California Gurls - Katy Perry

Song: California Gurls
Artist: Katy Perry
Year of release: 2010
Director: Matthew Cullen
 
Genre: electro pop


Characteristics: Quirky, sexy, colourful, wigs, sweetie inspired, bright, candy, plastic.



Relationship between lyrics and visuals: The song is about the life of California girls and how perfect and easy their lives are. The backup dancers are portraying California girls, as how they are described in the song, as being toned, tanned, skinny and attractive. Outfits reflect the lyrics. E.g. daisy dukes, bikini tops.



Relationship between music and visuals: the music to the song is very upbeat, girly, pop and simple. This sickly sweet music is matched perfectly with the music video of Katy Perry running around a candy land, dressed in a candy costume, trying to save her friends who are captured by candy. The song slows down a pace as Katy starts saving her candy wearing friends, and then speeds up again when she has found them all.
 
Close up of artist: there are many close-ups of Katy showing her bright, colourful and heavily made-up appearance, then a lot of medium close-ups showing of her and the backup dancer’s costumes. The costumes to the music video are all inspired by sweets and are seen as childish and innocent, but are also provocative and revealing to attract male attention.




Designs: Will Cotton originally designed and drew the idea of a women lying in cotton candy clouds. Katy Perry then used this idea for her music video, and also for the design for her font cover of her album.



Narrative based: Katy Perry is trapped inside a candy board game, and is being controlled by Snoop Dog, who is the player of the game. Katy is walking around this candy world and has to save the girls trapped in the land by the candy to compete the game. Girls are trapped within jelly, bubble gum balls, and chocolate wrappers. When Katy has saved all the girls she must defeat Snoop Dog and his army of evil gummy bears. In the end she does so, and the California girls live happily ever after.
 

Youtube hits: 26 million

Bad Romance - Lady Gaga

Song: Bad Romance
Artist: Lady Gaga
Year of release: 2009
Director: Francis Lawrence
 
Genre: Pop


Characteristics:  Strange, eccentric outfits such as: monster-like outfits with long spiky head pieces and tight white PVC, Gaga being dressed as a mental patient in a vinyl, see through outfit, Gaga’s naked, distorted body looks as though it is meant to be that of a monster.

 

Relationship between lyrics and visuals:  lyrically the song does not have much relevance to the video. The song describes of what seems someone who is in love with their friend, which creates a difficult relationship ‘bad romance’. Whilst the music video was said to be inspired by Gaga’s paranoia she experienced whilst touring the globe. The only aspect that could be seen as relevant is that at the end of the video, when Gaga finds the man she loves sitting on a white bed and try’s to seduce him. Otherwise other aspects of the video seem to have no relevance to the lyrics. E.g. Gaga being forced to drink spirits out of a glass goblet by two women wearing vinyl, whilst she is sat in a bathtub.

 

Relationship between music and visuals: The strange, creepy music reflects the video is aspects such as Gaga and backing dancers emerging from coffins in monster outfits. The odd and weird parts of the song reflect some of Gaga’s contorted dance moves and hand and arm movements.  The louder and angrier parts of the song such as the ‘rah, rah, ah, ah, ah’ also have angrier dance moves to match. This includes Gaga forcefully having her coat removed by backing dancers to reveal her revealing, crystal outfit.

 

Close up of artist: Certain shots of Lady Gaga are a close-up shot, whilst most shots remain medium close-ups to show the viewer her extravagant outfits. The close ups of Gaga are limited to those in which she is portraying strong, facial emotions and is wearing minimal make-up compared with the rest of her costumes. This makes the viewer focus on her human side, which appears to be quite venerable.

 

Intertextual references: The song contains elements of the music from the 1980s and 1990s and influences of German house- techno music, and was described by Gaga as a pop experimental record.

 

Performance, narrative, concept: the Bad Romance video contains all three of these aspects. The video contains performance aspects as Gaga’s crazy costumes and outfits and distorted dance moves are all performing. The narrative aspect of the video is that Gaga tells different stories within her video, one of her trying to explain through her crazy concepts about the way she felt on her tour around the world. The concept idea of her video was that of the symbolic plot to the video, which received great compliments from critics.

 

Youtube hits: 411 million!

Umbrella - Rihanna

Song: Umbrella
Artist: Rihanna
Year of release: 2007
Director: Chris Applebaum
 
Genre: contemporary R&B and hip hop


Characteristics: Short, black, latex, revealing outfits worn by dancers and Rihanna. Dark, metalic, smoky, sexy make-up. Props include umbrellas, PVC fingerless gloves, ballet shoes.

 

Relationship between lyrics and visuals: quite clearly a link between umbrellas in the video and in the lyrics. Lyrically it refers to a romantic and platonic relationship and the strength of that relationship; this is shown through her sensual dancing. Rihanna sings about rain whilst rain is pouring, edited sparks, glitter falling like rain, edited pools of water move with Rihanna whilst she dances. E.g she flicks the water of her body and her hair, avoids waves of water.

 

Relationship between music and visuals: the music is synchronised well with the choreography and the special effects of the video. E.g. flicks of water and dance movements are edited well with the beat of the song. 

 

Close up of artist: large amount of close ups on Rihanna’s face and body which focuses in on the stars sex appeal. The camera pans her body which also focuses on her revealing outfit.

 

Performance based: Rihanna is dancing and wearing revealing costumes which attract attention to her performance. The music video includes edited splashes of water to the R&B singer dancing which adds more interest to the video, making it more entertaining. 

 

Youtube hits: 43 million

Lady Gaga controversial and crazy

 Lady Gaga is well known for causing controversy in the public eye, mainly for her outrageous and revealing outfits. The items of clothing the pop star wears causes a buzz in the media, as she remains the most talked about and the most easily noticed person by the messages her outfits seem to portray.

Lady Gaga has a whole wardrobe full of crazy and shocking garments, and has managed to take the fashion world by storm as well as the music industry.

Here are some of the most controversial and talked about outfits that Gaga has worn to get her noticed in the media:

 

One of the most controversial Lady Gaga statement outfits was that of her meat dress, worn at the MTV Music Video Awards 2010. The dress was hand sewn, made from layers of Argentinean meat.

 

 Gaga wore the outfit, which was designed by Franc Fernandez and Nichola Formichetti, during her acceptance for best video of the year, for Bad Romance. Gaga later told US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres that the dress had "many interpretations". She said: "If we don't stand up for what we believe in, and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones. And, I am not a piece of meat."

Another eccentric dress that Gaga wore was rumoured to be inspired by Giorgio Armani. Gaga wore the dress to the Grammy Awards, which looked like it was a planet of its own. The outfit included a silver planetary-orbit-style-dress accessorised with a pointy chandelier and yellow hair. The outfit also included the singer and fashion icon wearing heelless, platform, crystal studded shoes, which made the creation even more bizarre.