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Examples of artwork

 

music video concept

The music video will be kept quite simple as we want the fans of our artist to see that the main focus is on her music and not her image or music videos. We will use effects such as sepia and black and white to make the video seem old. Ther will be cuts to shots that are done with a hand held camera to make the video seem as though little effort has been put in and it is just a video filmed by friends. This will also appeal to the audience as it will be like videos they may make so they will be able to relate to our artists video. Our video will also show the personality of our artist so the audience can get to know her and this will help them connect to her and be able to understand her background helping to understand the lyrics of her self written songs. 

 

 Our video will mainly be filmed at a festival with a group of girls who are fans of our artist being the poeple who mainly feature. They will be shown doing normal everyday things and having a good time at the festival which will help the audience relate to this as they may have experienced this before. As the girls in our video are fans this will also encourage viewers to be fans as they will see how much they are enjoying the music. They will be wearing typical festival clothes such as shorts, short tops, wellies and headbands to show the audience little effort has been put in.

There will be cuts to our artist performing on stage however this will be kept to a minimum as our artist won't feature in our video much. In these performance shots she will just be on stage on her own singing with a guitar with no backing dancers or anything to distract from the music. This will keep the video simple and again make it seem as though the focus is mainly on the music. She will be wearing a big flowery headband, shorts and a short top to make it seem like little effort has been put into her appearance. This will also mean she is dressed similar to her fans showing that she is the same as them and doesn't need to overly dress up showing that she is indie.

There will also be cuts to the girls featured in the video playing the guitar and having a sing  along outside their tent at the festival. This will show the audience that our artist and the fans are very much alike which will appeal to the audience of an imdie artist as they want to be able to relate to the artist.










Towards the end of the music video the cutting speed will become faster and there will be cuts to the fans drinking and being drunk having a good time listening to the music. The audience will be able to relate to this as they will probably be doing things like this aswell. It will also make it seem as though the fans and the artist alike aren't bothered about what other people think about them. This is important with our inde artist as it will show the audience that she cares about her muisc more.

previous artists

Lana Del Rey

Our artist's music videos will take inspiration from previous artists such as Lana Del Rey. Lana Del Rey's first videos used effects that made them seem old and 'rustic' helping her to stand out as an indie artist which is what we would like to do with our artist.

The music video for video games doesn't feature Lana Del Rey in much and is mostly narrative using effects such as sepia and black and white to make it seem old. It is as though a hand held camera is used which makes the video seem like little effort has been put into the video which is what we would like to achieve with our artist as she is indie so we would like her main focus to be on her music rather than her image or her videos.This will help to appeal to her fans as they will like that she is more focused on her music. There are fast cuts throughout the video including cuts to Lana Del Rey singing, we would use this effect for our artists videos by making her look like she has put little effort into her appearance and having her in different working class locations.

 

This video also uses effects such as black and white to make it seem old. Many of the shots seem as though they haven't been set up for the video mkaing it seem effortless which will appeal to the audience of an indie artist as this will again make it seem as though the main focus is on the music. The cuts to Lana Del Rey singing show her as quite innocent but at the same time slightly sexualised by her clothing and makeup appealing to the male audience. 

clothes, hair and props

Clothing

The artist we are creating is going to wear clothes typical of an 18 year old - dungarees, shorts, crop tops and baggy t shirts. We want our artist to style herself wearing clothes that people her age do whilst adding an individual edge to it. In coming to fame our artist has produced YouTube videos where she is seen wearing casual clothes and looking quite natural we want to continue this trend whilst also adding a different edge to it and more exaggerating this casual style. We are emphasising our artists attraction to festivals and gigs and so her clothing will reflect the clothes you wear to this kind of event such as long socks and lots of random jewellery. Many of the photos that we release of our artist will be self taken or taken by a friend as we want her to be accessible visually by her fans but not involved in photo shoots and press events often as she is to be gaining publicity in other ways mainly performing.

Shops the clothes will be from will be very much high street: ASOS, American Apparel, Missguided, Topshop.



Hair

Hair has become ridiculously important in the music industry and can be seen as the signature of an artist, we want our artist to look desirable and want people to be interested in her or maybe want to look like her - to do this we need to stay on trend whilst also setting trends. Our artist is going to be experimental with her hair colour whilst keeping the length long and the style wavy for a summer beach, festival going, rough and ready yet presentable look. Our artist is going to use Crazy Colour semi permanent dye to alter her hair from performance to photo shoot and vice versa. The colours that the hair will be dyed or dip dyed are pinks, blues, greens and oranges whilst keeping the base hair of the colour a mousey blonde so it can be returned to a neutral colour for intimate performances of more mellow slow songs. Celebrities and their hair styles litter magazines and dominate the way in which people colour, cut or style their hair and this is what we hope to achieve with our artist as her style will be more alternative we will use her hair to make her seem trend setting whilst also not following the celebrity crowd with their hair conventions.

Personality

We hope to stress the personality of our artist through videos and interviews in magazine and particularly use this to appeal to the "indie" conventions. Our artist will seem very genuine and down to earth by making funny faces in press pictures where other artists pose and regularly making mistakes in interviews and saying things she shouldn't. In pictures particularly this is where our artist is going to stick to her roots and express her personality, making funny photos in pictures is going to be her signature - Cara Delevigne a hugely successful young model has been known to pull faces in pictures such as the ones above and this has made her more appealing to her fans as she seems genuine and carefree considering she is a model. The laid back attitude will show that our artist is not trying to be something she isn't and priority is placed on her vocal ability rather than acting prim and proper in interviews or looking stunning all the time.

Props

The artist will occasionally perform with a guitar but not consistently instead there will be numerous props that regularly make an appearance in her performances. For example a small tattoo that has meaning and is sung about in songs is to be on show at various performances, the artist will also often wear a beanie hat and a lot of jewellery such as rings and different quirky earrings. The style of the artist will be ever changing and so the props will vary depending on season and performance.

Constructing an indie artist

This artist we found on YouTube she is called Jayme she has a popular YouTube account and posts regular videos to a fond audience of some who are committed fans and interested in seeing her journey to success, while others are new and have come across her covers of existing songs from the main artists video. Many people on YouTube are keen to follow undiscovered artists on their journey to being signed and then seeing them become successful through a record label. We want our artist to be like this and enter the industry through popularity on YouTube showcasing her talent for just that singing with a guitar to then be signed but keep these authentic features.

 

Audience

 

 The target audience will be teenagers and young adults both male and female. As this is an indie artist these fans will be interested in the music more than the image of our artist. However, there will be some sexualised images released of her to appeal more to the male audience and grap their attention but these images will still be quite innocent and not too revealing.

The audience will also be in mind when creating songs which our artist will write herself. Her songs will include life expereiences, feelings and emotions that fans of this age will be going through so they can relate to this artist. She will also play the guitar appealing to people who are very musical as they can appreciate her musical talent.

Her music videos will also have the target audience in mind as these will be kept very simple with the main focus being on the music. This will enable her fans to appreciate her musical abilities instead of just her image. However, her image will also be important to the target audience as they want her to look like an indie artist and have a unique flare to her not just like all the mainstream artists on the market.

 

 

Lana Del Rey

However, after a bad performance on Saturday night live she was slated by the public. 

Hype Check: Alt-Indie Princess Lana Del Rey Bombs on SNL

How a viral "sensation" confirmed an industry's deceitful desperation – with one terrible performance.

January 15th, 2012 Johnny Firecloud

We now have the official 2012 litmus test in hype vs. value on the warty, slippery slope of entertainment in America, and its name is Lana Del Rey. The music industry has endlessly regurgitated its own formula to aid their unfettered & continued pillaging of the modern market, but as of last night its latest attempt to hijack our attention and convince us of wildly inflated zirconium value has blown up in their faces, like a billion-dollar Barbie doll melting on the jumbotron at a Toddlers & Tiaras castoff convention.
Undeserving, meticulously crafted viral internet phenomenon Lana Del Rey made her U.S. television debut on SNL this past Saturday night, and the outcome was a painfully embarrassing mess, a collapse of inflated promise. Technically, Lana's performance was an absolute disaster, and actress/musician Juliette Lewis was on point when she tweeted "Wow watching this 'singer' on SNL is like watching a 12 year old in their bedroom when they're pretending to sing and perform. #signofourtimes." (She's since deleted the tweet.)
Yes, it was that bad. Watch it for yourself. Her performance was an implosion of hype, a girl with no place whatsoever on a nationally televised stage laying out her painfully amateurish wares in half-babytalk, singlehandedly dismantling months of genius build-up by Interscope (who will be putting out her Born To Die album on Jan. 31). And while legions of atrocious non-talents pass through the halls of celebridom daily, there's something particularly repugnant about an industry prop so smug and expecting of the shimmering hype pedestal on which she sits – not to mention the full-throttle insistence by the kingmakers that this is the real deal, the next superstar.
She's thus far been limited to internet sensation status, a collagen pout in a sunny corner of the new American Apparel catalogue that she – and Interscope – have taken great pains to distance from Lizzy Grant, the 2010 pop hopeful who, a year later, would become Lana Del Rey with careful grooming, renaming and character design. The would-be alt-indie princess released her breakout single "Video Games" and its accompanying video last Summer, pulling upwards of 13 million YouTube views and selling 20,000 copies of her single, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It debuted and spent three weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Singles Sales chart.
We can deal with Katy Perry. We can accept Bieber's place as a reincarnated, estrogen-infused Leif Garrett and every saccharine teen heartthrob that came before him. Hell, we'll even find a way to welcome back Britney Spears, who made such a cheetos-stained hillbilly tweaker mess of herself a few years ago that most were betting serious Death Pool money on her. We'll chuckle knowingly when the suits adorn her with awards and accolades for music she neither wrote or performed herself. It's pop, after all.
But Lana doesn't have a seasoned army of producers and a Mickey Mouse Club factory upbringing under her belt, equipping her with the bells and whistles to hide her painfully amateurish voice, nonexistence stage presence and not-ready-for-primetime delivery. All she has is hype, blank doe eyes, pouty lips and tired Stevie Nicks affectations.
Oh, and her Twitter profile reads: "EVERYTHING I WANT I HAVE. MONEY, NOTORIETY AND RIVIERAS – I EVEN THINK I FOUND GOD- IN THE FLASH BULBS OF YOUR PRETTY CAMERAS." All caps. Kanye, meet your soul mate.
It's not simply that Del Rey had a bad performance – in fact, her Jools Holland appearance was considerably better than what we saw Saturday night. Her undeserved industry positioning and exposure (she's the first act to perform on SNL before releasing a debut album since Natalie Imbruglia) are the central problem, the continuously ringing bell of inauthenticity that the 2012 internet masses simply cannot stomach – or ignore. She's been shoved hard to the frontburner by an industry that's not only sticking to its 1990s formula of shilling overpriced and undervalued product, but declaring war on its own patrons by propping up insane bills like SOPA and PIPA.
MTV.com, quick to defend a fellow cellophane hologram after the SNL airing, pointed out that the the 25-year-old was nervous. To her credit, she didn't lip-synch to a backing track, but what is it they say about gold medals at the Special Olympics?
The. Girl. Can. Not. Sing.
If we don't watch the thrones hold the pedestals for those who are truly deserving of the position, for those who have earned their legend with years of hard work and core talent, what we find as a result is a climate of unabashed manipulation, a celebration of the grotesquely vapid Kardashian universe with a runaway profit-to-quality product ratio. We're incessantly reminded that this is what we've been waiting for, that this is worthy of the endless hype cycle.
The choir of voices calling bullshit is rising, beautifully.


It then became apparent that she didn't actually live in a trailer park and her dad is a multi - millionaire. She had tried to release herself as an artist before under her real name Lizzie Grant but was unsuccessful. She then manages to get herself signed to a different recording contract who came up with the name Lana Del Rey and made the story of her living a trailer park to manufacture her as being an indie artist. However the truth may have been meant to come out, has the whole thing been a manufactured play to get the audience to talk about her?


People became to not like her and many negative comments and press were released about her for example comments about her album:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/26-meanest-quotes-from-reviews-of-lana-del-reys-n

And negative articles:
http://sabotagetimes.com/music/dont-believe-the-hype-from-lana-del-rey-to-tyler/

But this negative publicity was also a good thing as it made her more well known as people were talking about her and her true fans will have felt sympathy towards her. 

Lana Del Rey: Born to Die – review

• • The Guardian, Friday 27 January 2012

'There’s always the chance that she’s playing a character, although that seems doubtful' … Alexis Petridis on Lana Del Rey. Photograph: Photographer: Shivy K

It's hard not to feel a twinge of sympathy for Lana Del Rey. She's hardly the first pop star in history to indulge in a spot of pragmatic reinvention that muddies her comfortable background, but you'd certainly think she was. You can barely hear the music over the carping, which appears to be getting louder as her debut album approaches: a cynic might say that's just as well, given the recent Saturday Night Live appearance in which she demonstrated her uncanny mastery of the vocal style deployed by Ian Brown during the Stone Roses' later years – she honked like the foghorn on Portland Bill lighthouse. But one off-key TV spot is surely not a career-ending disaster. Perhaps the arrival of Born to Die will silence the controversy and shift attention to the songs.

Or perhaps not. There's something impressive about her desire to brazen it out, but you do wonder at the wisdom of including Radio, one of those how-do-you-like-me-now? songs in which the singer revisits their terrible struggle to achieve fame. "No one even knows how hard life was," she sings, "no one even knows what life was like," which does rather invite the response: indeed not, but given that your father was not only extremely wealthy but so supportive that he took to the pages of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise to promote your debut album I'll hazard a guess at (a) probably not that hard and (b) basically quite nice.
There's always the chance that she's playing a character, although that seems doubtful, because when Lana Del Rey is in character, she really lets you know about it. The one truly disappointing thing about Born to Die isn't the sound, which understandably sticks fast to the appealing blueprint from Video Games and Blue Jeans: sumptuous orchestration, twangs of Twin Peaks-theme guitar and bum-bum-TISH drums. Nor is it her voice, which is fine: a bit reedy on the high notes, but nothing to get you reaching for the earplugs. It's the lyrics, which in contrast to Video Games's beguiling description of a mundane love affair, are incredibly heavy-handed in their attempts to convince you that Lana Del Rey is the doomed but devoted partner of a kind of Athena poster bad boy, all white vest, cheekbones and dangling ciggie. The reckless criminality of their lifestyle is expressed via hip-hop slang – "yo", "imma ride or die", and, a little Ali Gishly, "booyah" – and the depth of their love through romance-novel cliches ("you are my one true love"). It's Mills and Booyah.
The problem is that Del Rey doesn't have the lyrical equipment to develop a persona throughout the album. After the umpteenth song in which she either puts her red dress on or takes her red dress off, informs you of her imminent death and kisses her partner hard while telling him she'll love him 'til the end of time, you start longing for a song in which Del Rey settles down with Keith from HR, moves to Great Yarmouth and takes advantage of the DFS half-price winter sale.
The best thing to do is ignore the lyrics; easy enough given how magnificently most of the melodies have been constructed. Video Games sounded like a unique single, but as it turns out, it was anything but a one-off: the album is packed with similarly beautiful stuff. National Anthem soars gloriously away from a string motif that sounds not unlike that sampled on the Verve's Bitter Sweet Symphony. There's something effortless about the melodies of Diet Mountain Dew and Dark Paradise: they just sweep the listener along with them. The quality is high throughout, which is presumably what you get if you assemble a crack team of co-writers, including Heart FM king Rick Nowels, author of Ronan Keating's Life Is a Rollercoaster, Dido's White Flag and Belinda Carlisle's Heaven Is a Place on Earth.
You could argue that his presence recontextualises Born to Die, drawing it away from the world of the indie singer-songwriter she was initially thought to inhabit and firmly into the mainstream. It fits better there, where no one bores on about authenticity and lyrics matter less than whether your songs' hooks sink deep into the listener's skin. What Born to Die isn't is the thing Lana Del Rey seems to think it is, which is a coruscating journey into the dark heart of a troubled soul. If you concentrate too hard on her attempts to conjure that up, it just sounds a bit daft. What it is, is beautifully turned pop music, which is more than enough.

Reviews about her SNL performance were everywhere and very little people hadn't heard of her. 
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/the-real-reason-why-you-cant-stop-talking-about-lana-del-rey/

http://www.spin.com/articles/deconstructing-lana-del-rey/?page=2 

The ongoing debate about whether Lana Del Rey is indie or not will always continue and there probably will never be a conclusion. However, personally I think as an artist she is amazing and her background shouldn't matter to her music. Who cares how much money her dad has or whether she lived in a trailer park or not? Things like that shouldn't matter to her music. I like how her past troubles and experiences are reflected in her music which let the audience get to know her as a person more. I also think she has a very distintive and uniqie voice however this can get a bit too much sometimes and as all her songs are quite slow listening to her music can also get depressing. I wouldn't say I'm a massive fan of Lana del Rey as my opinion of her is constantly changing but I do appreciate her music and what she has been through as a person.

Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant born June 21 1986, better known by her stage name Lana Del Rey, is an American singer/ songwriter. Del Rey started performing in clubs in New York City at the age of 18 and she signed her first recording contract when she was 20 years old with 5 Points Records, releasing her first digital album "Lana Del Rey aka Lizzy Grant" in January 2010. Del Rey bought herself out of the contract with 5 Points Records in April 2010. She signed a joint contract with Interscope, Polydor, and Stranger Records in October 2011.

(Wikipedia)

Her original story was that she lived in a trailer, writing her own songs and was discovered from there becoming a viral internet sensation. Along with her image, usually 50's and 60's styling, this makes her seem like an indie artist. This is also represented in several of her music videos where sepia effects and many conventions of indie music videos are used. Many of her photos make her seem young and sexually aware but also naive.


The image above shows her as sexualised appealing to the male audience whereas the photo below makes her seem more innocent.

 

She suffered an alcohol problem at the age of 14 forcing her parents to send her to boarding school, this is reflected in some of her lyrics. Her lyrics of many of her songs also suggest she has maybe been in a damaged or abusive realtionship.

A lot of her attention and publicity is online and through the media. For example on youtube she has thousands of views on many of her videos.



She also has many followers on twitter. 












Her website http://www.lanadelrey.com// shows her in a positive light and is carefully constructed to show her in the best possible way. It immediately plays her most recent song as soon as you enter the site forcing the audience to listen and therefore advertising the song. There are easy to follow links further showing her at her best for example this live performance http://www.lanadelrey.com/news/watch-video-games-live-on-later-with-jools-holland/ 
Her radio 1 live lounge gave her publicity as all the radio 1 listeners will have listened to her successful cover. http://www.lanadelrey.com/news/goodbye-kiss-radio-1-live-lounge/

 Born to die              

This music video is very much in contrast to the one for video games as it is very polished, clean cut and artistic. Lana Del Rey is shown as more sexualised right from the start as we immediately see her with a man wearing no clothes. This video seems more mainstream as it has a typical love story. She is also shown sat on a big chair wearing a crown symbolising her being a 'queen' this shows her as mainstream as it implies people should look up to her and she has more power than other people. She is consistently shown wearing white throughout the video as she is in many of her music videos showing a consistent theme. This video seems to have had a lot oe time spent on it and a higher budget again making her seem more mainstream. Her image seems to have changed in her music videos from indie to mainstream in the course of 2 or 3 singles.

National Anthem

Lana Del Rey then released this video which is 8 minutes long and created lots of controversy. She plays Maralyn Monroe and the video is recreating JFK's death which is a huge event in American history. JFK is played by A$AP Rocky who is a rapper very well known in America, this may publicise her more as his fans will now want to watch this video. The controversy created by the storyline will also have created many views. This video is a lot more cinematic than her earlier ones and is more of s story.

Ride                              

This is also a very cinematic video lasting over 10 minutes. It begins with a voice over by Lana Del Rey which makes it seem like more of a film than a music video. 

 After watching several of Lana Del Rey's videos it becomes clear that they are actually a very well thought out system and are more of a series. The same man who appears in born to die also appears in some of her other videos and the sam themes also follow through. This enables her fans to follow her visual journey aswell as her musical journey. 

Interview on Absolute radio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3VDrNcy_HI

 Review

(guardian.co.uk)

Curves-and-chrome Americana … Lana Del Rey. Photograph: Ross Giilmore

The elaborate stage set for Lana Del Rey's European tour is an art deco marvel framed by a pair of lion statues that look as if they were half‑inched from The Great Gatsby. Yet the 26-year-old glides out to a very different movie theme: Giorgio Moroder's grim synth madrigal from Scarface. Perhaps it shouldn't be that surprising. Both are classic American texts about glamour, excess and reinvention.

Since her breakthrough in 2011, Del Rey has been roughed up by critics obsessed with her authenticity, unwilling to be seduced by her sultry repackaging of curves-and-chrome Americana. If the artist formerly known as Lizzie Grant is indeed a ruthless gloom-pop replicant perfected in a record industry laboratory, the public seems unbothered. Del Rey's debut, Born to Die, has shifted over 3.5m units.

She begins with the sullen Cola, a track with an already notorious opening line that the audience sings along with her, although their reading is far less aloof. Perhaps most striking is how poised Del Rey remains, highlighted by continuous video close-ups. She sings huskily, adopts characters, throws in some Spanish – but every frame projected on to the giant screens could double as a cover shoot. It's a remarkably controlled performance. She even manages to keep a straight face while singing, on Body Electric: "Elvis is my daddy, Marilyn's my mother, Jesus is my bestest friend."
There are missteps. Any subversive David Lynchian subtext is made text during a soporific cover of Blue Velvet. But Young and Beautiful, her contribution to the Gatsby soundtrack, sounds magnificent. After an enthusiastic reaction to Video Games, National Anthem initially seems an underwhelming finale. But then Del Rey hops down from the stage to facilitate cameraphone portraits with dozens of fans. She gives great Gatsby but takes even better selfies.