Analysis of a star and Dyer's theory
Many artists may feel to need to reinvent themselves in the music industry and the way they are perceived as an artist. This can include their personalities, the way they portray themselves in the media and the style and genre of their music. There are many reasons why artists may feel the need to reinvent themselves and for many artists such as Madonna, Miley Cyrus and Michael Jackson, they have reinvented themselves for both the right and wrong reasons. They may feel that they have done something bad that has gotten them bad press and they wish to change this and their personalities to become 'good again'. They may also want to break away from their image and reputation, a prime example of this being Miley Cyrus who broke away from her childlike, Disney channel good girl Hannah Montana image to becoming one of the most controversial artists on the planet with a streak of bad press and mindless moments. Artists may also want to mature as a person and grow up along with their target audience in order to reach out to a larger target audience and reinvent their music careers and publicity. Other artists such as Michael Jackson not only reinvented themselves for their own personal preferences but with it came a lot more publicity with 'There King of Pop' becoming arguably the biggest and most respected yet controversial artist on the planet. Other artists may reinvent themselves purely on music and feel they want to gain a new audience or target audience that may now suit them best or to their liking. One key music figure who has made this significant change is Justin Bieber.
At the age of just 16 when Justin Bieber broke on to the scene with his song 'one time' in 2009, he was known as an innocent, baby face pop artist who's songs and music videos generally demonstrated scenes and themes about love, girls, him as a teenager and the general conventions of pop music. His debut song 'one time' demonstrates him as a pop artist and is the song that is affiliated with him during this stage of his career. It includes many genre conventions and forms of goodwins theory. This is evident where we seen a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.The lyrics illustratively match JB's (Justin Bieber) hand actions and dance moves as he sings 'my one love, my one heart for sure' as he shows a finger to the camera and dances side to side with his friends at a party. This shows us that Justin Bieber is currently just a sweet, innocent 16 year old pop artist whois focused on treating girls right and having a good time with his friends. This is backed up with the fact him and his friends have thrown a house party and are looking for girls with the focus of the song and lyrics being on impressing these girls and claiming her world is 'his world'. This is also conventional to JB as a baby face pop artist and to the pop genre as we expect him and artists to treat girls with respect and have fun,loving videos with people having a good time. There are also other genre conventions of this video including the arrival of Usher, JB's mentor and huge pop/R&B artist, to the party at his house. This is conventional to the pop genre as we often expect cameo appearances from major stars in order to boost stars reputation and in attempt to make the song/video more popular. We also see celebrity endorsement and signs of luxury in the video with JB and Usher showing off their possessions and home in the video showing that they are respectful, successful artists; something conventional to the genre and what we expect to see. Dyers theory is also relevant throughout the video with the video for 'one time' revealing a lot about him as an artist, product and leaves fans with an image of star quality about Justin Bieber. This is evident where he shows early signs youthfulness, creativity and talent as he is a fresh faced pop artist writing and signing his own songs. At this early stage of his career, Justin Bieber is summed up by the parodex 1 of Dyers theory of being an ordinary person who is seen as a role model yet already an extroadniary talent as he is yet to show signs of rebellious behaviour. Audiences are already seeing Justin Bieber as a star, striving to complete and make sense of his image, early music career. This is evident as the song reached high success rates, including 417 million YouTube views, reaching number one in the charts and being a platform for him to become one of the biggest artists of the modern era. Justin Biebers target audience for this video is young teenagers, particularly girls, who have an interest in pop music. Although Justin Bieber has a large following from people in this age bracket (beliebers) his target audience has expanded since his pop days and he now has audiances of all different ages including young adults, ages 18-25 and so on with his switch to R&B and dance music.
After his change from pop music, Justin Bieber began to produce Pop/R&B music in the years 2013, 14. His change in music brought a change in character for Bieber as he began to become more rebellious and express signs of sexual magnetism and more creativity in to his videos. This is seen through goodwins theory in his video and how he shows a performance/narrative element in his video for song 'all that matters'. This is seen where he it's standing up by the wall with a girl singing along to the song whilst holding the girls face, with a guitar in the background in a dark isolated room so the focus is captured on the musical features in the back to demonstrate his musical talents and with him and the girl
Justin Bieber eventually changed his whole image, his personality and most importantly his genre and style of music which saw him produce dance and R&B songs such as 'What do u mean' in 2015, taking him away from his early stage pop songs and baby face moments. In Justin Biebers video for what do u mean, he uses many aspects of Goodwins theory including the demands of the record label having included lots of close ups of JB himself and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work. This is evident as we see many close ups of him sitting down on the bed gazing into the camera and close ups of him in bed with the girl creating a sexual and visual style in order for the audience to build a relationship with the artist. The record label and JB have also included these shots and visual images so that they stand out to the audience and similar shots can be used in other videos so he can keep that perception of him that he is now rebellion and showing sexual magnetism. It also however takes him away from his pop music target audience who idolised him more for his sweetness, talent and baby face charm whereas newer and older audiences, males and females aged between 16-mid 20's, would prefer more of an edgy side towards him and his bigger star image. Justin Bieber also uses many dance genre conventions in his videos, including stereotypical mise en scene with the strobe, colourful lighting in the background. This is seen as he is in the party scene at the end of the video and throughout as it follows the narrative of him and the girl. It is used in order to create a energetic vibe for the audience throughout the song and to express JB's new exciting character and sexual relationship with the girl and to also accompany the dance audio and sense of liveliness. This is conventional to the Dance genre as we expect fast paced lighting and dashes of lots of colour to add to the fast tempo and create that excitement. Another genre convention JB follows is the conventional fast paced camera shots, particularly seen with close ups. This is used in the end party scene and to change the visual image of when he is in bed with the girl. This is used in order to create a fast paced video to match the audio and to in order to have the audience engaged and hooked on the visual images they are seeing. It is conventional to the dance genre as we expect to see fast paced imagery in order to create that cohesion between the audiences demands as it s very popular and the artist. In terms of Justin Biebers 'star image' as a dance artist, he has enhanced his star quality and personality massively and for the better according to Richard Dyers theory. His video for what do u mean represents that artist in the way that he now defines his new rebellious and sexual character with scenes in the video showing him getting intimate with a girl and playing with fire. It also shows his originality with his ability to change genres and personality so much and so well and still be labelled as successful and a star. Justin Biebers new genre of music and changed character also brands him as a product with the way he is still defined a star through his continued success and consumption of his products and personality such as the promotion of his calvin klien boxers and everyone in the video surrounding him as the centre of attention. He is also both ordinary and extraordinary as the development of his videos and the things included in them show his massive star quality as he shows aggression, sexual magnetism, social values, youthfulness and his creativity yet he is still ordinary in the way he is simultaneously present and absent for the consumer.
Some of the main points summarizing Justin Biebers star quality is that on the whole as an artist he began his career as an innocent pop artist full of youthfulness before becoming highly successful and deemed as a star and changing his image, personality and music as he become older and bigger in the industry over time. With his growing success came the expectation that his growing fan base and target audience would go away determined to continue consuming JB in order to carry on attempting to complete his image and personality and his songs, videos had an impact on audiances social values showing hegemony feeling he felt a change in music genre and character to reinvent himself in the industry. Justins management team also supported the change and also told him to calm down on some of his rebellious behaviour or he would lose everything! His behaviour had become 'ridicoulous' and he was in danger of being dropped by his record label, despite his huge success. He also only reveals new music once its 100% perfect and ready, again showing his star quality of Richard dyers paradox 2 theory.
My research on Justin Bieber has given me an insight as to what artist to choose once we make our own music videos as to what genres I am going to follow and the conventions that come with it, the drastic changes of characters and music therefore meaning we need to stick to one genre and artist and anlyse the particular character we want closely and their target audience and how important it is to focus on this. This is because many target audiances expect different things and elements and have different demands therefore we need to stick to a particular audience and ensure we meet the star quality and image requirements and the genre requirements.
After his change from pop music, Justin Bieber began to produce Pop/R&B music in the years 2013, 14. His change in music brought a change in character for Bieber as he began to become more rebellious and express signs of sexual magnetism and more creativity in to his videos. This is seen through goodwins theory in his video and how he shows a performance/narrative element in his video for song 'all that matters'. This is seen where he it's standing up by the wall with a girl singing along to the song whilst holding the girls face, with a guitar in the background in a dark isolated room so the focus is captured on the musical features in the back to demonstrate his musical talents and with him and the girl
Justin Bieber eventually changed his whole image, his personality and most importantly his genre and style of music which saw him produce dance and R&B songs such as 'What do u mean' in 2015, taking him away from his early stage pop songs and baby face moments. In Justin Biebers video for what do u mean, he uses many aspects of Goodwins theory including the demands of the record label having included lots of close ups of JB himself and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work. This is evident as we see many close ups of him sitting down on the bed gazing into the camera and close ups of him in bed with the girl creating a sexual and visual style in order for the audience to build a relationship with the artist. The record label and JB have also included these shots and visual images so that they stand out to the audience and similar shots can be used in other videos so he can keep that perception of him that he is now rebellion and showing sexual magnetism. It also however takes him away from his pop music target audience who idolised him more for his sweetness, talent and baby face charm whereas newer and older audiences, males and females aged between 16-mid 20's, would prefer more of an edgy side towards him and his bigger star image. Justin Bieber also uses many dance genre conventions in his videos, including stereotypical mise en scene with the strobe, colourful lighting in the background. This is seen as he is in the party scene at the end of the video and throughout as it follows the narrative of him and the girl. It is used in order to create a energetic vibe for the audience throughout the song and to express JB's new exciting character and sexual relationship with the girl and to also accompany the dance audio and sense of liveliness. This is conventional to the Dance genre as we expect fast paced lighting and dashes of lots of colour to add to the fast tempo and create that excitement. Another genre convention JB follows is the conventional fast paced camera shots, particularly seen with close ups. This is used in the end party scene and to change the visual image of when he is in bed with the girl. This is used in order to create a fast paced video to match the audio and to in order to have the audience engaged and hooked on the visual images they are seeing. It is conventional to the dance genre as we expect to see fast paced imagery in order to create that cohesion between the audiences demands as it s very popular and the artist. In terms of Justin Biebers 'star image' as a dance artist, he has enhanced his star quality and personality massively and for the better according to Richard Dyers theory. His video for what do u mean represents that artist in the way that he now defines his new rebellious and sexual character with scenes in the video showing him getting intimate with a girl and playing with fire. It also shows his originality with his ability to change genres and personality so much and so well and still be labelled as successful and a star. Justin Biebers new genre of music and changed character also brands him as a product with the way he is still defined a star through his continued success and consumption of his products and personality such as the promotion of his calvin klien boxers and everyone in the video surrounding him as the centre of attention. He is also both ordinary and extraordinary as the development of his videos and the things included in them show his massive star quality as he shows aggression, sexual magnetism, social values, youthfulness and his creativity yet he is still ordinary in the way he is simultaneously present and absent for the consumer.
Some of the main points summarizing Justin Biebers star quality is that on the whole as an artist he began his career as an innocent pop artist full of youthfulness before becoming highly successful and deemed as a star and changing his image, personality and music as he become older and bigger in the industry over time. With his growing success came the expectation that his growing fan base and target audience would go away determined to continue consuming JB in order to carry on attempting to complete his image and personality and his songs, videos had an impact on audiances social values showing hegemony feeling he felt a change in music genre and character to reinvent himself in the industry. Justins management team also supported the change and also told him to calm down on some of his rebellious behaviour or he would lose everything! His behaviour had become 'ridicoulous' and he was in danger of being dropped by his record label, despite his huge success. He also only reveals new music once its 100% perfect and ready, again showing his star quality of Richard dyers paradox 2 theory.
My research on Justin Bieber has given me an insight as to what artist to choose once we make our own music videos as to what genres I am going to follow and the conventions that come with it, the drastic changes of characters and music therefore meaning we need to stick to one genre and artist and anlyse the particular character we want closely and their target audience and how important it is to focus on this. This is because many target audiances expect different things and elements and have different demands therefore we need to stick to a particular audience and ensure we meet the star quality and image requirements and the genre requirements.
This is a basic analysis of Justin Bieber's artist image, as you have managed to explain how he has changed overtime but only with reference to two videos. You need to analyse one in-between and make sure you cover all points for all videos.
ReplyDeleteYou need to:
1) Analyse one more video (between 1st and 3rd stage - R'n'B phase)
2) Talk about who the target audience is for each video and how they have changed over time
3) Explain the messages and value of each video and how they have changed over time