Evaluation

Evaluation

After undertaking primary research I decided that to choose the music genre of dance. This is because in the last few year the dance genre has changed and developed, this has been due to new artist entering the market and collaborations with artist which aren’t necessarily for the dance genre, for example R&B. It is the influences from these other artists which have helped to expand the genre and influence audience which might not listen to the genre so much to then start listening to more dance music. But this is not the only change in the music genre, due to the change in technology there has be a larger accessibility to more advanced ways of DJing and more recourses which are now out there which allows DJ to experiment more with their music and find new ways in making their music different and stand out more, thus appealing to a much larger audience.

    I conducted both primary and secondary research in order for me to decide on what genre I should pick and then looking into that genre more and find out if there is a potential market in that genre to reproduce a good music video.

    For the primary research which I conducted I looked at a few strategies which I thought would benefit me in deciding on the music genre. The first strategies which i used were to devise a questionnaire which would be given out to my potential audience. I had to make sure that I asked an equal amount of girls and boys so that my results wouldn’t come out as basis. There were a few considerations which I had to think about when creating the questionnaire some of which being; I had to make sure that the questionnaire wasn’t too long otherwise I would be leaving myself at risk of people getting bored of filling the questions out and then just start to tick any box and stop putting effort into the questionnaire, this will then mean that the results might then hold less value then before as the answers would just be guesses. I also had to make sure that I didn’t make the questions too long as that would then leave me in the same situation as before where people wouldn’t really read the question properly. One of the most important aspects which I had to remember was to make sure that the questions which I was asking wasn’t going to offend anyone but then remember to make sure that the questions which I do ask are relevance and allow me to find out the information which I am looking to find out. I then made sure that I made some of the questions qualitative and quantitative this was so that I could analyse the qualitative data and see what opinions which people have about music and see what they think about the dance genre and how I can use this information and use it in my music video.

Whereas the quantitative data allowed me to make stats of the information which I have to see out of the options which I had given the audience what they prefer and what is the most popular. I would then be able to look at this information in much more detail. These were just a few considerations which I had to think about before I gave out my questionnaire, once I was sure about the questionnaire I then gave it out. I found from the questionnaire that people have come to prefer dance videos, and dance music in general, this then helped me in deciding the music genre, I also found out the type of artist which people liked listening to for example some the artist which were in the list were David Guetta, Chase and Status and DJ Fresh are just a few example of the artist which were on the list there were quite a jump in the percentages in terms of the artist for example Chase and Status only had 8% and DJ Fresh only had 12% this could be because Chase and Status cater for a more niche market, while DJ Fresh appeals to more of a mass market but is still establishing himself .As this then allowed me to look further into these artist and find out why the audience may like them and look how what they do, and the type of music they produce to try and find the likability to the artist, for example I found that in terms of artist and individual songs that Swedish House Mafia didn’t have highest percentage, as David Guetta featuring Sia, as well as Neyo featuring Calvin Harris both had 22% of the answers where as Swedish House Mafia only had 20% so both of the other two collaborations had an increase of the responses, this could have been because these songs were collaborations and therefore more people were more likely to chose one of those answers rather than the one of the individual artists.

I had to therefore take this into consideration which choosing an artist. As I could see the possible reasons why the other two songs may have been more popular. But this was not the only factor which I had to consider, I also had to look at the type of videos which people like watching and then try and match up an artist with this type of video, this was not easy as I had to look at the most popular style of video which was concept with a massive 50% of the response, this then made it clear to me that it would make sense to produce a concept based video as people enjoy watching them so much this would then encourage the audience to watch to watch the video which I then produce. I then had to look back at the list of artist which I had made and see which artist has produced concept based videos in the past and which have produced songs which would work well the concept inspired based video.

When comparing the results against each other I then found that even though David Guetta and Calvin Harris were both the more popular artists it was Swedish House Mafia who produce the more concept based videos, so even though the other artist were more popular by 2%  I decided to make the decision to go with Swedish House Mafia because they produce a lot of concept based videos, and I think compared to the other two artist they have come into the market more recently, but given the time they have been in the market they have made their mark and have made themselves more established and built a market for themselves. Also when looking at the lyrics at some of their songs for example ‘Save The World’ and ‘Don’t Worry Child’ that there lyrics can be adapted into concept based videos.  

 

I then looked at what channel people liked watching the most, and if the audience like to see the artist in their music videos. I found from this that MTV Dance got the most response with 36% of the response this was a clear preference over the other channel which were getting much lower percentages for example 8% for Magic and Kerrang, with this information I then went on to look at the artist which featured in their own music video and found that most people prefer it when the artist in the music video, but this was the result only by 5% which worked out to be 2 people, so the response was very close, so then again bearing this in mind I then decided to continue with my choice of Swedish House Mafia as the both appear in some of their videos but not all of them. This was the main primary research which helped to in making my decisions.

    Once I had gathered this information from the questionnaire I then went on to looking at Swedish House Mafia in more detail, when doing this I spent time both watching music channels and going to online to find out which music channels Swedish House Mafia is played on the most. It then turned out that Swedish house Mafia is played on the majority of music channels which play mainstream music, but I also found that the some of their older songs such as ‘One (Your Name)’ is mostly played on MTV Dance, and Clubland, but they are also played on some of the other music channels but mainly on these channels.

This is because the genre of music is mainly dance and house music which is played in these channels. By seeing that a lot of Swedish House Mafia’s music is played in a lot of the mainstream channels such as ‘The Box’ and ‘MTV’ this then strengthen my decisions to want to produce a music video by Swedish House Mafia.

    The secondary research which I undertook was done mainly through the internet. I went online and found out more about Swedish House Mafia, looking into more details about the number 1’s which they have had and if there music has been used in anything else for example adverts or title sequences. I also went to the effort in finding out about the group members themselves and finding out their interest in music. To help me pick a video I also tried to find out the purposes of their music videos as this would then help me in deciding what song to chose and what I could potentially produce for the music video itself, and try and find ways in which I could link the lyrics in which the visuals. I also looked at if this is evident in any of Swedish House Mafia’s videos, I found this was evident in one of the videos being ‘Save The World’ the lyrics linked in with the visuals nicely and was something which the audience may be able to relate to.

All of the above helped me in deciding on what music genre I should chose when coming to produce my own music video and which artist I should chose. This also helped me to find out more about what the audience wants and how I can produce something which the audience may enjoy.

Overall I know have a broader knowledge about the music industry and have a better understanding of the codes and conventions of dance. I also know how each dance artist is a little bit different in how they like to portray themselves and how they like to be seen by their audience. This has helped me in deciding what song I would like to use and how I would like my artist to represent.