James Durbin, the memory of a beautiful disaster

Because of having the similar fascinating high range vocal, James Durbin was often compared to Season 8 runner-up Adam Lambert by the audiences during the competition of American Idol Season 10. In fact, although they both have a rock vocal, James Durbin is more loyal to heavy metal, which during the competition, he often begs to the audiences for “give metal a chance”. Indeed, based on the current music industry, dance music and pop seem to dominate the music markets, heavy metal which was popular in the 70s seems to be difficult to be mainstream nowadays. However, James Durbin still sticks to his beloved music style.

Even though James ended up being the top 4 of the competition, it also happens to be the same position of the other rocker in the history of American Idol, Chris Daughtry, and Chris is one of the Idol alumni who are not the winners that sold more records than the winners. Therefore, maybe it is more than the coincidence for rock-lover James to be at the same spot as Chris. This also makes audiences wonder that whether James can continue or even surpass the glory of “No.4 rocker” by Chris.

James’s first single “Stand Up” was released in the end of September, this rock song prove us that James will stick to his own style. The beginning of the song uses a very heavy-metal style guitar solo, which set up the whole style of the song. Likewise, the high-range vocal that James must show every time in the competition is revealed at the end of the song. Honestly speaking, in rock music, such high notes can really make the songs better. In this song, James’s high vocal can no doubt ignite listeners’ emotion and get crazy with the music.

The second single “Love Me Bad” is a soft rock style song. Slow guitar solo at the very beginning gives the song a heart-break feeling. After repeating “I miss you”, the emotion spurts with the sudden drum beats in the chorus. This also shows the emotional side of James. These two singles also serve as the nice fast-slow appetizer to the debut album Memories of a Beautiful Disaster.

The album was released at November 21^st. Before the day of the releasing on AMA red carpet, James said that this album would be whole lot of rock. Indeed, James did not lie. The first song of the album “Higher Than Heaven” is such heavy metal style song. Guitar riff at the very beginning with guitar effect give people a strong energy. Nonstop screaming and the high note at the end of the last chorus gradually push the song to the climax. By just hearing this song, rock fans would not be disappointed to the album. Likewise, another song “Outcast” features the guitarist from heavy metal band Mötley Crüe, Mick Mars. With James’s unique rock vocal, Mick’s guitar solo continuously attacks our eardrum. In the bridge, Mick’s solo pushes the song to the peak. Indeed, as a rock album, it would not be perfect if there is no fascinating guitar solo. At the end, James’s incredible high note ends the song, leaving people to taste it.

However, the second song “All I Want” slows down the atmosphere. Although it is still a rock song, from the arrangement and the melody, it is not a heavy metal but an ordinary alternative rock song. Similarly, “Love In Ruins” and “Right Behind You” follow the same pattern of alternative rock. Even thought they are no as passionate as the first song, clean guitar strum and heavy drum beats are still something you can’t find in current dance music.

Besides, “May” and “Everything Burns” are the few ballads from the album, which also can make the album take a rest from the heavy guitar strum. In addition, these songs also prove that James is not a singer who just screams, when there is a slow emotional song, James can also do it.

Take a look at the whole album, James reduces his high note. Such high note during the competition makes James have the suspicion of showing off. Although such vocal can make the rock songs powerful, it is too much for slow songs. In this album, however, James’ biggest improvement is not to oversing all the songs. Not every song is suitable for screaming, for example, in “May” and “Everything Burns”, James softly sings the songs with piano and acoustic guitar to tell us one another heart-breaking stories. Besides, songs such as “Higher Than Heaven” and “Outcast” need some powerhouse vocal, and James appropriately shows his powerful vocal and high note in proper way.

It is hard to say whether Memories of a Beautiful Disaster can sell well. After all, heavy metal is no longer mainstream in contemporary music industry. However, if you are truly love rock music like James does, it is no need to worry about that. Comparing to that, why not just put this record into the player, and rock with the music.

Dance, Happy, Young

Many people show less interest toward reality show singers, thinking that they are lacking in identity which can only sing cover songs. However, Cher Lloyd could be one of the examples that change people’s minds. With two Top 5 singles, her debut album Sticks + Stones released on Nov. 7.

Cher Lloyd, who was born in 1993, achieved No.4 on the reality-based singing competition The X Factor UK Version. She was young and energetic at that time, most importantly, she was gifted. During audition and bootcamp, Cher boldly rearranged “Turn My Swag On” and “Viva La Vida”, she wrote the rap part and emerge it into the songs. Such performances not only showed Cher’s own style, but also displayed her creativity in front to the audiences. After Cher’s performance of “Just Be Good To Me” on the first week of Live Show, Simon Cowell commented that: “that’s why we picked you a couple week ago…you are exactly what we’re looking for, which is a new little star…that’s what pop music is all about”. On the seventh week, Cher’s “Stay” even made Simon said that it was the best performance of the season. Getting such high compliment from Simon Cowell, what 17-year-old Cher had was not only surprise but also the confidence of her future music career. Although she was voted off on Top 4, for her, it was only the beginning of her music career.

Young, bold and creative is the vantage for Cher during the competition and she doesn’t forget it. In her debut album Sticks + Stones, she uses 10 songs to show us a vivid, happy and young scene. Single “Swagger Jagger” has young lyrics and springy melody, the chorus of the song is sampling from 1884’s folk song “Oh My Darling, Clementine”. The lyrics of the song depict how Cher condemns those people who want to copy her dance move via any method. Many new-media words such as tweeting, youtubing makes the song very current, but there are also comments judging that such lyrics make the song very naïve. Apart from the lyrics, heavy drum beats and rich effects reinforce the energy of the song. Meanwhile, Cher combining her rap with the singing raises the song to another “current” level. If I have to compare the style of the song to someone’s, “Swagger Jagger” should be the young version of Black Eyed Peas. I have to admit that, because of the combination of dance beats and folk-song melody, it was weird to hear it at the first place, but if you are sensitive to dance beats, this may be a very nice party song.

Second single “With Ur Love” slows down the album. Lyrics such as “I feel like I’m on top of the world with ur love” vividly portrays a little girl’s longing toward love. This song sounds a little bit more mature than “Swagger Jagger”, but Cher still enjoys the vantage of being young, which you can still find the naughty feeling from the song. Also, the inflection of the voice from this song shows that Cher is not only a singer that relies on outlook and age, she can also SING.

Besides, other songs from this album make listeners have the feelings of going back to the days when they were young. The first song of this album, “Grow Up”, obviously expressed the message that Cher enjoys her age and doesn’t want to grow up. In the bridge, she sings “I am a princess and I don’t wanna be the queen”. The reason Cher doesn’t want to grow up may be because that the free and wild lifestyle of being young would be gone when growing up. Likewise, songs such as “Playa Boi” and “Dub in the Track” ignite audiences’ emotions by using fruitful effect and drum beats, also give them the chance of feeling young energy. Perhaps such songs are lacking in depth, but for Cher who loves to show us the young attitude, all we need is just happiness.

Overall, Sticks + Stones shows the little girl’s young and energetic power to the world. The rap parts of many songs also prove that Cher would follow her own unique style. Maybe Cher can bring us more surprises, just as Simon said, Cher is “unpredictable”.

Lee DeWyze, a sincere romantic poet

What can you anticipate to the weakest season (Season 9) in the history of American Idol? Lee DeWyze and his debut album Live It up is just like that. Listeners could only have one feeling, which is plain. Simon Cowell used to say, the true artist should have the masterpiece that half of the people would love it and half of them would hate it. This is so right. Thinking about all the great works, all of them are unique and creative, and most of this novelty would definitely not be able to concern all the tastes.

It is a pity that Live It Up can not do it. The first time you listen to it, you would know that this is just one of the most ordinary pop-folk albums. No one can really love it or hate it. Usually there are two attitudes toward such kind of music: one is sleepy, one is touching, because most of the folk song would relate to emotion expression and lyric ballad. The reason why I say this album is so ordinary is because it is in this principle.

The first song “Live It up” is just such love ballad. Delightful guitar solo and Lee’s lazy voice take listeners to the street in which the man meets the strange lady, and he thinks about falling in love with her. Such cliché seems to define the whole album of being simple without excitement. The following songs such as “It’s Gonna Be Love”, “Dear Isabelle” and single “Beautiful Like You” all have similar storytelling. The arrangement of the song similarly uses lively guitar solo or soft piano to reinforce the sensibility of the love stories. Only these elements would the fans who want to have excitement refuse to accept this album. Undeniably, similar style and simple stories in the song could hardly bring any commercial benefits to the album, and it is no surprise that Lee is one of the most unsuccessful American Idol.

Although this album could not take Lee to the circle of “brilliant artists”, Live It Up still has something to talk about. As a pop-folk album, the songs can sometimes become so touching to the listeners, especially when the story of the song can match listeners’ past experience. Firstly, Lee’s lazy and husky voice perfectly matches with folk music. Taking “Dear Isabelle” as example, Lee transfers his love to “Isabelle” vividly and incisively with his lazy voice. In the song, he sings that he is not good at expressing his feelings, so he writes this song and hopes everything is not too late. Meanwhile, the inornate personality as a painter provides a plain side appropriately to this song. Besides, Lee’s powerhouse vocal is depicted in the song “Beautiful Like You”. Such powerful vocal is one of the merits in his Idol journey. Unlike David Cook and Kelly Clarkson, Lee’s voice is more like the water with breeze, a little wave from the water, not too much, but just alright. In “Beautiful Like You”, Lee lightly depicts a heart of waiting in verse, when the song comes to the chorus, Lee gradually gives us a little bit of excitement and then explode: “If you could only just stop running, if you could only take a second to breathe it in, everything that you know would be beautiful like you”.

Obviously, to listen to this album need particular occasion. When you are so excited to want to have a party, this album is definitely not want you want. However, when you have time to sit down and appreciate everything, you would find that Lee uses his sincerity to tell us beautiful and warm love stories one by one. Sometimes, we have to admit that, commercial and authentic are always opposite. You may never find pure spirit in Lady Gaga or Katy Perry’s songs, but those albums that never sold well usually maintain the sincerity and authenticity such as this album.

David Cook's loud morning

It has been three years since David Cook won the title of American Idol Season 7. The only achievement David reached was the 1 platinum sales of his 2008 self-title album. Although David keeps having performance around the nation, the new post-idol studio album that fans longing for is still a nowhere. Eventually, on the result show of American Idol season 10 in April, 2011. David performed his new single “The Last Goodbye”, this performance also gave his fans an anticipation of his new album.

Indeed, David Cook disappears too long. Former idols such as Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Jordin Sparks would never release new album more than two years. There is only idol like Taylor Hicks who sold ugly and was drop by record label could release another low-sale studio album after three years. Therefore, we have to assume the reason of what delays David. We should know that the artists who are known by such reality show must release albums frequently on the first several years, because every year there will be an American Idol, the attention rate of the former one could be possibly replaced if no new album to draw attention. Honestly, I gradually forget there is a David Cook between Jordin Sparks and Kris Allen. However, as the first rock idol in the history of American Idol, David Cook seems to have sufficient courage to draw the fans’ attention back to him by the second album.

The second studio album This Loud Morning was released on June, 2011. The inspiration of the album came from a certain morning when David wanted to keep sleeping after waking up in order to avoid the loud morning. The first song “Circadian” starts the album with this theme. The song starts with silvery keyboard effect, which gives listeners a feeling of delightfully fresh but a little bit mysterious. After then, David starts the lyrics with a couple of “who’s to say…”, such construct of words provides the meaning of “not willing to obey others”. With the keyboard effect at the beginning, these lyrics also provide a metaphor of “the dream does want to yield the reality”. In face, David himself has said, this song was about to use sleep to run away from reality, to temporally run away from any conflict and unwillingness.

David has said, he did not want to describe this album as “conceptualized”, but in fact, This Loud Morning contains a very deep theme, which is to use dream for redemption. In David’s word, the last song of his album “Rapid Eye Movement” is about to wake up from the dream to the reality. Therefore, we can, from here, assume that from the first song to the last but one song, all of them are about David’s dream. The second song “Right Here, With You” has the lyrics: “If the shy keeps falling/the night keeps calling/I’ll be right here with you”. Maybe such dreamlike scene could only appear in dreamland, and the emotion of David has been expressed in such scene, and delivers to the other. The fourth song “Fade Into Me” expresses the helplessness of reality more explicit, hoping he can disappear from the world with his lover and “watch the world chasing to find us”.

Besides, looking up all the lyrics from This Loud Morning, we may find that the words such as “light”, “night”, “star” and other words related to night were frequently mentioned, and this provides the thick shades to the whole album. Try to imagine that two people are helplessly walking on the grassland which is surrounded by deep shades, looking at the horizon slowly whitens with hazy morning mist rising. Perhaps, all the stories in this album happen here. This is the feeling of disappointing to the reality and chasing truth in dream.

Of course, the last song “Rapid Eye Movement” brings out the theme once again. David wants to depart from the dream, but he finds out he has already be chained by the dream which the story in the dream has already become the reality for David. In this case, he can no longer distinguish the dream from the reality. The last instrument of the song is also a silvery keyboard effect, but with the chord singing “save me, somebody save me, mayday, somebody save me”. From here, maybe you can already, like David, no longer to tell whether yourself is still in a dream. Perhaps you are also shouting “save me”.

From the musical style, David still follows the path of Alternative Rock. Listening from the first place, there is not a big difference between his two albums, instead, the power such as “Declaration” from his first album is missed from this one. This may relate to the dream theme of the album, after all, we can not discuss dream in a hush guitar solo. Thus, for people who love rock music, this album may be lacking in passion for them.

No matter what, David Cook does not disappoint his fans based on this album. For the angle of commercial, this may not be a successful album, but it is indeed so far the most artistic album from David. Focusing on the theme of dream, David Cook talks about extraordinary stories. Just as David said, he wanted to use this album to memorize to past, and hoped everything can stop for a while so that he can have time to think about the past. And all of them, may only happen in dream…

Culture of mixing and sampling: Theories applied in John Oswald’s Plunderphonic CD

Introduction

Mixing and sampling are two most common terms in new media. Music production is one of the fields in new media applying these terms. Most of the current songs are based on sampling and mixing/remixing technique. For example, American Idol Season 6 runner-up Blake Lewis’s “Gots to Get Her” is with a melody sampling of Fred Astire’s “Puttin’ On The Ritz”. Besides, many rap/hip-hop artists would apply sampling in order to enrich their songs’ aesthetic presentation. Kanye West is one of the famous hip-hop artists known for sampling style. He widely uses recorded orchestra pieces for his songs and used vocal sampling in his songs, such as his remarkable No. 1 hit single “Stronger” containing a vocal sampling of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk.

In DJ culture, mixing and sampling are considered to be the important factors in sound production. Paul Miller (2004) has addressed that DJ culture is all about the potential of combining exciting pieces (p.349). In one kind of mixing, DJ would put a great number of hit popular songs in samplers and remix them with dance-style drum beat, mostly techno, and other effects. This also brings out the fact that almost every hit song has more or less mix/remix versions and the labels will release them in either B-side or LP/EP mode. For example, American Idol Season 8 runner-up Adam Lambert has released an EP titled Remixes with five remix versions of his two current singles. Also, Justin Timberlake has an album 12" Masters - The Essential Mixes containing 12 different remix versions of his career-long hit singles as solo artist.

John Oswald is one of the greatest mixing and sampling artists in music history. Milo Miles has judged that “For the moment, John Oswald is a solo movement, the most exciting school of one in music” (Canadian Music Centre, pars. 1). Oswald is a saxophonist and multi-media artists, but his best known work is his practice of Plunderphonic CD in 1989, which is a collection of his plundered sampling and radical re-editing of pop recordings (Oswald, 2004, p.131). The word Plunderphonic is a musical term significantly explains Oswald’s works in the mid-80s. In his paper titled Plunderphonics: Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative in 1986, he argued that “for anyone who wanted to respond to a media environment that was saturated with lowest-common-denominator music, the only way forward was to impose your own preferences directly onto the very substance of that environment” (Duguid, 1994, pars. 31). Choosing this concept, he later examined it in his Plunderphonic EP with four tracks sampling different music artists’ works.  

Mixing and Sampling

       Mixing and sampling based on editing process is a creation of sequence (Miller, 2008). In the ideal of new media, the basic principle is about dueling with information. The concept of montage, collages and modularity in new media all take discrete databases and combination information into consideration. Izhaki (2008) has defined that mixing is “a process in which multitrack material—whether recorded, sampled or synthesized—is balanced, treated and combined into a multichannel format, most commonly two-channel stereo” (p.4). The practice of mixing is somehow similar to Burnett’s (2003) idea in modularity, which he stated that “modularity is based on the fact that an information database is composed of pieces of information to be retrieved separately and combined in whatever way the user wants” (p.3). Izhaki further stated that one of the crucial purposes of mixing is to create emotion and ideas (p.5), which Miller’s phrase of “the samples are given meaning only when re-presented in the assemblage of the mix” supports the same statement (2004, p. 350).

The idea of sampling also relates closely to the idea of modularity, where Professor Steve Fore (2010) in his lecture mentioned that “individual sound elements in a digitized file are discrete, and may be selected and assembled in any order”, a similar statement to Burnett’s. According to Paul Miller (2008) and David Sanjek (1997), the practice of sampling is based on familiarity. Holm-Hudson (1997) has addressed that Sanjek classified the practice of sampling primarily by the recognizability of the original source in four categories, where the first category he cited is “sufficient familiarity (may let the listener) recognize the quotation and may, in turn, pay more attention to the new material as a consequence of that familiarity” (p.19). Also, the third category from Sanjek that “recordings can be constructed wholecloth from samples to create a new aesthetic” (p.19) is also an important point in new media sampling.

Oswald and Plunderphonics

Oswald’s sampling works are different to the concept of sampling in rap/hip-hop artists, which the difference is known as plunderphonic sampling. This kind of sampling, according to Hom-Hudson, recontextualizes familiar fragments of popular music in which smallest musical unit is taken (p.21). Also in Andrew Jones’s word, plunderphonics is the concept of recognizable musical quotation (1995, p.132).

His “Dab” is one of the representative works to the idea of plunderphonic sampling. The work basically took out small pieces of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” and rearranged the fragment to a new song. In this song, we as the listener can hear that the sequence of “Dab” actually follow the original “Bad”, where the verse and the chorus were mixing separately, but each part of “Dab” only took a small piece of the lyrics and drum-beat from “Bad”. However, the sequence of “Dab” still has the verse-chorus structure. This kind of using a few second sampling is as Miller (2008) stated that music as information which the creator creates a loop of repetition and all of that is the fragment of time. In “Dab”, Oswald was using this repetition to interpret a new meaning to the aesthetic of art. As Sanjek stated, the practice of sampling is playing with similarity. In “Dab”, we can clearly identify it was Jackson’s voice due to his identical moaning, and the melody from the samples give the clue.

Another work “Pretender”, plundered Dolly Parton’s “The Great Pretender”, is a significant piece of Oswald’s. Leach (2000) said that “Pretender” seems to have garnered the most praise from music critics (p.126). Differed from “Dab”, “Pretender” was not sampling a small piece of the original song. On the contrary, it took the whole “The Great Pretender”, modified and distorted the whole song in different pitches. The modification creates a fresh feeling to the song. “The Great Pretender” is a soft and emotional country song, touching but flat. In “Pretender”, the frequently changing of pitches not only excites the song but also make Parton’s voice theatrical. Furthermore, in most of the “Pretender”, Parton’s voice was lowered in a baritone level. This interesting changing is to interpret and present a different version of the original song and also display Oswald’s ability in modify a song, and as Leach (2000) stated, a realization of certain latent meanings and nuances of the original song (p.126).

Conclusion

       In new media, the idea of cut-and-paste, assembly and modularity is about taking existing objects, dividing them into discrete pieces and recombining them. The idea of mixing and sampling in sound applies the similar system in which people, no matter they are professional or amateurs, can rearrange existing sounds. Many successful mix/remix art works demonstrate that the practice of mixing and sampling is essential in the contemporary music culture.

Sampling is a notion of presenting similarity, while the notion of mixing is related to reinterpret the discrete information (sound). In the case of John Oswald, he efficiently utilized existing materials, like post-modern sculptors, to create a new idea of aesthetic. His “Deb” is a plunderphonic idea that only uses a small piece of samples to compose a new art form, which the playing with similarity, stating by Miller and Sanjek, is manifested. “Pretender” applies another type of editing technique that gives the song a new sense of meaning and aesthetic.

       Oswald’s art works are successful and earned praise for his outstanding concept of plunderphonic sampling. However, his was threatened with legal action by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) acting on behalf of CBS Records and Michael Jackson’s management corporation. This issue not only propelled Oswald surrender all of his remaining CD copies but also led to the questions of fair-use and sharing in digital period. In further study, these issues could be concentrated in a deep analysis.

That's "What I Go to School For"

Basic concept of semiotics

The idea of semiotics was first introduced by the nineteenth-century Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and an American philosopher Charles Peirce (Danesi, 2002, p.28). Although the research definitions of these two scholars are different, yet the basic idea of semiotics is both considered as the analysis of signs and symbols. One of the broadest definitions is as Umberto Eco stated that “semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign” (Eco, 1979, p.7). In this sense, signs can exist in any kinds of medium and transport in any form such as verbal, images, sounds and so forth (Chandler, 2002, p.2). Every sign, according to Leeds-Hurwitz, has two components: the visible part, the signifier, and the absent part, the signified. The basic idea concept of semiotics then can be expended as the analysis of finding the inner meaning (signified) from the objects (signifier).

 The understanding of signs is based on one’s experience (Monaco, 2000, p.155), because what signs “stand for” are the abstract concepts instead of the real things which is “as idealized mental approximations” (Danesi, 2002, p.29). In this sense, it is assumed that different individuals may have different understanding in “what the particular things stand for”. Therefore the idea of “sign” may not have to exist. The similar idea also was indicated by Eco that “semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie” (Eco, 1979, p.7).

Semiotics in music videos

The idea semiotics in music videos is complex, because music video is a combined subject with music, texts and visuals. All the three elements seem to be interdependent and independent in music video while each exerts a shaping force upon the other (Vernallis, 2004, p.153). Separately, for the music part, according to Elicker (1997), the analysis of musical works is based on structure (e.g. keys, tempo) and lyrics of meaning (e.g. linguistic meaning, language). The video part, on the other hand, owes much to the semiotics of film and television (Howells, 2003, p.245). In this sense, the idea of “how to shoot it” and “how to present the shot” (Monaco, 2000, p.163) also delivers the meaning connotatively in music videos.

Vernallis has discussed that music video can create a sync point, where musical feature could be recurred (2002, p. 175). This means music video supports the song (Howells, 2003, p.238). Song lyrics always carry the ideological signs, which a visual world is ideologically loaded (Howells, 2003, p.244). In fact, both musical and visual are important, because “(the combination) makes an impact on the ‘meanings’ of popular musical texts” (Strachan, 2006, p.192).

Analysis of “What I Go to School For” MV

“What I Go to School For” is the first hit single for a British pop-rock band Busted. The song is about they (play as three school boys) fancy their teacher Miss McKenzie. The lyrics of the song have a great amount of sexual hints. The music video, as the visual reflection of the song, also contains the image of sexuality.

Busted is not a sheer punk band. The average age of the three members in the band was 19 in the year of 2002, when their first album came out, and considering their clean looks, Busted is actually a teen-pop group with the outfits of rock ‘n’ roll. Their debut self-title album peaked No.2 in the UK Album Chart with selling more than 700,000 copies. First single “What I Go to School For” charted No.3 in the UK Singles Chart. Neil McCormick in Telegraph.co.uk wrote that Busted are a British pop phenomenon. The song “What I Go to School For” and its music video definitely represent the attitude to music of Busted, the audacious and authentic attitude towards youth culture and sexuality (other songs like “Britney”, “Air Hostess” and “Falling for You” also carry sexual messages).

Sexuality is a common topic for both rock and pop music. Began from the 1950s, the most successful rock artists “wrote and performed songs about love, sexuality, identity crisis, personal freedom, and other issues that were of central concern to teenagers” (Danesi, 2002, p.84). The topic of sexuality also is confirmed widely used in teen-pop music. According to Firth and McRobbie, sexuality in teen-pop is “transformed into a spiritual yearning carrying only hints of sexual interaction” (1990, p.375, in Brian Longhurst, 2007, p.112)

The most important sign of this music video is that the band members directly take part in the characters. Unlike those music videos finding other actors to play, it is an iconic sign that the story is about the band: they either have done it or imagined of doing that. In fact, the inspiration of the song is bassist Matt Willis’s high school dance teacher Michelle Blair, who is the original image of the lusted-after Miss McKenzie in this song. Willis admitted that he used to have a schoolboy crush on Ms. Blair[1]. Besides, the “singers-as-protagonist” format highlights the identity of the band. In this sense, the use of illustration constructs the stardom or persona the band members are.

The setting and dressing style in the “What I Go to School For” music video are the crucial signs of the theme. The band members are singing and playing as the school boys in a high-school set with wearing school uniforms. These signs in the music video not only present the theme of the song but also provide an outlook of the style of band, which is young and energetic: on one hand, these setting and outlook are the central storyline of the song, which the story of school-boy crush could be presented vividly. On the other hand, these setting and dressing style appropriately target the young consumers in a similar impression of identification.

The first verse (see Appendix) of the song contains the hints of sexuality. “To get the best view of her ass”, “she bends down and shows me more” are the signs for the “male students” yearning for female teacher’s body image. In the music video, the students sitting in a “sex education” class watching video about animals’ copulation. These literal and visual signs serve as the index of sexuality and “the students want to have sex with the teacher”. However, this type of signs seems to be too transparent and even as denotation. In the second verse, the storyline alters to the teacher’s home. “I climb a tree outside her home, to make sure that she’s alone”, “I see her in her underwear” brazenly express the students as the voyeurs. In the music video, the images assist to display the information from the lyrics by given a close-shot on McKenzie’s black silk hose and pink underwear.

In the video, there have several shots imply the idea of sexuality. First, women’s eyes seem to be frequently used to describe sexy in most of the commercials and films, and this video also contains this element. There have some close shots of Miss McKenzie’s eyes (Figure 1, Figure 2) and eyes connection from her (Figure 3).

At the end of the video, the boys play with Miss McKenzie in grassland (Figure 4). This scene is completely unrelated to the school scene before, so we can assume that it is the boys having psychosexuality to the teacher. It leaves a question that whether all those wild scene and behavior are not real.

  Figure 1-4                       

Conclusion

       Music video is a complex form to analyze because it both emphasizes on image and words (lyrics). Unlike films, however, images in music videos serve as the supporting function to the words (lyrics) and music. This establishes the idea that images have to be analyzed with words or music. Therefore, most of the scenes and events in the “What I Go to School For” video are visual reflection to the lyrics. Moreover, the images amplify the lyrics which make it more vivid, for example Miss McKenzie’s flirting eyes, in-class sex education videos.

       Although sexuality is a common theme in rock music, yet the explicit expression in a teen-pop band is rare. This is the reason why Busted became a hit in Britain in 2002. They dared to try everything including this video which is full of sexual messages. Most of the signs in the video portray the boys as voyeurs or flirty teenagers. In this sense, it is also believed these connect to youth culture and sex in school. In future study, this field could be taken as the main path.

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[1] “She’s what Busted went to school for!” January 2005. BBC <http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/theatre/2003/12/michelle_busted.shtml>

Music Copyright and Glee

A TV series Glee is recently a hit around the world, the audiences love the Glee cover of the classic songs. No matter it was classic like Don’t Stop Believing or It’s My Life, or current hit Poker Face or My Life Would Suck Without You, audiences are all amazed by the singing ability of Glee cast. Some people even said that some Glee cover songs are far more better than the original ones.

I always held a same attitude that singing hit songs by Glee cast is beneficial to both the show itself and the audiences. First of all, audiences are already familiar with the classics, so they do not need a long time to find the echo with Glee. Second, the educational function is explicit, audiences can through this series learn something related to these songs.

However, when the issue of “copyright” and “intellectual property” has been aroused in a book I read recently, Glee has come up in my mind. Using classics abundantly, Glee must confront some issue with copyright.

The fact is, the producers spent a great amount of money in licensing. Dominic Patten wrote that “Madonna-themed episode of ‘Glee’ is going to leave the Material Girl very, very happy”. The reason of that surely is the producers have to pay Madonna for $50,000 per song for licensing fee. This kind of expense not only can not be avoided, but also has a trend to rise: “Licensing, like live performance, is one of the few areas of the music business that is still actually growing.” Including numerous “mash-ups”, the major amount of expense in Glee is obviously not in casting, but in paying licensing fee.

Christina Mulligan wrote on his article Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club that the biggest problem in Glee was not about paying licensing fee, but in the portrayal of high school students using copyrighted songs in the series. She mentioned that Glee club sang classic song every week, if it was in a real life, they can totally unable to pay such expensive licensing fee. If they put the video on the Internet like the series, they need to pay 150,000 to 300,000 copyright fines. This was obvious not the ordinary high school students could afford. Mulligan believed that Glee apparently ignored copyright issue, she indicated: “the absence of any mention of copyright law in ‘Glee’ illustrates a painful tension in American culture”.

If it is just like what was mentioned above, teenagers can no longer share music or sing songs in public. However, according to copyright law, performing in class or organization without financial purpose does not infringe copyright law, unless the audiences are invited. In the series, most of the performances the student did are rehearsals in classroom, only a few of the performances are in public. Furthermore, if the audiences are less than a certain number, copyright issue can actually be ignored, because there has no financial purpose. But if the show is aired by TV, licensing fee is inevitable.

Back to the series, although Glee has a pay a large amount of money in copyright, the profit later on is abundant. According to a report in Advertising Age, Glee, till February, 2010, has created 420,000 downloads and two golden albums.

We have to agree that in the issue between licensing fee and profits, Glee is doing very well. Although purchasing large number of songs, the show can earn them back in a short period of time, which includes CDs, live performance and other related products. Furthermore, comparing to other series, Glee cast sing all the songs, so they do not need to pay the performance fee, which save the produce team a lot of money.

Besides, with the development of technology and music industry, copyright holders are difficult to get all the legal money from Glee. Those Glee video clips which are protected by copyright have owned over millions clicks, which like Patrik Wikstrom said in The Music Industry: Digital Media and Society Series: “In the new music economy, it is still important to know how one’s intellectual property is used by the audience but it is more or less impossible to regulate and police that use.” Although recording firms are happy with such wide music dissemination, the process is hardly to control. In fact, the so-called “illegal promotion” created more and more listeners, which means more and more people are likely to purchase related products and tickets for tours, and this no doubt increased to potential profits of recording industry. Copyright holders should actually appreciate Glee for the promotion, no wonder there has people believe copyright holders should reduce licensing fees, because these show serve as a promotional function in an implicit way.