a r & b or hip hop song. It portrays the '70s to the audience very well with nice touches here and there such as slightly the whole music video having a grainy effect.
Some of the lyrics in ‘Touch The Sky’ are a reference to the action onscreen. When Kanye says, ‘I'm going on an airplane and I don't know if I'll be back again’ he is looking out at the rocket that will seal his fate, when the camera cuts to Anderson’s face it highlights the problems this stunt is causing for their relationship.
The plot and setting complement each other creating a video, which is both entertaining both to watch and listen to. There appears to be no hip-hop video clichés to be found and at times, it is as though you're watching a short film rather than a music video. ‘Touch the sky’ makes a change from the usual ‘booty-shaking’ generic r & b and hip hop video.
I have chosen Shakira - She Wolf and Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love. The contrast between the two artists is clear as one is renowned for her ‘sexiness’ and not her voice and the other has become England’s latest musical sensation and is generally seen as one of the best ‘singers’ around. In the two videos the mise-en-scene makes their talents clear, Shakira spends more time dancing seductively then actually singing, whereas Leona Lewis is singing her heart out and does not dance at all. Shakira’s dancing display is clearly meant to entice the male audience as half of her body is nude and half is not. Most of the shots in She Wolf are long shots so the audience can see Shakira’s ‘sexy’ movements. At the beginning we have a close up of Shakira’s nails, which are a very feminine feature and thought to be sexy, thus further highlighting the intentions of this video. There is a stage in the song, which keeps getting repeated in that Shakira is locked up in a cage making inferences to strip clubs, which tend to be a common male fantasy. The use of camera shots in She Wolf is interesting as there are plenty of close-ups in the video mostly of Shakira’s lips or eyes trying to furthermore highlight the sex appeal of this video. Leona Lewis in Bleeding Love is more serious and less sex appealing, the message of this video is the problems of relationships, this concurrently co notates to the subliminal message that women are emotion in terms of relationships as it is the girl/s in all of the mini-stories in the video which are upset with their boyfriend or have caused a problem. Whereas Shakira is going for the sex appeal, Leona is trying to reach her audience emotionally and hoping that many people can connect with the lyrics and the message that they send. Along with what is happening with the couples in the video. The Story of Shakira’s video is plain and simple – she is sneaking out to unleash her inner self while her other half sleeps – hence why the end of the video she sneaks back into bed and smiles as though she has gotten away with murder. Through the duration of the video Shakira is using her sexiness in front of the camera. Shakira dancing in the way she does is clear to entice (other than her other half) men, again relating to maybe why she snuck out earlier. The Story of Leona Lewis’s video is that she is hurt and is on the same level as her audience, the emotionally hurt people in the video represent Leona’s audience and represent that Leona is not so different from her audience and allows a deep connection between Leona and her audience, unlike Shakira is not just sexual. The underlying themes in each video do not have much relevance as I feel that these two songs are marketed completely differently to gain a huge audience. Shakira has gone for total sex appeal, which will entice many males as well as gaining support from women who aspire to be ‘that sexy’. On the other hand Leona Lewis has gone for emotional appeal and this will encourage support from both men and women who have emotional problems with their other half. The representation of women in these two videos is the same as they have always been in music. Women are Emotional. Women are sexual objects to their audience. Although saying that because of the sheer talent that Leona Lewis has in terms of her voice and performances she is more of an independent woman and is one of very few women performers that do not have to go down the route of using their body and ‘sexiness’ to get viewers and listeners to their music.
Thursday, 8 April 2010
This poster was created with Photoshop cs4. Q magazine is famous for promoting musicians and this would be a good to promote our artist. I decided to have the import text in bold and gold so this would stand out to the audience. When talking about the artist I used the colour red as it has a connotation of heaven and hell. This can be seen in the video and the poster and he has an angle speaking to him in one ear and the devil speaking to him in the other ear. The devil is also in red so the audience would link the writing on the page to connotation associated with the devil such as qualities such as being mischievous and conniving.Matthew
is written in 1/2 black and 1/2 white. this also has connotations of good vs evil.
This is the back of the CD cover, we chose to use black background for all of the covers. The use of the white writing makes the text stand out more and easier to read. The font used creates a different effect to a generic font as it makes the cover look different to others. We have chose to put a video onto our disk of our disk, therefore the DVD logo was used as well. I used Adobe Photoshop CS4 to create the back of our album cover.
This is the front cover of the CD of our digipak. I wanted to create direct links between the artist in the music video with the digipak, I used Adobe Photoshop CS4 to edit the original image and then used a variety a techniques such as the pen tool to draw the spirals around our artist. Then making the spirals blue was simple as I needed to change the colour then just add an outer glow. I decided to have the writing in red as there is already blue and the video had deep connotations of heaven and hell i.e. blue and red. I believe this image on the front cover links closely with how we wanted to portray our artist. An artist with strong lyrics which reflected himself.
Usher's real name is Usher Raymond IV but he performs under just the name Usher as this is more mainstream. Usher has sold 45 million albums worldwide making him one of the most successful artist’s in the world. Unlike most R n B singer Usher saw success from a very young age. He recorded 10 songs with the group Nubeginnings. After his early success he competed on Star Search where he was spotted by an A&R representative from LaFace Records, who arranged an audition for Usher to L.A. Reid, the co-founder of LaFace; Reid signed Usher a contract with the record company. Usher’s self-titled album was released in 1994 selling 500,000 copies worldwide. Usher’s biggest breakthrough would have to be his collaboration with Ludacris and Lil John ‘Yeah!’ which spent many weeks at number 1. Usher’s second song ‘Burn’ took over from ‘Yeah!’ at the top of the charts and the two together gave Usher nineteen consecutive weeks as number 1. This album ‘Confessions’ had 4 consecutive number one singles which is phenomenal. 
