A2 Media Coursework - Research Task - Star Theory 1X

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STAR THEORY 1X A2 MEDIA COURSEWORK – TOLU AWOJOBI

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Toluwaloju Awojobi A2 Media Coursework

Transcript of A2 Media Coursework - Research Task - Star Theory 1X

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STAR THEORY 1X A2 MEDIA COURSEWORK – TOLU AWOJOBI

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THE STAR I WILL ANALYSE

The artist that I will be analysing is Michael Jackson, and I will be analysing his music video career spanning 20 years, from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.

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INTRODUCTION

Michael Jackson was a pop icon whose influence on modern day pop music is still seen today and is nearly immeasurable. One of the mediums of pop music (and music in general) that he influenced was music videos, by making them into short films and by doing so making them a major promotional tool for all artists in today’s industry. This is something that has also helped the parody industry, with a lot of his most famous and well known work having accompanying parodies. These music videos benefitted Michael Jacksons career by labelling him as not just an incredible singer but also a creative individual with a clear vision for how he wanted the audience to receive his music.

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1979 – OFF THE WALL: BACKGROUND

If you track the evolution of Jackson’s music videos, you really are to start in the late 1970’s with the release of his 5th studio album, Off The Wall. This was his first release for record company Epic, and with this album Jackson firmly established his credibility as a solo artist.

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1979-1980 – OFF THE WALL: FIRST MUSIC VIDEOS

However, the music videos he did for the lead singles for this album, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough & Rock With You, were far from outstanding. These videos were very typical of the time, with the artist standing in the centre of the shot, performing the song with a colourful background behind him. This not only shows the lack of creative control the artist would have on their music video in this time and previous, but also how the music video was rarely used to its full potential as a promotional tool.

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1982 – THRILLER: BACKGROUND

The 1980’s saw the revolution of pop music by Jackson, and along with it, the music video. This decade showed Jackson begin to depict short stories in his music videos in order to illustrate (Goodwin) the meaning of the music video to the audience in not only a creative way, but the way that he intended the audience to see.

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1983 – THRILLER: BILLIE JEANWith Jacksons 6th album, Thriller, being already incredibly popular with fans and critics alike, the music videos that were used in order to promote this album helped to propel the Thriller album to best-selling album of all time status. This was done through all three videos for the album, the first being Billie Jean, which was the first video of Jackson’s to feature a story line, as well as (for that time) state of the art special effects. Billie Jean had an amazing effect on the music video, which helped to not only illustrate the true meaning of the already successful single, but also to showcase Jackson’s talent as a solo artist.

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1983 – THRILLER: BEAT ITThe next video was Beat It, a direct attempt to get on then up-and-coming TV channel MTV. The success of the single and video being played on MTV paid off for both the channel and the artist, with the channel being boosted to national and international attention, and for the artist, and specifically the artists’ race, the chance for black people to be played, and eventually receive heavy rotation, on MTV and other TV channels.

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1984 – THRILLER: THRILLER With the release of the 12 minute video for the title single, Michael Jackson’s success reached heights that had never been touched in the pop world previous to this, but in particular this video helped solidify Thriller as the best-selling album of all time, as it helped raise the album back to the top of the charts, after it had previously fallen out of the number one spot after an already record breaking term. Thriller also connoted the first time a well known & successful feature length director had directed a music video, with John Landis directing the video for Jackson.

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1987 – 89 – BAD: BACKGROUNDMichael Jackson’s videos also proved to help him continuously change his image and style, as he did in the late 80s with the release of his follow up album to the landmark Thriller, Bad. The release of the album was preceded by the title songs release with an accompanying short film, which showcased even more creativity on Jackson’s part, as did the rest of the music videos from the album, which are 8 in total, and all of which follow a story line bar one (Liberian Girl).

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1987 – 89 – BAD: STORYLINESThese videos also began to have even more extravagant stories than previously, with the video for Bad being 18 minutes in total, and others such as Smooth Criminal set in a 1920s gangster bar. These videos were the mainstream music videos to feature large scale special effects, with the music videos for Speed Demon & Leave Me Alone being shot almost exclusively in animation, with the exception (at times) of Jackson. This album also features his first montage video, for the song Man In The Mirror, which is more of a throwback to the last decade of music videos which had a simple presentation of the artist and his song.

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1987 – 89 – BAD: VIDEOS AS A PROMOTIONAL TOOLThe videos from Bad show the ability of Michael Jackson to successful use the music video as a promotional tool, with these music videos receiving world premieres on many TV channels. This also was the beginning of the parodies of his music videos, with Weird Al Yankovic parodying the lead single. These music videos were collected and presented in a feature film called Moonwalker, released in the late 1980s. This film conveyed to the audience how powerful music videos can be used to give an artist creative control and power over their own music to employ their vision. You can see the influence of this in today’s culture, with artist like Chris Brown and Beyoncé creating albums with videos for each song.

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1991 – 93 – DANGEROUS: BACKGROUNDJackson’s 9th studio album, entitled Dangerous, began the same way as bad did, with a world video premiere for the lead single Black or White. The video shows how music videos can set expectations for an artist’s creativity and expected performance, as this video received the highest Nielsen ratings ever at the time to view his follow up to the videos of Bad.

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1991 – DANGEROUS: BLACK OR WHITE

This video, which reunited him with Thriller director John Landis, began to show Jackson not only illustrating but now amplifying the meaning of his songs, which is particularly evident in this video. This was also the beginning of the controversy that would follow his videos, as there was an immediate back lash towards the last few minutes of the video for its sexual provocativeness.

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1991 – 93 – DANGEROUS: OVERVIEWThis album eventually had a video album, with 7 videos of original footage being shot in promotion for the album. Video’s such as Remember The Time show Jackson’s increasing budget which helped to support his artistic vision, while other videos like Will You Be There conveyed the music videos ability to promote different media texts, as it was used on the soundtrack to motion picture Free Willy, and consequently featured footage from the film in video.

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1991 – 93 – DANGEROUS: CONT.

Jackson also used music videos to direct his appeal at different demographics, with the video for Jam being a direct appeal to the urban community, and even featured Michael Jordan, who was nearing the height of his popularity at the time, and Give In To Me an appeal to the rock community.

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1995 – HISTORY: OVERVIEW

With Jackson’s next album, HIStory, he used his music videos in order to get his feelings across, something which he had not yet done. In the video for Scream, which was the most expensive music video of all time, Jackson began to incorporate disjuncture in his videos. Scream featured a clearly angry Jackson, though the setting of the video (a spaceship) had hardly any overt link to the lyrics of the song, though if one was looking deeper into the meaning of the song they may find the link.

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1995 – 96 – HISTORY: CONT. Also, more controversy began to follow Jackson’s videos, which lead to the first video for Jackson’s single They Don’t Care About Us not being allowed to be released as it featured penitentiary violence, and therefore having to be reshot and released separately. He also used music videos to touch on subjects such as the state of the earth, and to help raise awareness for problems such as deforestation and pollution, with the single Earth Song.

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1997 – GHOSTS FILM

Though Jackson’s output slowed due to legal and health troubles, Jackson still managed to release more upscale music videos in the 90s, including a half an hour short film which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, entitled Ghosts

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CONCLUSIONIn total as a lead artist, Jackson has released 30 videos in his lifetime, with 11 of these helping propel his singles to the number 1 spot on the chart. His influence on both pop music and music videos of all genres is undeniable and goes beyond what can be documented.