Genre

Genre is a style or a category of a particular text. It helps us differentiate and identify between different sorts of texts. E.g. Hip-hop and R&B are two different types of genres in the music industry.

3 types of genre

R&B- John Legend-All of me

John Legend- All of me is a typical R&B song, it has the conventions that other R&B songs have.

2:25 - Topless protagonist

0:33- John Legend singing

Typical R&B songs have dominance in the black ethnicity; majority of the time the protagonist is of a black ethnicity and this can be seen in other music videos such as all of the Rihanna songs or even Chris Brown songs. On top of this the protagonist is seen topless in this video which is a typical convention in the R&B genre. Men are normally shown topless and always wearing jeans.

2:19- Love being shown 

1:56- Girl barely wearing clothes

A main theme in the R&B genre is love and this song is all about love. In  the image above you can clearly denote the two characters making love in the shower and this portrays the theme so accurately. Most r&B songs are about love and it is a recurring theme throughout each music video. Also no matter what the tempo is of the song or the mood is girls are always shown to be more sexual. An example of this is shown in the image above where the girl is clearly not wearing any clothes and is using the duvet to cover herself. This is seen a lot and it portrays women as sensual people and are only there to be seen as that.

Hybrid genre- FUSE ODG ft Sean Paul- Dangerous Love- Hip-hop & Afrobeat

A hybrid genre is a mix of two genres, Dangerous Love mixes Hip-Hop and Afrobeat together. 

3:24- Chants his name in the same tone all the time

In Afrobeat there are always chants in each Afrobeat song and this is what makes up the genre. In Dangerous Love, Fuse chants his name in every song but what makes it unique is he chants his name and all the things afterwards in the same tone as he does in all his other songs and in turn this turns into a chant. Fuse's music are all Afrobeat songs and he says the same chant in all his songs such as Azonto.

2:08- Girls partying and in revealing outfits

You can tell that it also has Hip-hop in the song because partying scenes are always seen in the genre and so are girls with minimal clothing. In the image above you can denote that there is a party with all the people and also you can tell there are revealing outfits by seeing the girl on the left. With these conventions in place it easy to define the genre as Hip-hop.

Sub genre- Route 94- My Love-  House music

House music was originated from dance music making it a sub genre. House music is basically electronic dance music. 

0:36- DJ in the house

In house music it is typical to see shots of a DJ playing the music and not all videos have this. In dance videos they barely show DJ's, however in house music they always show the DJ just to let us know it is house music and it adds more of a dancing feel to it. There is more of a electro dance to it when the DJ is shown and the colours add to this.

0:43- A lot of people dancing in the club

Another thing that is typical in house music is you see a lot of people in the video dancing. In Hip-hop or R&B videos you always see around 10 people dancing however in house music you see a whole shot filled with people dancing and the shot in the image above is a high angle shot and you can denote all the people in that shot are dancing and there must be over 20 people.

Generic conventions

Pop- Problem- Ariana Grande ft Iggy Azalea

Problem is a music video that conforms to the conventions of the Pop genre.

2:09- background dancers on sides- Rita Ora- I will never let you down

0:02- In centre with dancers behind

Mise-en-scene- In a typical pop song you always background dancers who support the main singer and the majority of the time you see them singing on a set. Above there are two images of two pop songs. On the left is 'Problem' by Ariana Grande and you can clearly see that there are background dancers who are in sync and they are symmetrically set out as well as the fact that they are on a set and the protagonist is in the centre of the shot. On the right is 'I will never let you down' by Rita Ora and this is another pop song which shows the exact same thing with the symmetrical background dancers and the singer in the centre and is placed on the set. This backs up the point that having dancers on a set makes up the Pop music video genre. 

0:52- Timber- Ke$ha

0:04- Random shot of Ariana Grande's face

Narrative- In pop videos there is always a set piece of random shots of the singer's face not really doing much but smiling or looking at the camera. This is a recurring thing as it never actually has any relevance to the video. As well as that there really is no narrative to pop videos, normally it is just shots coming together to make a good compilation of scenes. On the right is another example of the same sort of thing from 'Timber' where Kes$ha is just smiling at the camera. 

0:29- Chris Brown- Loyal

2:27- Ariana centred with guys around her

Representation- In pop videos it is quite different than other videos. Majority of the time in pop videos the girl is the dominant sex and the men are going after the girl whereas in a hip hop video it is always seen as the men are the dominant sex. The image above denotes Ariana Grande as centre of attention whilst there are men all around her whereas in other genre videos you see the male in the centre of attention with the girls around him. On the right is a image of a hip-hop song which you can compare with the pop song as in the hip hop video the boy is surrounded by girls but in the pop song the girl is surrounded by boys. 

0:42- "One Less problem without ya'" 

0:05- Rita Ora- How We Do

Sound design- When it comes to pop songs the lyrics of the song varies but they all actually have one thing in common, which is talking about life things. An example for this is that in 'Problem' they talk about the problems that were in life and in 'How we do' the opening line is "Let's party and bullshit". This just shows that the lyrics really talk about things that teens and young adults go through in life whereas in R&B they talk about money and success etc. 

0:46- Back to the shot of them dancing

Editing- The editing style is very similar in pop videos. There are a lot of cuts but they always cut to the same settings that we have already seen before, the only thing that changes is what they are doing in that setting. The image above shows the singer dancing on the same set we see the song open with showing that there is a repeat of settings. 

Genre themes

0:12- opening line

Teen angst- The first line in the song is "Hey baby even though i hate ya! I wanna love ya!" This shows the theme of teenage problems because it portrays how teenagers can be double minded when it comes to relationships and how it can cause frustrations. Also it shows how confused teens can be. 

1:12- Talking about love

Love/romance- Mid way through the song the lyrics "Say you love me, i get a bit breathless." This shows the theme of love as she is talking about how she feels when the boy says he loves her. Also in the image above you can denote that the boy and girl are staring at each other and normally a boy and girl being together connotes love.