Analyses of a star- Rihanna

Analyses of a star

Rihanna

The artist who I have chosen to do is Rihanna this is because I think that she has made a significant transformation over the years, in terms of her appearance, target audience, and the style of music, which she is now known for today.

Goodwin’s theory

Rihanna has shown that she has used some characteristics of Goodwin’s theory. Some of the theories used have been where she has had a connection between the lyrics and the visuals. This is evident in the video ‘unfaithful’ of the album a girl like me. This video consists of Rihanna singing about being unfaithful to her boyfriend as she keeps on cheating on him, she sings about the fact that both her and her boyfriend know what she is doing is wrong but neither of them would say, she sings about how she doesn’t want to hurt her boyfriend anymore. This is evident where she is sitting on the bed with an oversized shirt on crying because she has been unfaithful again and she no long wants to hurt her boyfriend. While this is going on she is actually singing these lyrics as well. Thus illustrating a clear relationship between the lyrics of the song and the visuals and how they connect with each other and how that is then conveyed to the audience.

    Another example if where Goodwin’s theory is present would be where there is use of notion of looking. This is evident right at the start of the song the first 64-second of the song is all portrayed through the notion of looking. This is conveyed, as all of the scenes are of Rihanna with her boyfriend and fast editing shows a whole range of different scenes where they are together.


 For example where they are holding hands, when they are at a restaurant, and when Rihanna is getting dressed and she is putting lip-gloss on. These are all scenes where neither of the characters is looking into the camera or where there are any performance related tendencies.

    It is clear from the nature of the video that it is a heavy narrative based video, although this is present there are also other styles present in this video for example there are aspects of performance based video during this video this is illustrated where Rihanna is singing with the man with the piano and she is laying across the piano singing. This scene is also narrative based as the man playing the piano is also the man she is having an affair with in the video. This all interlinks with each other and conforms to Goodwin’s theory. 

Throughout Rihanna’s music video ‘unfaithful’ there a various codes and conventions present during the song. The genre of this music video is a pop and R&B video; conventions of both of these genres are present in this video. Some of these are, Rihanna where she is wearing very minimal clothing as she is just wearing a mans 
 baggy shirt, with some of the buttons open. This is evident that this is one of the conventions of a R&B music video as one of the codes of R&B music video is to have women which have a lot of sex appeal and that wear minimal clothing Rihanna does this well as she exposes certain parts of her body which makes her look sexy. Thus this encourages people to want to watch this video again; this may appeal more to the male gender rather than females. Another convention which is conformed to of an R&B music video would be having attractive males in an R&B music video. Rihanna also have this in her video as she has two males in the video, which are spouse to be obviously attractive. 

There is also another convention, which is used through this video, is showing off the ‘stuff’, which they have. An example of where this is used would be where Rihanna is making it clear what phone she has. Although that phone may not be the top phone now, but back when the song was released this would have been a good phone to have and by her showing that she has that, it conveys to the audience what she has and they type of life style which she lives. She also uses a whole range of different camera shots, which frequently occur in R&B music videos to make them look more effective and better. This is also one way of showing themselves off and a way of presenting them in a way in which they would like to be seen by their audience. Some of these shots are close ups whole other can are long shots, both of which carry different meaning and serve a range of different purposes. For example there is a close up of Rihanna looking at her phone, this show the audience what she is looking at from her point of view. This shot works on a narrative based purpose as it helps to convey the story of the music video as well as the purpose. This is just one example of where a close up is used another example would be where there is a close up of Rihanna it applying lip gloss, this is to show her lips, which then carries sexual connotations and conforms to the genre of a R&B video. 

These are most of the conventions, which are used from the genre of R&B. one of the reasons why Rihanna may have gone against the general conventions of a R&B video might be because she wanted to make her video different and stand out compared to the other videos which were being created at the time this video was made. There are not many conventions of a pop video in this music video, other than the close ups which are used in this video which I have previously discussed other than this. This video doesn’t conform to the general conventions of a pop music video. This might be because a typical pop music video tends to be upbeat, innocent, and colorful. This unfaithful video juxtaposes this music video a lot as it doesn’t no contain any of what was listed above, the video is not upbeat, as it is a slow song, is not upbeat, it is also not bright, colorful or is innocent because this is a video about how wrong Rihanna has been because she has cheated on her boyfriend this is wrong and is the opposite of being innocent. The only way this is similar would be the way Rihanna is portraying herself as she knows she is wrong and she is trying to act all innocent because she knows she what she has done is wrong.   

    The image of this artist Rihanna at the time of which unfaithful came out was very innocent, girly and fairly normal to some extent. Although this juxtaposes with what the song unfaithful is about because it is about how Rihanna has done wrong by cheating. By then general image of Rihanna was very simple and girly. 

This is represented more by the way Rihanna chose to have her hair, and then way in which she dresses. For example in this video Rihanna is wearing really simple clothing, such as just t-shirt, and jeans, while her hair was also fairly common as well for example she had mid to long length hair with a wide side fringe, and natural brown hair. All of these aspects made it clear that Rihanna was new onto the market because she doesn’t have any distinct style and what she is wearing is very simple and generic. This type of style compared to someone who was more established at the time for example Beyonce  would be able to experiment more with her style with the type of clothing which she would have considered wearing because she has developed a fan base and had a market so would be able to explore different styles. But because Rihanna was still fairly new onto the market so she wouldn’t have yet developed an established, and loyal fan base to start experimenting with a range of different styles. So I think that in conclusion Rihanna style of this stage of her career she had a very girly innocent image which wasn’t very bold and didn’t majorly stand out amongst other artists.

    The target audience at this stage of Rihanna career was majorly targeted towards people between the ages of about 12- 22 for mainly females. I think she targeted a market between this age group is because she was a young girl herself, this means that most of her songs would have been able to connect and relate to this audience through the lyrics in her songs, this is why I think that this album may have been targeted toward girls more than boys. I think that this also given away more in the title of the album, which is called ‘a girl like me’ then further illustrates why this album may be more targeted towards females than males. She was also fairly normal then as well, this may be the reason why she would have only targeted this target audience, and maybe not appeal so much to males, because although she is shown to be a good artist there was no major image and she major sex appeal or anything dramatic about the album itself although the songs were good the music videos were fairly basic, which may not leave a major mark on the audience as they may be more like to forget that video rather than a more established video by a more established and bolder artist. I think this was because this album was more about showing off Rihanna’s voice rather, and not so much about the image of herself and the video.

   

    The message which this video would give from this video is fairly clear. This is because it has been done fairly simply; as more of the video is a narrative based video, there are slight aspects of performance based features in the video as well as having a concept in the video but again this is all mainly shown through the narrative of the video. The message which is trying to be put across by this video would be about Rihanna expressing just how bad she feels about cheating on her boyfriends and how she regrets it so much and wishes she had never done it. This is because she has now realized that they are now both suffering. The reasons being because she is now not enjoying what she is doing now and she feels bad, another reason being that both her and her boyfriend know that she is cheating but neither of them will say anything and both of them act like they don’t know when it is really obvious, and another reason being that Rihanna boyfriend loves her so much and he can’t bring himself to accept what Rihanna is doing, he don’t want to believe it, and he wants to believe that Rihanna has remained loyal to him when he knows that she hasn’t been. These are some of the messages of this music video and about the types of songs which Rihanna was producing at the time. The songs were very soulful and about relationships and about the ups and the downs in a relationship. 
This is demonstrated through some of the lyrics in the song “And I know that he knows I'm unfaithful and it kills him inside to know that I am happy with some other guy I can see him dying” this is just one verse of the song which displays the lyrics of the song and conveys the message that both Rihanna and her boyfriend both know that they have done wrong yet neither of them will say anything. Rihanna knows she is hurting him, but can’t help herself like she has not self-control over what she is doing. They both know that she is going to do it but neither of them will do anything to stop it. This is then conveyed well through these lyrics as well, “I say I won't be long just hanging with the girls A lie I didn't have to tell Because we both know where I'm about to go And we know it very” the words such as ‘lie’ helps to conveys to the audience that Rihanna is telling a lie in order to go and be with another guy but she can’t help herself from telling this lie. The word ‘lie’ almost then becomes like a metaphor for the relationship, they are both living a ‘lie’ pretending that they are happy when they really aren’t just so that they can stay together and not be embarrassed by what has happen. So I think that this conveys that this is more than a lie than what Rihanna is doing. I think that this is also a good example of the music video being a concept based video because it brings to light more that the relationship between this couple is a lie, because Rihanna can’t control herself and her boyfriend is too in love with her and would rather be with her while she is cheating on him rather than them both just breaking up because the couple is not happy.

   I think that the value of this song; is to show the relationship between couple just in general and not just between Rihanna and her boyfriend. This is because this is something which could happen to any relationship and showing that some people do cheat and this is the reality of some relationship. I think that this song shows that cheating it wrong, and once one of the partner’s starts cheating then that partner starts to accept it more, thus making it easier for them to do it again. Rihanna is saying that it is wrong and that people shouldn’t do it, because it is a selfish act, and can hurt and embarrass more than one person involved. I think that the other value of this video would be to show that it is usually not worth it, and that people in relationships should value the people which they have and not take advantage of them, because then they won’t know what they have lost until they have lost that person.

    Although this is the message of the song it still manages to convey her current style at the time. This means that she still managed to look innocent throughout the whole video. She still manages to come across as the girly girl which people can relate to. This is illustrated where Rihanna behaves and knows that she has made a mistake, and she feel bad this is conveyed to the audience, for example where there is a close up of a tear running down Rihannas face this would then make it look believable that she is still the innocent one in all this.

   Rihanna started to develop a change in her style as her albums developed. This was conveyed quite obviously when the album good girl gone bad came out. As this took the idea of someone so good and innocent and then changed her into some what the opposite. This change in style was carried through in both Rihanna’s choice in the design of her videos, this as well as her style in terms of the way she dressed, how she choose to have her hair, and even the way she performed on stage. All of this became different showing her audience a new side to her, this helped Rihanna to start building up a strong firm image of how she wanted to be seen and perceived by her audience.

    It would be easy to argue that the instant change in Rihanna style could conform to the star theory. This would imply that Rihanna was built this way in order for her to fill a gap which may have been in the market which her record label might have thought that they could make a lot of money from. So in order to fill that gap instead of finding someone new this would have then fitted the gap. The record label will change one of the stars which they currently already have so. Rihanna is proved to be a prime example of that from her transition from being a good girl to more of a bad girl and carry a lot more attitude. Richard Dyer who has done a lot of writing and research about the roles of stars in films, TV and music, and one of the theories which he came up with was that stars are not really people they are characters of which have been constructed and built in a certain way to accommodate the market and provide the style and the talent which is needed for the gap in the market.

    The second video that I have chosen to do analyses from the mid stage of Rihanna’s career that demonstrates the change in the style and the image which Rihanna has developed as an artist. The music video which conveys this well would be ‘Rude boy’ this song was taken from Rihanna’s fourth studio album ‘rated R’. The main purpose of this album was to show how she can endure danger, how she is strong, as well as female empowerment. This album was produced after what had happened between Rihanna and Chris brown. At first Rihanna says she was unable and too scared to speak out about what had happened. But after a while she decided that she should speak out about it, in the only way Rihanna knew how which was to sing about it, this is because she wanted other women who may have gone through a similar situation to be able to speak out about it and be able to tell people so that they don’t end up in the same situation as she did where she was too scared to speak out about it. 

The album ‘Rated R’ is said to be a range of all of the different stages which a woman would go through who would be suffering from abuse. As the album features songs about Rihanna singing about abuse, the aggression, and confessions and the sorrows, this album features a whole range of different genres of music, some of which being; hard rock, to dance tracks to reggae these are just some of the genres which Rihanna has moved into on this album. The video ‘Rude boy’ is an example of one of the genres which Rihanna did; this was lent towards the ragamuffin dancehall genre a lot. This was the third single to be released from the album. The background behind the decisions made about this song were mainly to do with what had happened between her and Chris Brown and was a way of her trying to get over it. This is illustrated where in setting of the song due to the rest of the song being quite dark Rihanna wanted to use a lot of bright colors in this song, and wanted to produce something which was more upbeat as she didn’t want all sad depressing songs on her album. There are some references to Goodwin’s theory, the first of which being; the notion of looking. This is portrayed during one of the scenes during the song where Rihanna is standing with a man standing on top of what looks like stacked blocks. The camera then shows Rihanna stretching open the man’s tracksuit bottoms to see what was inside. 

In a way this is shown to the audience through the notion of looking as this is a long shot, and views Rihanna looking down his trousers, and then him looking at her, neither of them looking at the camera or showing any types of awareness that they knew they were being watched or that they were aware of the camera. This therefore conforms to Goodwin’s theory of the notion of looking. This then leads me into another point of Goodwin’s theory which is where the lyrics link to the visuals. This does not happen often during the video and isn’t something which occurs throughout, it only happens in a few shot. For example it happens here with the last example which I just used, of Rihanna looking down the man’s trousers, as this matches with the lyrics which are being sung at the time, “Come here, rude boy, boy, is you big enough?” this is what Rihanna is saying when she is singing. This then makes it obvious what she is trying to say and bringing the connotations to life and making it obvious what she means this then connects the lyrics and then visuals which conform to Goodwin’s theory and proves that she uses some of the conventions of Goodwin’s theory. Even though this is a concept based video it is still has some of the conventions which Goodwin refers to.

    There are a range of all different codes and conventions used in this video. Although the codes and conventions which have been used are used a lot and are clear. Some of the conventions of a R&B video are; to wear minimal clothing, having outrageous and hair that would make the artist stand out more, extremely large high heels, and jewelry. All of these appear in Rihanna’s ‘Rude boy’ video at some stage or another. Examples of where this has appeared would be, at the start of the video where Rihanna is approaching a drum kit and there is a close up of the heels which Rihanna is wearing and she steps onto the scene that is when the music starts. 

The first step she takes the audience can see these extra-large plat formed heels which Rihanna is wearing this conforms completely to the codes and the conventions to the music video. Rihanna both challenges and conforms to the convention of wearing minimal clothing; this is demonstrated throughout the video in her choice of clothing for example where she wearing high wasted shorts and then a crop top with some of her stomach on show this provokes the object of desire of a male audience, this then develops new audience on it’s own, this is not the only type of minimal clothing which she wears as she also wears a short mini dress made out of records it is a one arm dress, but even that arm has not actual arm it is just a strap, the dress then finishes at her waist where she then has really short mini jean shorts, these are so short that they can only been seen when the camera views a close up of Rihanna from the side on. She then has fish net style bans of fabric around her legs this is also very short and can only really been seen just under her shorts. Her heels are then also very high and the straps go half way up her calf.  There is another dress change where Rihanna is wearing a corset and another pair of very short shorts, the type where the audience can see the bottom of her bum again there is her mid stomach showing. She is then wearing heels in this scene as well; Rihanna wears minimal clothing throughout the whole video. These all conform to women wearing minimal clothing. 

This is a very obvious demonstration of where Rihanna has conformed to the codes and the conventions to an R&B music video. Rihanna also challenges the codes and conventions of wearing minimal clothing this is during the scene where Rihanna is wearing a full cat suit, which is white all over, and then has black marks all over it, they are mostly thick black curved and straight lines all over her body. Even though her whole body is covered here it still has some sexual connation’s to it, for example on the body of this outfit there is think black circles marking located near the top half of her body, this itself has various connation’s to it, for the area of which it is placed. So I think this outfit which Rihanna is wearing is showing that she can still look sexy, and be fully clothed therefore challenging the code and the conventions of female artists in an R&B video. Rihanna is also wearing lot of bright colors which also conforms to the conventions is that Rihanna is wearing a lot of jewelry, this conforms because she is wearing, but this also goes against the conventions because she is wearing more than the conventional amount jewelry than what is expected for an R&B star, as they usually wear slightly minimal jewelry, and more designer or expensive pieces. Whereas in this video Rihanna wears a lot of heavy chunky necklaces’, very large chunky bracelets, a whole range of different sunglasses, and extra large hoop earrings, the jewelry is all very statement pieces and all go against the stereotypes of an R&B artist wearing light jewelry as it is more stereotypical for hip hop singers to wear heavy jewelry. I think that Rihanna has chosen to use this style in this video because the music genre of this style of that type of reggae with a bit of hip hop, ragamuffin, dance, pop and R&B, therefore I think that Rihanna has in some way incorporated all of these types of music genres into this music video. For example the right colors could come from the pop genre, the dance would be the actual dancing which she does in her video, the hip hop would therefore be the chains and the jewelry which is worn in the video and then R&B might be the clothing which Rihanna is wearing. These are the main other genres which Rihanna has lent into during this music video in order to accommodate the music genre and the concept behind the video and the lyrics of the song.

    The target audience for this song ‘Rude boy’ would be aimed towards 15 year olds upwards. But I would say that in general there is not specific target audience for this song, as I think it is largely aimed towards those who enjoy R&B music and people who are a fan of Rihanna in general. I think that Rihanna has expanded her target audience over the years as she has become more established and become well known. I also think that every time Rihanna brings out something new this invites a slightly new audience than it would have before. The R&B conventions which Rihanna conforms to helps her to generate a new audience, some of the ways in which this is done is through the clothing which she wears, by wearing minimal clothing this invites the male gender to want to listen to Rihanna more because she is seen as being a sexy appealing women this is also shown through the actions which she performs in her videos, some of them can be seen as having sexual connation’s again this would encourage a male audience further. Rihanna also appeals to the female gender as well; this is because Rihanna is seen as being a strong, powerful independent woman, this makes Rihanna also seem like a role model for young girls who may look up to her. Rihanna may also have a fan base because all of her past songs helping her to become more established, for example hits such as;  ‘umbrella’, ‘hate that I love you’, ‘take a bow’, ‘rehab’, ‘sos’, ‘unfaithful’ ‘pod de reply’, ‘hard’, ‘Russian roulette’, and ‘te amo’. Songs such as this makes Rihanna the stop iconic woman, which she is and is one of the things which has helped her to provide a fan base at this stage of her career. 



This is one of the aspects, which has helped to develop a fan base at this stage of her life; another aspect that has helped to develop Rihanna’s audience would be her personal life. This has had a massive impact on Rihanna singing career, for example at the time which ‘Rated R’ came out Rihanna was just dealing with the break up with her last boyfriend Chris Brown, this put both of their names splashed all over the new and the media because of the abuse which came out which Rihanna was getting from Chris Brown. This then of course invited a whole new range of a new audience because of the abuse more people wanted to support Rihanna and therefore become a fan. This break up also affects Rihanna music, because this then made Rihanna become more of a stronger woman as she wanted to support women who had and have been suffering from the same problem, she wanted to show that woman can get over this and get through it. This whole album is showing all of the different stages, which women would go through when being abused, and emotions and so of, which they may feel. It is clear that the target audience has changed since the song ‘unfaithful’ came out, as since Rihanna has dropped the innocent, venerable, good girl image, and has stepped into the darker side of music, and adopted a whole new image. Although Rihanna may still be talking about love, she is expressing it in a whole new way from a whole different angle, instead of looking at the happiness and the sadness of a relationship which she use to do, she now looks at the more sexual reality side of a relationship which other artists don’t really sing about so much this alone would also help Rihanna to expand into a new market appealing to all those who re interested by such subjects.   

    This whole album as well as this song has a whole range of different vales, and messages attached to it. The main one being about Rihanna and how she has dealt with her relationship with Chris Brown, and the abuse which she has gone through and how she dealt with it. This also conforms slightly to the star theory as a point, which is made, is that a ‘star’ artist needs more than just the music in order for them to be a star and in order for them to survive in the music industry ad fit the gap in the market. This is what happened to Rihanna as she already had a very open relationship with fellow R&B singer Chris Brown, this therefore instantly put both of them into the spot light, this impacted on both of them a lot as they were both in the public eye, Chris Brown wrote songs for Rihanna which also went onto some of her albums such as ‘distubia’. 

So when the abuse of Rihanna came to light this of course cause more publicity and therefore generated more fans for Rihanna, more people would then want to buy her album, as a lot of fans would have been anxious to see what she has brought out post the abuse to see how her style would have changed. A Rihanna message through her music have changed greatly over the course of her albums, where as the album ‘A girl like me’ was a lot more famine, girly, innocent, and portrays a good girl role model. Whereas “rated R’ can only be seen as the complete opposite in what it portrays and the messages which are portrayed as well as Rihanna attitude and her style. As the representative message which is coming out of this music video would be that she is a strong woman, and she has a lot more attitude and she can stand up for her self and so should other women. This album is a lot more darker than her other albums, as even the album ‘Good girl gone bad’ is looks more about the naughty fun side of being bad, whereas ‘Rated  R’ is an actual dark album where there is not that much fun and is a lot more serious. This album has a lot of value as it shows that women shouldn’t just accept being beaten up they should speak out about it. It also has another value, which is about Rihanna saying that she wants to be seen as a strong woman with power, who can sing about what she wants.  This then brings me on to the message of the song ‘Rude boy’ as this song does talk about what women and girls want in general but is something, which no one would ever speak out, or sing about. This is the only song, which Rihanna has some fun with as she is trying to connect with her Caribbean roots. This is shown through the use of bright colors and some or the similar traditional Caribbean clothing, this is to try and connect the visuals and the lyrics together, as well as trying to show the woman that she is. So that’s why I think that the message explores a whole range of all different sexual conations as Rihanna is trying to express the fun side of a relationship between a couple.

    I think that this shows how Rihanna has changed over time and how she has developed as an artist and conveys how she experiments more with the music genres which goes into as well as the style and the image of which she has changed over time. It is clear that Rihanna has become more daring through her progression in to the music industry as she becomes more established and develops a fan base.

    The third video which I have chosen to look at is a song from Rihanna’s album ‘Talk that talk’ again the genre of this album id different to the ‘Loud’ album, and the ‘Rated R’ album. The song which I have decided to do is, ‘We found love’ featuring Calvin Harris this song is again about love just like the other example which I have used for Rihanna’s other albums. I think this provides me with a good place to start my comparison between the songs and compare show she has displayed the change in the way she portrays her love songs. I have already done this for the past two videos being ‘Unfaithful’ and ‘Rude boy’. I now plan to compare all three videos, but this time including ‘We found love’ in order for me to evaluate how Rihanna has changed over the years and amylase the factors which have affected these changes.    

    During the video ‘We found love’ Rihanna has proven to yet again conform to conventions through one way or another to an R&B video and this time some conventions of a dance video as well. Some of the conventions of an R&B video Rihanna have conformed to be wearing minimal clothing. This sometimes happens over a period of time with artists where they get use to wearing minimal clothing and therefore do it more and more during their videos. This is done in this video where Rihanna and her boyfriend are enduring in sexual activities where both character are taking each other’s clothing off, these shot are shown between other shots and the sequence tends to jumps through stages so that the audience doesn’t actually see this type of footage fluently. Therefore leaving both characters with minimal clothing, this then happened again where Rihanna is running through the empty field with just her and her boyfriend and their car, the shot is of Rihanna taking her top off which then leaves her topless running through the field, although the audience can only see her from the back but it is obvious that she is still topless to the audience. There is also the shot where Rihanna is partying on the field with a whole group of people including her ‘boyfriend’ during this video and Calvin Harris which is also playing his part as the DJ in this video. Rihanna is shown wearing short jean shorts, a short jean jacket with no sleeves, with some parts of the with the USA flag on it and other with just jean material, this jack is then open with a bra on underneath with the same print on it, with stars on the left and strips on the right. This is all of the clothing which Rihanna has on during this scene. These are just a few examples of where Rihanna is wearing minimal clothing during this series. 

This conforms to the R&B conventions of female artists wearing minimal clothing during their video. But this is just one of the conventions which Rihanna keeps, as she does challenge a lot of stereotypes such as wearing no heels in this throughout the whole video. Rihanna actually challenges this so much that she is wearing boyish boots throughout the video, as well as other boyish shoes throughout the clothes, this also challenges the stereotypes as she is not wearing that many famine dresses, she only really wears one dress through the whole video, otherwise the rest of the time she wears very boyish clothing, such as, baggy jeans, and top, big heavy oversized jackets and so on. She also has very messy hair through a lot of this video, and lacks a lot of makeup. I think that this is all based on the style of the video, because this is a narrative based video, Rihanna has decided to take the role of the female in the relationship and it is clear that during this relationship she plays a character which doesn’t wear make u and doesn’t appear to be a really girly girl. Even though Rihanna doesn’t have very nice hair during this video is does still conform to the convention of it being extreme, as there are scenes during this video such as where the couple are at a skate park and they on the skateboard sliding down the ramp Rihanna has very wild hair. A R&B and pop convention which is also conformed to in this video would be having both a narrative video and also the use of different camera shots with the main one being close ups. The reason why this video is narrative based is because the music video tells the story of the couple’s relationship. The video uses a whole variety of different shots for instance a close ups, this is used at the start of the video to show the expression on Rihanna’s face, it is clear that she is in deep thought and she is looking into the distance, this close helps the audience to see this, and focus on what Rihanna is feeling, whereas if the shot has just been of a long shot then the audience may not have understand what Rihanna was feeling at that stage and understand the point of the video. Close ups are used a lot, it is used again when the couple are arguing in the car and Rihanna storms off, there is then a close up of the males face, portraying his annoyance, and how upset he is. This is a strong emotion and is further intensified when there is a close up of it; this shows the state and the emotions at this stage of the music video. Close ups are used in most of Rihanna’s other videos as well, examples being ‘Unfaithful, and Rude boy’ both of which I have already spoken about, this is one thing which hasn’t changed about Rihanna and is likely not to change, this might be because these are genre conventions which usually get met not matter what.

    The image which Rihanna portrays during this video is very boyish and of a negative nature. This is shown through the activities which are happening during the video, for instance, there are scenes of a sexual nature, smoking, alcohol abuse, stealing, crazy partying, no regard for other people’s things and property, gambling, fighting, bad driving, tattooing and living in an unhealthy environment. This is a very careless image for Rihanna to have, I think that this conveys that she doesn’t care about what she looks like or what people think about her because she is happy with the way she is.

It is also clear that she has adopted a new style which is a bit of a rock, punk chic style. This style is very different to the last style which had more of a dark, naughty nature to it which was the album. But in-between these two changes there was a more a girly style which Rihanna adopted, it was very bold and fun, this was on the album ‘Loud’ this album included a lot of pink and reds and was a very playful album which Rihanna had with songs such as ‘only girl in the world’ and ‘what’s my name’ all of these song which were promised to be more energetic after the foreboding and angry tone which the album ‘Rated R’ had to it. Rihanna wanted to move away from the angry tone which was on her last album, because she was currently feeling so good about herself and wanted to create something which was more fun, up tempo and energetic theme to it. The album Loud was named this as Rihanna believed that this reflected the attitude which the album had due to it being flirty, sassy, and grabs the attention of the audience. She also liked this because it was so up-tempo and took her back to her dance roots by producing dancehall based music. This then brings me to Rihanna current image which is illustrated through her latest album ‘Talk that talk’ It is clear how the Rihanna has changed over the years and how Rihanna as based her emotions, feeling and where the stage of which she is in at her life. The image which is portrayed through Rihanna choice of clothing, and lyrics, the transition between the album ‘Loud’ and the album ‘Talk that talk’ have proven to be very different. As ‘Talk that talk’ has similar genres as the type of songs which were on ‘A girl like me’ and ‘Music of the sun’ but they have a much stronger essence of R&B, hip hop, dancehall, house, and electro, these also occurred on Rihanna’s album ‘Rated R’. The only difference being from these albums is that ‘Talk that talk’ has a lot more attitude attached to it. I have found that Rihanna’s image has changed over time, and that this is reflected in this by the use of Rihanna’s sexual, strong and indirect lyrics. Rihanna has adopted a different look for each of her songs with not many of them being similarly. The image which is portrayed in ‘We found love’ makes Rihanna’s character out to me in a fast track head over heels love relationship which, as well as being a thrill seeker and living life on the edge, this soon changed when the two (the couple) then get wrapped with it drugs and get addicted and become violent. This makes Rihanna seem care less, but this is just one image which she carries through this song. For example in another song on this album, like ‘You da one’ Rihanna has adopted a more sophicated, sexual look instead and is very different from the look which had been portrayed in the song ‘We found love’.

 

    The target audience for the song ‘We found love’ would be for people between the age of 18 to around the age of mid 20’s. The main reason for this would be because it is aimed towards people who are young adults, and tend to like living an unhealthy life style and partying a lot. This is reflected in this music video where the couple are smoking a whole bunch of cigarettes at one time, it is obvious that this is bad for the characters health but they don’t care about the feeling because they just care about getting high, and care more about living in the now rather than sending their time elsewhere, or thinking more about their actions before actually doing half of this stuff. This then further high lights the fact that neither of them care. This then brings me back to the meaning of the song, which is that the couple loves each other so much and they have found this love for each other in the strangest of places and in the weirdest situation. The gender which this video would be aimed at the most would be females, the reasons for this would be because Rihanna is expressing her feelings and giving her point of view across to the audience therefore it may be easier for a woman to understand compared to a man because of the way in which she is expressing herself, and the views which she is giving may allow a female audience to be able to connect with this more. I think that this song would also be aimed at people which have an interest in relationships and are in a relationship, this is due to the nature of the song as it discusses how a relationship can go from being really good and turn into something really bad, and makes the audience think about why they would have fallen in love with the person they are with. It is clear that over the progression of time that the target audience for Rihanna’s song has changed over time and so has the audience, it is also like the audience has grown with Rihanna this has been shown through the target audience for ‘unfaithful’, and for ‘rude boy’ and then ‘We found love’ it is clear that the target audience progresses over a period of time and shows how it has got older through the use of lyrics, and Rihanna’s general image.     

    The message and the value which is being conveyed through this video ‘We found love’ would be; that love can be like a drug as the character love the feeling but can’t stop taking the drug consequently they hate the fact that they do take the drug but want to keep taking it because they like the hit which they get from it, and sometimes they feel good and other times they feel low and sad just like the feelings for drugs. This is illustrated the two characters are smoking drugs and they are taking pills, this is spouse to be representative of their relationship. The effects of the drugs have also been shown when they have good affects and when they have bad affects, some of these examples would be where the couple takes some pills, and then they find themselves having sex. I think that this would be a good example of where the couple has taken drugs and they have felt high and happy, this may also be reason why the couple then do it again, except this time the couple decides to do it again and the scene shows pills again as well as smoking, but this time the drugs don’t have such a positive effect as the couple and they end up arguing and fighting with each other this becomes obvious towards the end of the video where Rihanna is shown kicking her boyfriends hand off her leg, as she walks back into their room with her arms crossed looking very annoyed that he is lying there passed out on the floor on drugs. I think that the main message of this song would be to show the audience that most relationships have their ups and downs, and that not all relationships run smoothly. I think that this also conveys the reality of a relationship and showing that not everything runs smoothly and that chances are there will be problems and if you love someone that much then they are worth staying with even through the worst of the relationship. I think that this is just one of the main reasons and values behind this song and the album. I think that a lot of this album is very sassy and flirty. I think that this is runs throughout the whole album with some of the other songs such as ‘Talk that talk’ ‘Watch and lean’, ‘Cockiness’ and ‘Birthday cake’ these are all just some example of songs on this album which carry the same similar message but have been expressed in slightly different ways it is this which makes Rihanna’s songs different. The main message remains about being in a relationship and loving someone. These messages conform with the current value of its time, as this type of music is very mainstream and is something which is being produced by many other artists in the industry in the market.

    It is clear that Rihanna has changed over the period of time. I have found that this is due to the change in style as well as the change in the lyrics of the song, I have also found that Rihanna’s personal life has had a massive impact in the type of music of which she choose to produce and the genre of music which she choose to base her songs around. This is all the same music which help Rihanna become an established artist and become the success which she is today. I have shown this by using three of Rihanna’s songs from three different albums and then comparing the songs and showing where the contrasts, similarities and the conventions are through Rihanna’s music.