About Ellie Goulding and Polygon Records:

Birth Name: Elena Jane Goulding

Height: 5' 7" (1.70 m)

Trivia: English singer/songwriter.

Personal Quotes: [on the slow rise to popularity of her song 'Lights'] I wonder if that's the case with a lot of my songs. I feel like I write songs for the future or something. Not in an arrogant way, but I feel like maybe my songs were, like, before their time or something.

Ellie Goulding on her fashion style:

 

Polygon Records was one of the first British independent record labels.
It was started in 1949 as the Polygon Record Company Ltd. by Alan A. Freeman and Leslie Clark, who was anxious to control distribution of his daughter Petula Clark's recordings. (Those associated with it fondly referred to the company as "Dead Parrot Records.") The two set up offices on Grosvenor Place in the Sloane Square section of London, and arranged Clark's first recording session with Ron Goodwin and his orchestra and a vocal backing group called The Stargazers. Since Polygon's UK distribution had not yet been set up, the first 78rpm single - "You Go to My Head" backed with "Out of a Clear Blue Sky" - was released in Australia, followed by a cover of Teresa Brewer's "Music! Music! Music!" backed with "Blossoms on the Bough", both on the Esquire label.
In fact, the first Polygon release in the UK was not by Clark but by Louis Prima and his orchestra. Clark's first official Polygon release was "You Are My True Love" (b/w "You're the Sweetest in the Land") in 1950. In all, she recorded more than fifty songs for the label, including a few duets with its other major artist, Jimmy Young.
Near the end of 1955, Polygon was sold to Nixa Records, then part of Pye Records, which lead to the establishment of Pye Nixa Records. Nixa utilized a selection of Clark's Polygon tapes to release her first LP album, Petula Clark Sings.
Clark's complete Polygon catalogue is available on CD - The Polygon Years, Volume One (1950–1952) and The Polygon Years, Volume Two (1952-1955).

Possible Song Choices:

After researching Ellie Goulding's songs, I found two which I really liked and really suited the style for my music video. One is called Dead in the Water and the other is My Blood. Both of them are from her most recent album Halcyon and neither have official music videos.

Dead in the Water:

 

 

My Blood

 

After listening to both carefully and studying the lyrics and rhythm, I have decided to use My Blood as my chosen song for my music video. The reason for this is because Dead in the Water is too slow and even in the chorus the beat doesn't speed up. I found My Blood much more entertaining to listen to which means that the target audience will. I also feel I can do much more with this song in terms of the music video because it feels as if more is happening and I can vary the editing according to the speed of the rhythm in different parts of the song. 

 

Picking an Artist:

After researching a variety of genres, I have decided to pick Ellie Goulding as my chosen artist. Originally, my ideas were centered around pop such as Jessie J, Rita Ora and maybe even Taylor Swift. However, I felt that this was too mainstream for me, so I am focusing on the indie and electro pop genre, as it is a bit different. Ellie Goulding doesn't have an exact genre as her songs vary, but her style is very indie.

 She is with 4 record labels, who are all included in the Universal Music Group:

• Polydor Records      
• Cherrytree Records
• Interscope Records
• Neon Gold

http://www.polydor.co.uk/

http://www.cherrytreerecords.com/main

http://www.interscope.com/#!/interscope

http://neongoldrecords.com/

A Study of YouTube as a Platform for Promoting Musical Artisits:

"A few years ago new musicians promoted themselves via 'MySpace' but now it is redundant. YouTube is the prime platform for musical artists to promote themselves and the success of 'Gangham Style' proves this." Agree or Disagree?

Due to the recent failure of MySpace, up and coming artists had to find a new way to establish themselves at get noticed by the population of web users. YouTube has always been popular for new artists but much more so recently, where more and more are becoming noticed and made famous simply by uploading their own material and getting enough views. I do agree that YouTube is the prime platform for musical artists to promote themselves due to artists such as Justin Bieber who has rocketed to fame over the past few years. A girl called Madison Beer has also recently been discovered by the same man to discovered Justin Bieber, Scooter Braun, who tweeted her which caused a lot of excitement surrounding Madison, who could potentially be made a star if they decide to act on it. Below is a link to her YouTube account where she regularly posts videos of herself performing covers of popular songs. Gangham Style supports the argument that YouTube is the prime platform for musical artists because it is possibly the most famous YouTube video at the moment and has made it onto MTV and other hit music channels. Others may argue however, that it is still the record labels and the production of music videos that promote the artist, because even though they can get noticed on YouTube, it is in fact the record label who signs them, funds the production of high budget music videos to establish them in the music industry, thus launching their careers. I agree that this is completley valid, but even the biggest named artists eventually use YouTube as a way to directly access their target audience and further spread awareness of new songs and representation of their image. People spend on average 2.3 hours per day online as opposed to the 1.6 hours per day that they spend watching television, showing the impact that uploading a YouTube video of an artisit can have on their success, instead of using TV music channels for instance.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MadisonBeerMusic

The Origin of the Music Video and its Contemporary Purpose

"How did the music video originate and what is its contemporary purpose?"

Many people argue that the music video first came about in 1975 with the release of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, as it was the first successful music video to ever be aired on MTV. However others say that the concept of them music video originated years before in the 1920's when artists would perform with a projection of a video that links to the theme of their song. At this time however, the record labels and production companies obviously didn't have the advanced technology we do today to create almost a blockbuster video such as T.G.I.F by Katy Perry of As Long As You Love Me by Justin Bieber. They also didn't have the concepts and elements that we use in our modern day music videos, because at the time they would have just been experiementing with them and use it as a bonus to the artists performance, whereas today it is used to promote and even establish artists. In contemporary music videos, the artisits, especially the females are much more sexualised due to the culture evoloving and allowing this to happen.The equipment and technology has obviously developed throughout the years, as the ideas that are added into different genres of music videos have evolved and will continue to in the future.

Media Language used by Contrasting Musical Genres

"Take two contrasting musical genres to study and explain how they use media language to appeal to their target audiences through music videos"

The two genres that I will be discussing is rock and mainstream pop, because they are almost complete opposites and use media language to appeal to their target audiences in very different ways, because their audiences are interested in different styles of music. The rock genre gives a more sinister and rebellious tone in all their videos for example, because they are representing majorly an older audience who's tastes come under a very niche market.Take Mr. Brightside by The Killers for example, it is not an extreme example of a typical rock video because it is slightly mainstream but it still has the concepts of a traditional rock video- a dark underlying message, outrageous costumes and it is highly performance based. Unlike pop, the videos do not focus solely on emphasising the artists or bands image through key elements, but are more focused on the performance side to a certain extent. Therefore it could be argued that pop artists show more signs of narcissism in their videos because the record label sells through their image as well as their music. These artists such as Justin Bieber will therefore be more hyper-conscious than typical rock artists who have a more care free attitude when it comes to their image. Arguably, it seems that both the rock and the mainstream pop genre both make use of intertextaul references in order to grasp their target audiences' attention and keep them interested. However, pop culture does tend to include more pastiche material in their music videos, because they are much more focused on the visuals than the rock genre. This is mainly due to audience demand as mainstream pop appeals to the younger teenage generation, who don't just look for good music, but the whole package. Lady Gaga for instance has a very particular sense of style and wears costumes that create visual parody's in order to always keep an interest amongst her fans.