Indie-Pop Genre:

The song we have chosen to do for our video is, "Girls and Boys in Love" by The Rumble Strips. The genre of this song is indie-pop. Within the indie-pop genre, there are many similar conventions that are used to portray this indie-pop image.


Clothing/Colours:

• Indie-pop bands don't have a typical costume but they tend to wear the same, or similar clothing, usually casual outfits, neutral block colours and things that are not too bold or over the top.The fact they dress very casually makes them seem more relatable to their fans and their fans can even go out and copy their style as most of the things that indie-pop bands wear could easily be found on the high street. This also makes them seem more down to earth than pop artists for example. This also gives off the image that they're not "style over substance" and that what they wear is irrelevant, it's the music that's important. Also, indie-pop bands don't dress or use colours to reflect the mood of their songs. For example, if they're singing a love song, or a politically motivated song, their dress won't change to reflect this, again showing that they just want to focus on the music.

Above bands: The Rumble Strips and The Arctic Monkeys, both dressed in this casual style.

Instruments:

• Indie-pop bands are usually made up of members who can play an instrument and there is usually just one main vocalist and the rest of the band would be back-up singers. It would be very unusual if an indie-pop band don't play their own instruments. Typical instruments include:
• Guitar; lead, bass, acoustic. 
• Drums
• Keyboard/Piano
• Microphone
• Synthesizer 

 The microphone is one of the most important instruments that indie-pop band can use because their main purpose is to sing and a microphone helps to amplify their voice. Guitars are also important because indie-pop, much like rock, can have frequent guitar solos (but they aren't as heavy in indie-pop songs), therefore this becomes the center of attention if the vocalist isn't singing. The guitar can also be classed as their props because, as you can see in the pictures above, both bands have guitars with them, therefore it becomes something usually related to indie-pop bands.  Drums are used in all types of music, they help to keep the time and can help portray different moods depending on the strength used to hit down on them. Lastly, synthesizers can help with creating a different and unique sound which can be useful for indie-pop bands because they're all about being creative and experimenting.  

Style of music:

• In indie-pop songs their lyrics are slightly different to that of just an indie band. They are more uplifting and usually about love and friendships. However they are grittier/heavier than just pop music, as the music is not always upbeat, they play their own instruments and have different tones of voice to that of a pop band for example, indie-pop bands usually sing in their regional accents, unlike pop singers. Their music is probably more personal than pop songs because they normally write their own songs and have a larger input into the production of their tracks and because of this it's unlikely that indie-pop songs will sound similar to each other, which makes everything seem more authentic and real, as opposed to pop songs which seem more like they're churned out of a production line.

Above: Noah and the Whale and The Wombats. These bands have a more uplifting, pop feel to them compared to bands such as Kasabian or The Libertines.  An example of each of their songs and lyrics below.

                                                    Noah and the Whale-5 years time

The Wombats - Lets dance to joy division

Style of videos:

• The majority of indie-pop music videos tend to have a mixture of narrative combined with performance shots of the band. They never usually have all narrative or all performance. They like to show shots of them performing to show their audience they're talented and that they are able to play their own instruments. This is a video by Bombay Bicycle Club- "Evening, Morning"
  In this video, we see a narrative with the members acting and then shots of the band playing their instruments and performing.

• The main vocalist is usually the main focus in the video and as a result they get lots of close-ups because they're usually the one lip-syncing. Also, it's more likely that the main vocalist will be shown in situations which the audience can then feel voyerism, as the main singer is usually the one who gets the most attention from fans, therefore they'd rather see the main lead in their room for example than another member of the band.              

                                             Babyshambles - Delivery

The whole of this video is voyeurism on the main vocalist, Pete Doherty. We see him walking around the streets, and this makes us feel as an audience that we're looking into his life and going where he's going. The audience will feel priveleged and get satisfaction out of watching Pete go about everyday life and it's probably something that very little fans will ever be able to see for themselves in real life.

•  The videos are usually quite simple as a lot of indie-pop bands are signed to indie labels, meaning they have less money, but the videos are much more arty and creative than pop or rock videos that usually just focus upon a narrative or a live performance. Some can be totally irrelevant to the song lyrics and quite quirky. Indie-pop bands can afford to experiment with their music videos and be more daring/controversial than pop artists because, although some do appeal to a mainstream audience, their videos appeal to more of a niche audience, therefore, they know what their fans want and they don't need to make their video appeal to the masses. 

Props:

  Indie-pop band's props would to be their instruments because whether it's photoshots, on set, in the videos, they're usually seen holding or playing instruments. This helps give their audience confidence that it's them who are playing the intruments themselves, not machines like in most pop songs. It also shows that they're always trying to improve their talents by always practicing or messing around with their instruments.

What we've learnt:

 When doing our music video, we need to remember these typical conventions of the indie-pop genre in order to make it look professional and authentic. We need to make sure the band in our video wears the correct clothing and portrays this down to earth image. Also, instruments are very important to the indie-pop genre and music videos therefore we'll need to make sure we use the right kind of intruments within our video. Other important things to think about is the style of the music video and whether we want to make it arty and creative or to have a running narrative.

Each member of our group will go on to analyse, and make a post on, one or two bands then note if the features we've analysed here also reflect the individual bands we'll look at.