Music Magazine - Mixmag

Mixmag is a leading music magazine dedicated to clubbing and dance music, set up in 1982 and has a readership of 304, 000. The magazine focusses on dance/club events, as well as music reviews and artist features, targetting people who enjoy club music and the dance culture, and claims to have created the words 'superclub' and 'triphop' . The magazine is a monhtly edition and supplies readers with a mix CD of different artists/ djs.

The magazine, having launched in 1982, was relaunched in 2006, with a new design set to target both males and females and an older readership than previously. The editor of the magazine had said it's previous focus was "on a young, committed hardcore nutter clubber, but is now a magazine for the entire world of dance music." Mixmag covers a wide range of dance music, targetting audiences who like "hard boshing music", chill out music, or people who like to keep in touch with the music but have grown out of clubbing.

According to Mixmag, the UK dancescene has "grown up", reconnecting with it's roots in glamour and underground, and so the magazine is committed to new music ranging from electronica to house urban providing a guide to its cultured/elitist readers on great nights out.

Mixmag describes its readers as 'the leaders in clubbing' who are the first at 'cool new clubs', 'informed about the top djs' and 'are the biggest downloaders of music in the UK'.

Music Video Director - Nima Nourizadeh

Music video director, Nima Nourizadeh has a very different style to Ras Kassa, and one of the latest videos he has worked on is Mark Ronson feat. Lilly Allen 'Oh My God', where Lilly Allen is a digital character. Nima, like Kassa, had always been interested in art, and also enjoyed photography, and from a young age had wanted to work within the creative industry. Nima approached production companies with a showreel of his various works and started working on low-budget tracks, which led him to setting up his own collective with two of his friends and signed with production company, Partizan, who later signed Nima on as a solo director. He describes his work as 'diverse', where people tune into his ideas, rather than a style, provided with a blank canvas when he listens to songs and opens Nima up to different types of music.

Nima's work on the Mark Ronson video combines animation with live action and is a unique style to him, which he also uses in Hot Chip's video 'Colours', which is entirely CGI.

Music Video Director - Ras Kassa

Ras Kassa, also known as The Guru, is the first Jamaican music video director, working with artists such as, Damian Marley, Willie Nelson and Gentleman. Ras Kassa was born in Jamaica in 1974, and always had a keen interest in art, considered a gifted painter, which reflects his creativeness in the music videos he directs. He describes that the best part of making a music video is "going into the fountain of creativity after listening to the song.", explaining that he listens to the instruments for inspiration.

The video he created for Damian Marley's 'Welcome to Jamrock', which he edited and coloured himself, was an international success and is now studied in universities in North America and the Carribean. Ras Kassa is a creative director, well known for his 'feral directional style', vibrant emotion and maintaining the reggae culture in his videos.

Indie Record Labels

Record labels are used in the music industry to brand and market bands/artists. It is also the company that manages the band/artists promotion and copywriting of their music, however they differ from the band/artist's manager. The record label may be independant or international, and the research i did on two Indie Record Labels are both independant.

Beggars Banquet

An independant British record label, which began in 1977 after founders Martin Mills and Nick Austin were inspired by the punk movement and their DIY attitude and opened a chain of record shops. The consistent success of the label with groundbreaking records secured the formation of "sister labels", such as 4AD Records, signing artists from other genres, such as dance. The Lurkers, a punk rock band, were the first on the Beggars Banquet label, with current artists such as Biffy Clyro, The Cult and The Dylans.

Chemikal Underground

Chemikal Underground are another independent record label, set up in 1994 by Scottish rock band The Delgados. The label was set up by the band so they could release their own songs and then later signed Bis, who were hugely successful and enabled the label to expand. Current artists signed to Chemikal Underground are The Radar Brothers, Aereogramme and Sister Vanilla.

Analysing a music video

This is the music video for the Arctic Monkeys - 'When The Sun Goes Down', directed by Paul Fraser, which is illustrative and narrative based.

The song begins with just vocals and simple guitar chords as the characters are introduced, with the clear lyrics being very illustrative with the visuals. For example 'Who's that girl there' is cut with a MCU of a young girl who we then see prostituting herself (leaning on the car window) which illustrates the subtle lyrics 'I doubt she does receipts'. There is then an artistic shot of a square-shaped spiral staircase from the bottom of the stairs looking up through the middle of the staircase, which could be a reflection of the creative image the band want to portray of themselves. We are then introduced to 'Scummy man', again with an illustrative relationship between the visuals and the lyrics as the handheld camera tracks forward to a MS of the man with his arm round the young girl followed by him taking food off her plate 'He'll rob you if he can'. The video then goes deeper into the narrative of the young prostitute trapped by the 'scummy man', who appears as sleezy as he swaggers up in a black shirt and then carries the young prostitute towards a taxi.

The music then increases in tempo, as does the visuals and the camera is a POV shot from a car window (possibly from the view of the girl), which speeds along the road and the shots are mainly of blurred traffic and street lights. The shots are cut to the music, for example the girl walks to the beat of the drum and the shots are cut on time with the beat, which makes the video more flowing and ties the visuals to the music. There are further illustrative visual and lyrical shots, such as when the girl 'makes a subtle proposition' to one of the Arctic Monkeys, and this is the first time we see one of the members from the Arctic Monkeys although there are later shots of the whole band loading their equipment into a car, allowing for the band to be recognised.

The visuals and the lyrics are less illustrative as the young magician is introduced, although we still get the sense of the scummy man jealously interfeering with the young prostitute, as he interupts her meal with a man and puts his arms on her shoulders as if to take claim to her and when he beats up the magician who makes her 'delighted when she sees him'

Even though this music video is about a young female prostitute and there are often CUs of her, she is not presented in sexual way as for most of the video she is draped in a coat with tied back scraggly hair and without makeup to make herself look pretty, but instead she looks tired and supressed.

Inspirational ideas for music video

For our music video, we talked about having people dancing that are comical and humerous. This video has two men dancing who are quite funny and possibly inspirational for random dancing.
Le tigre - Deceptacon



The other idea for our music video was to have people dressed up in animal costumes and this video, although it's a bit pervy, has people dressed in bear costumes.
Aphex Twin - Donkey Rhubarb

Childlike Album Covers

Here, Bjork's album cover for 'Army of Me' states on the front of the cover that the music on the album is directed at children who have suffered due to the destructiveness of nature. The album consists of fans different versions of Bjork's song 'Army of Me' and the childlike drawing is assumably of Bjork. She is well known for her dreamlike and often mesmerizing music, a childlike trait who at a young age are full of dreams and easily amazed. However, despite being a very childish drawing, the sinister facial expression and holding the world - connoting controlling the world - as well as the sharp edges, draw out the darker meaning of the song, which is the destructiveness of nature.

The album cover for Captain Beefheart's 'Doc at the Radar Station' also has a very childlike image, although it is unclear what the picture is of. The simple and scruffy pencil drawing dominated by the black scribble on top of the picture reflects anger and irritation possibly from the artist or a reflection of the music. The black creates a sinister/ confused edge to the cheerier yellow, which could be a connotation of the sun and a child's happiness.