Mood video

In the lead up to creating ideas for our music video - we thought it would be a good idea to look at a variety of music videos within the 'indietronica' genre and pick out any interesting, good or favourite parts of the videos and merge them altogether into one big 'Mood Video'. I have taken extracts from seven different music videos within the 'indietronica' genre, these include; Owl City, Bastille, Ellie Goulding, The Neighbourhood, Foster The People, Vampire Weekend and of course, our chosen artist; Passion Pit.

The Neighbourhood - Sweater Weather

I chose this clip from the 'Sweater Weather' music video because I thought it was very clever in the sense that it was overlapped with other shots from the video, the video merged together various clips through a transparent layout. This clip also features a spray painting of a house, which after I searched on Google, found out that this is The Neighbourhood's logo. Therefore this was an effective use of their logo and also in a sense is self-promotion of the band's identity. I also really liked the use of the black and white effect of this music video, it made it seem somewhat vintage and also created a very dark and mysterious yet also calming atmosphere to the video and the song. If possible, I think it would be a really cool idea to try and use a similar effect to the transparent overlapping of clips seen in this extract for our music video.

Bastille - Things We Lost In The Fire

I decided to use this clip from 'Things We Lost In The Fire' because I really liked the effective use of dark background colours but the main singer is in more visible colours, making him a prominent figure. I also like the over-the-shoulder shot of the main singer fiddling with a bullet in his hand, and once again there is a dark background colour, making him stand out to the audience. I liked the use of this shot because I feel that it was trying to overshadow a dark message related to the bullet which he is seen holding. There is then a close-up of the artist lip-syncing along to the song, and then the shot changes to see a close-up of his hands, once again fiddling with the golden coloured bullet, and once again also showing the importance of this bullet. Perhaps a strong link between the visuals and lyrics. Once the camera zooms out of his hands, it focuses on the main artist looking away from the camera and into the distance, I like this part because it merges into the next scene, as if he is watching the scene change and I think this type of overlapping/merging is very effective when used in music videos. I also used another clip from this video later on, where the lighting used is once again dark, but this time the main singer is also put into the shadow to merge into the background, but the effective use of lighting makes his face stand out from his clothes and the background colours.

Passion Pit - Carried Away

The clip that I have used from 'Carried Away' is my absolute favourite out of all the clips which I have put together in this mood video. I absolutely love it when there is a rewind section of a music video, I think it has a very good effect on both the audience and the song. The rewinding is often found in songs which have a deep meaning or that follow a deep narrative story. The fast-motion pace of the montage of clips help add a good pace to this part of the video and show how much the pair have been through and all within seconds. At the end of this clip when we see the man apologising to the girl by writing sorry in the sky, the audience will know that this scene has already occurred earlier on in the video, yet this time there is an alternate ending which adds a twist to the video. The male is seen apologising for his actions by writing 'sorry' in the sky. However when the audience first sees this scene, they don't see what the female character replies or if she even replies at all. Whereas this time around the audience sees her reply which is 'ok', in other words, forgiving him for his faults and actions. I absolutely 100% want to try and use some effective rewinding towards the bridge/end of the video because this is definitely one of my favourite music video conventions, and it would be great if we could use it for our own final music video.

Foster The People - Best Friend

I really liked this clip which I have chosen from 'Best Friend' by Foster The People. I liked it because it gave off a kaleidoscope effect and the bright colours help to add effect and atmosphere to the song and the video and perhaps also to the artists' nature and personality. I think this clip is also very effective because the musicians are still shown to the audience, just in an effect which merges in with the bright colour-kaleidoscope effect. I'm not sure if I would want to use this sort of thing for our music video, but I think it could at least be considered, my only worry is that this is
definitely not a typical 'indietronica' music video convention and leans far more towards the pop side of music videos, and would thus be defeating the purpose of our 'indietronica' genre video.

 

Owl City - Shooting Star

I chose to use this clip within my mood video because I really like how the artist - Adam Young (Owl City) has used a performance based video with some narrative, yet he is not part of the narrative until right towards the end where he gets up from the piano (performance) and runs into the narrative part of the video. The performance still continues whilst he becomes p
art of the narrative, which is effective for the audience to watch and enjoy. I also think that the quick-cut shots help to add to the pace of this video and also the song.

Vampire Weekend - 'Cousins'

The Vampire Weekend video for 'Cousins' used an interesting technique and therefore it caught my eye and made the cut for the mood video. The band had evidently used a green screen to film this music video. I think this because the lead singer is seen on a platform whilst moving along a street which features the other musicians within the band. The jump-cuts have an immediate effect on the video and also the audience - the jump-cuts also give away the thought that they must have used a green screen to shoot this video.

Ellie Goulding - Beating Heart

I really like how this video starts off with a blurred far-out, wide-shot of Goulding with a black background, whilst she stands out in a blurred crystal white. The shot then goes into focus and Ellie Goulding is shown in the middle of the far-out shot. We can see her holding something, and as the camera slowly zooms closer it jumps to a different shot of her holding a small glass of some blue liquid, the camera stays focused on the blue drink for a good few seconds which must show the importance of this drink to the audience and that it plays a big part in the narrative of this video. The shot then jumps again to a close up of her face from nose upwards and shows her drinking this drink. Obviously this is only a small clip from the music video, but when watching the full video it is easily identifiable that this song was used for the film; Divergent and therefore clips from the film are used throughout the video as the narrative, whilst she performs her song through narrative as well. However the audience can learn the importance of this blue drink shown in the clip in my mood video, that this 'drink' was featured in the film Divergent and played a key role in the film, therefore the video carries on the exclusivity of the role and importance of this drink.

Passion Pit Discography

Similar to: Passion Pit

I thought it would be worth a shot in searching on the internet for similar artists to Passion Pit, instead of sitting and listening to music which I may think is similar to that of Passion Pit's. Therefore I searched on Google; 'Similar Artists to Passion Pit', of which I stumbled across a website called 'last.fm'. This was a great find because it not only listed similar artists to Passion Pit, but it also lists how similar they are in comparison to Passion Pit. For example; Matt & Kim are listed under 'super similarity' whereas The Royal Concept are listed under 'very high similarity', which says to me that Matt and Kim are much more similar to Passion Pit than The Royal Concept are.

When searching 'Passion Pit' on Google, I was met with a 'similar to Passion Pit' feature, which allows me to explore other artists which people may have searched within the same genre; Indietronica. This is a useful feature for both myself, when trying to learn about Passion Pit as an artist within their genre and also for fans of Passion Pit who are exploring within the indietronica genre and want to discover similar artists to Passion Pit.

 

Competitors

Chosen Artist

Passion Pit - Who are they?

Passion Pit is an American indietronica band from Cambridge, Massachusetts, formed in 2007. The band consists of Michael Angelakos, Ian Hultquist, Xander Singh, Jeff Apruzzese and Chris Hartz.

 

                                                  Official Website

Official Merchandise

iTunes page

When searching 'Passion Pit' on iTunes, you are met with a page full of all their albums, EPs, Singles and music videos which are available for purchase. It also lists their songs in order of popularity, of which we can see that 'Take A Walk' is the most downloaded of their songs on ITunes, followed by 'Carried Away'. These two songs must be their most well-known songs, whereas the song which we are doing - 'Constant Conversations' is only number 7 on the top downloaded.

Official Facebook page

The Passion Pit Facebook page has 1.3 million likes, which means that Passion Pit are fairly well - known and must have a solid fan base on Facebook.

Official Twitter page

However, the Passion Pit Twitter account has far less of a following than their official Facebook page does. Their Facebook page has 1.3m likes whereas their Twitter page only has 203k followers. This may suggest that Passion Pit prefer to use Facebook as their main social networking website as opposed to most artists nowadays who would prioritise Twitter over Facebook.

                                         Record Label(s) 

Albums, singles and EP's  

Debut EP: Chunk Of Change

September 16th 2008

Debut Album: Manners

May 18th 2009

 

Second Album: Gossamer

July 24th 2012

 

Constant Conversations - EP

September 24th 2013

 

 

Choosing the song

It was now time for us to decide on our song. We sat as a group and shortlisted some songs which we thought would be appropriate for our final product. These are the songs we came up with as a group:

1. Calvin Harris (Ft. John Newman) - Blame
2. George Ezra - Budapest
3. Nico & Vinz  - Find A Way
4. Passion Pit - Constant Conversations
5. Family Of The Year - Hero

After producing the list of the five songs which had potential for our music video; we narrowed it down to the final song, which we collectively decided on; Passion Pit - Constant Conversations. The reason we chose this song was because of the vibe it gave off; which was a calming, very chilled song that could have a library of different music videos. This was also the only song which all four of us agreed that we like. This was also the one song that when we heard it we automatically thought that this was 'the one'. Once we had decided on the song 'Constant Conversations' as our final song choice, we decided to listen to the song and write down any initial thoughts which come into our heads when we listen to the song; be it the atmosphere of the song, the lyrics or just thoughts on the song in general. I produced a brainstorm with all my different thoughts when I heard the song:

There were various reasons for not wanting to chose any of the other four options. For example; Calvin Harris' Blame we felt was too hard to create a video for and the mood just didn't seem right. There was also a lack of lyrics within the chorus and we wanted a lyrical song for our final video. Nico & Vinz at first listen, had quite the potential because it was an uplifting song and gave off a positive and good vibe but then it was also later eliminated because we felt that it wasn't the type of song we were looking for, and although it was a good song and option, it wasn't the right kind of song for us as a group. 

The final decision came between Constant Conversations and Family Of The Year. Both songs could produce a good narrative and/or performance concept for a music video, therefore it was difficult to finalise a decision on a song. But our gut instinct was telling us to go with 'Constant Conversations', this was because collectively we all really liked this song and on first listen we all felt that it would be a suitable option, yet the Family Of The Year - Hero song I wasn't too fond of and neither was Amy, therefore it was split 50/50, and it made more sense to save the hassle and go with Constant Conversations as the final song choice.

Calvin Harris (ft. John Newman) - Blame:

Pros: The song is very upbeat and has a fast pace, so therefore the video could be a fun and energetic performance concept, and wouldn't necessarily need much, if any narrative concept due to the lack of in-depth lyrics. We could create a very simple video with this song, and would probably not need to use that many different people within the video which would be useful for us when it comes to filming and reliability.
Cons: The song is very upbeat yet doesn't really set the correct kind of mood we are looking for with our video. Due to the lack of lyrical connection, the video may also have a boring outcome and therefore lack any in-depth connections with the audience. 
Decision: No

George Ezra - Budapest:

Pros: This is a great song, in particular lyrically. However, I find this song slightly boring, which is the complete opposite to Calvin Harris's 'Blame' which is a very exciting and energetic song, yet 'Budapest' is as I have already said, the opposite, it is far more focused lyrically than musically. We could probably create quite an effective and original video to this song if we chose this as the final song.

Cons: As previously stated, this is quite a boring song, and as a group we decided that we didn't want to do boring. Therefore this song may not be the best choice for us collectively if we want a slightly more upbeat song yet not too upbeat.

Decision: No

Nico and Vinz - Find A Way:

Pros: This is a very feel-good song and gives off a great positive vibe, which makes everyone feel happy. This song had huge potential to be our chosen song as we all really liked it when Abi suggested and showed it to us during one of our first discussions. There is also a massive library of ideas which could be generated for a video to a song such as this.
Cons: This was perhaps more feel-good than we were initially looking for and therefore we weren't 100% sure this would be the best song choice. Nico and Vinz are two artists, and therefore we would most likely need to find two main artists for our video and that could be harder and more effort for us to find than just one as the main singer. Therefore perhaps it might be simpler to stick to a song which has vocals performed by only one person and not more.
Decision: No

Passion Pit - Constant Conversations:

Pros: Very chilled vibe given off, which as a group we all liked at first listen. Even though, in a similar sense to 'Budapest', this song could be interpreted as boring, the strong connection between lyrics and the mood of the song is what sold the song to us. We really liked the concept of the song and we therefore felt that we could create an effective and in-depth narrative-based music video.

Cons: If we do chose to base our video around the theme of alcoholism (which is what the song is about) then we might stumble across a problem of age, being that the actors in the video are much more likely to be young adults as opposed to fellow peers our age if we did choose to theme the video around alcoholism.

Decision: Yes

Family Of The Year - Hero:

Pros: Has a very nice and calming atmosphere to the song which we all liked. There was a good balance of lyrics and instrumentals.
Cons: The pace was perhaps too slow for what we were really looking for. When we listened to this song, there was a lack of ideas within the group for a concept we could adapt for our video with this song.
Decision: No

Chosen Genre: Music Video Analysis 3

Owl City - Fireflies

Owl City is an American electronica project, which was created in 2007; and it is one of the several projects by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist; Adam Young. He created this project whilst experimenting with music in his parents' basement. Owl City then started to develop a following on social networking site; Myspace - before signing with Universal Republic Records in 2008. (Now known as Republic Records). The song "Fireflies" is the debut single from Owl City's album 'Ocean Eyes'. Young described the song as "A little song about bugs and not being able to fall asleep at night". The song is built around a "bleep" 1980s-influenced synth line and includes lyrics about insomnia, fireflies and summer. 

The music video for "Fireflies" was directed by Steve Hooper and it features Adam Young playing the song on a Lowrey spinet organ in a toy-filled bedroom, where the audience can see most of the toys come to life, there is no narrative to the video, it is shot as a performance music video. The video was uploaded to OwlCityVEVO on Dec 15 2009, and as of October 2014 it has approximately 116,498,847 views. Although an interesting side note may be that the video was uploaded previously on a different account - which was not VEVO, and the description on the VEVO upload of the video includes the following line: 'YouTube view counts pre-VEVO: 22,880,713'

Chosen Genre: Music Video Analysis 2

Foster The People - Houdini

For my second music video analysis, I decided to analyse Foster The People's 'Houdini' music video, released April 2012, and as of October 2014 has over 22 million views on YouTube. This music video follows such an interesting and unusual narrative with a hidden deeper meaning, that it was even nominated for the 55th Annual Grammy Awards award for Best Short Form Music Video.

Chosen Genre: Music Video Analysis 1

Passion Pit: Carried Away

As already identified, Passion Pit is an American indietronica band from Cambridge, Massachusetts, formed in 2007. Carried Away is a song by Passion Pit and it is taken from their second album 'Gossamer'. The music video for "Carried Away" was directed by Ben and Alex Brewer and it was produced by Braxton Pope and Saul Levitz and featured actress - Sophia Bush. The video shows a troubled relationship between Michael Angelakos (front man of Passion Pit) and Sophia Bush, arguing and quarrelling frequently. Throughout the video their relationship becomes gradually weaker, but as the video nears its end the two reconcile their differences and take it back to what it used to be like at the start of the relationship. The video premiered on YouTube Feb 14th 2013, and as of October 2014 has approximately 7,558,576 views.

Target Audience

The primary target audience for this video would most likely be indie-pop fans. The reason for this is because the genre of music that Passion Pit belongs to is 'indietronica' (mixture of indie-pop, indie-rock and electronic), therefore fans of Passion Pit are most likely to have an interest in one or all of those sub-genres. The video is fun-filled and rather colourful, therefore it will probably attract young people. It will also attract young people because of the narrative of the video - many of the young viewers may be experiencing a similar scenario to the narrative in the video.
There may also be a secondary target audience for this video due to the fact that One Tree Hill actress Sophia Bush features in it. Therefore, her fans will probably want to watch the video to appreciate her latest cameo appearance.

Representation

The romantic relationship at the beginning between the two characters is counter stereotypical as the girl (Sophia Bush) does some strange things that usually someone would not do, for example; drawing lipstick all over her cheek and pretending to stab her boyfriend in the head with scissors. In contrast to this, there is also stereotypical views of a good relationship, for example when they are lying on the bed smiling. Overall, the video shows quite a stereotypical view of a romantic relationship as they have their good times and bad times and in the end they work things out. Therefore the audience can perhaps relate to the narrative quite easily.

Relationship between lyrics and visuals

The strong narrative shown in the video clearly suggests that there is a connection between the lyrics and the visuals. The lyrics "carried away" are expressed by the acting throughout, for example; when the girl (Sophia Bush) is annoyed with her boyfriend wiping her lipstick off her cheek, so she therefore draws lipstick all over her cheek to show her annoyance and thus getting "carried away".

Analysis with screenshot examples

The first three seconds of the video are taken up by a clear title of the band. Therefore ensuring that the audience are aware of the artist even before the name of the song or before any figures are seen in the video. This is interesting because most music videos start with an intro to help set the scene of the video, however this video starts with a white strip and the band name seen very boldly on it, whilst it flashes in different colours for three seconds.

The three seconds following the artist introduction are then taken up with the name of the song. This is once again informing the audience not only the artist, but also the name of the song. The reason why artists might choose to do this at the beginning of their music videos is not necessarily for YouTube purposes, but for TV purpose. This is because if someone is watching a video on YouTube the chances are that someone has searched for a specific video and would already know the name of the artist and the song, whereas on TV someone would not necessarily initially know the name of the artist nor the song.


However, both shots of the information showing the artist and the song are backed onto the opening scene of the music video. This is further reinforced when the audience first sees an actor in the music video pop up and brush the 'Carried Away' out of the screen.


The first glance of the music video starts with the male character wiping lipstick off his girlfriend's cheek, which as we learn, evidently annoyed her and she thus gets 'carried away' and puts lipstick across her whole cheek to annoy him. This is a smart beginning for the music video because it straight away gives the audience an insight into the characters' personalities and is a key part of the narrative. This shot is also effective because it is not within the same frame, yet within two different frames, perhaps enhancing the importance of the  representation of each character and showing that they both have their differences and are distant from each other, yet close at the same time.







The first stance of humour which is implemented into the video can be seen when the female character is cutting her boyfriend's hair and he says something to annoy her so she pretends to stab him in the head, and thus being "carried away". This is a wide shot and shows the audience both the reactions of the female and the male character. Whilst she is pretending to stab him in the head, he is completely oblivious to this action, and due to the wide shot used, the audience can therefore see both of their reactions at that moment.



There is an inter-textual reference seen in the video which can been seen when the man is holding a record which has images from the music video on it. The record, once turned over, also shows other songs from the artist Passion Pit, which is indirectly essentially advertising and promoting their other songs. This is clever use of inter-textuality for both the band and also for the music video.




Until this point, the audience has only really seen the female character getting "carried away" and reacting badly to some of the male character's actions. Here we get the first glimpse of him getting "carried away" with her actions. He clearly gets jealous when he sees her talking with another man. He evidently can't bare watching this scene, so he therefore gets his drinking cup and scoops the other man up into it. Obviously in reality this is a logical impossibility and could never happen, however this video is slightly wackier than the average cliché love-story narrative and has lots of twists, of which this is one of them.



One of the more cliché parts of the narrative can be seen when the pair are laying in bed together laughing. The reason this may be seen as quite cliché is because this is probably how most of the younger target audience would typically view a love - story or how they would assume a relationship to be like. Whereas the older target viewing audience would empathise with the vast majority of the video, perhaps more so with the arguing as it gives a more realistic insight to what it is like to be in a relationship.



I found it interesting how there was no performance by the band on this music video, other than the occasional lip sync of "carried away" during the chorus. I also found it interesting how they used Sophia Bush to lip sync a bit of one of the latter chorus'.

Another interesting thing, and also my favourite part of the video, which I found from this video is the use of subtitle text to show the audience the dialogue of the arguments which the pair have. This further helps the audience to engage and relate to the narrative. The last full minute of the video shows a rewind of the arguments which have occurred and what the male character has done to screw things up. The dialogue in this specific argument is "if you are so miserable then why don't you just leave?" to which the male replies "you make me sick" and after hesitating for a few seconds says "i'm sorry". The female is clearly taken aback by his actions and erupts. The eruption is shown through the explosion of words throughout the shot. This is very effective because I can guess that it is essentially showing words from all their different arguments - as if the female has been holding this all in for so long now that everything he has done to upset her is finally all erupting from her.


The fact that the first words which the audience sees erupt are "i'm sorry" could suggest two things. The first being that the apology he has just said to his girlfriend is worthless because he has said sorry too many times now. Or the second being that every argument starts by him saying something stupid to her and ending with another worthless apology. The word 'sorry' is broken on the floor which perhaps connotes their fragmented relationship.

The pair are then seen running together to try and escape all the exploding words around the house. They are also seen trying to smash up the words flying out. This could once again suggest two potential things. The first being that their arguments are bringing them back together because they realise that they are supposed to be together. The second being that their arguments are flashing before their eyes and they are trying to erase any nasty things they have ever said to each other in order to make everything fine again.


All of this leads up to the end of the video when we see a previous scene from the video being repeated, however this time with an alternate ending/answer. The male is seen apologising for his actions by writing 'sorry' in the sky. However when the audience first sees this scene, they don't see what the female character replies or if she even replies at all. Whereas this time the audience sees her reply which is 'ok', in other words, forgiving him for his faults.

The final scene shows the pair laying on the floor, surrounded by all their exploding words scattered around the room, and around them.
What I found interesting about this shot is that there are two very prominent sets of words displayed by the pair. "Can't breathe" and "ending its fine". To me, these two suggest that in the end everything is fine. Perhaps this is the message of the narrative to this music video - that no matter how bad things seem, in the end you can work it out and it will all be fine.




The video also ends in a very similar way in which the video starts. The video starts with two separate frames, and this is the exact thing that happens at the end of the video. Two words join up to spell out 'the end' - the "The" from the 'can't breathe' and the "End" from the "ending it's fine" join up together to spell out "The End" and can both be seen in separate frames.

Different genre conventions

Different genre conventions:

Different genres will inevitably come with different conventions. For example; a Rock video is most likely not going to feature really bright and fun colours or a party scene narrative throughout the video like a Pop-genre video most likely would.
It is therefore important to note that different artists, dependent on what genre they essentially belong to will determine the type of music videos they create and release, and also what their fans would expect from then.
I have analysed a few genres and their key conventions, examples of music videos and artists.

1. POP

Pop music is essentially a term that derives from the word "popular" and is a genre of 'popular' music, which originated in its modern form in the 1950s, deriving from rock and roll. Pop music is often very electric, and often borrowing elements from other styles including urban, dance, rock, Latin and country. There are still of course certain elements which help define pop and these include generally short to medium-length songs, written in a basic format (more often than not the verse-chorus structure), as well as the common employment of repeated choruses, melodic tunes and hooks.

There are also many sub-genres within the pop genre such as; Bubblegum-pop, Dance-pop, Synthpop, Teen-pop, Punk-pop, Indie-pop and Electro-pop.

 

Conventions of Pop music videos:

The main aim of a pop music video is essentially to sell the single to the audience. Many typical pop conventions will include; lots of bright colours, make-up and props. The pop music to go with the videos tend to be happy and involve a lot of dancing – many pop artists such as Rihanna and One Direction are sex symbols as well as a product.

Performance music videos: pop music videos are almost completely on the artist and no one else. If there is a narrative in a pop video then the artist would still play the main character. Pop artists usually perform in either a sexual or cute way so they can pull the biggest amount of fans. In indie rock music videos the artists don’t act like this that much because they are more about expressing the song through stories and emotion


Narrative music videos: Narrative in pop music videos there is not a lot of narrative because it’s mainly about performing in such a way it attracts the audience. Some artists use a theme to help represent the song but there is usually no narrative. The typical narratives used in pop music are parties, relationships/break ups

2. ROCK

Rock music is a genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the USA in the 1950s, and it developed into a range of different styles of rock in the 1960s, especially in America and The United Kingdom. The genre has its roots stuck in the 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and also country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centred on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar and drums.

Similarly to the pop genre, rock features many different sub-genres such as; Alternative-rock, Hard-rock, Heavy metal, Instrumental-rock, Indie-rock, Punk-rock, Soft-rock and Symphonic-rock.

Conventions of Rock music videos:

Most rock music videos will usually feature at least the lead singer from the band in the video, if none of the other members. Most videos follow a narrative theme and it is likely to find a break in the middle of the video for dialogue, and there is often an instrumental-only section to the song which will be shown in the video with the musical instruments.
The lighting of rock music videos will more often than not, be dark coloured, as opposed to pop videos which usually feature a very bright and colourful colour scheme, this is the opposite. Dark clothing is usually worn in the music videos and the colour red may often be worn if there is some sort of narrative, which usually represents either anger or love.

3. COUNTRY

Country music is a genre of American popular music that originated in Southern USA, Atlanta, Georgia in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the southeastern genre of American folk music and Western music. Blues modes have been used extensively throughout its recorded history. Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjos, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles and harmonicas. The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term 'hillbilly' music; it came to encompass Western music, which evolved parallel to hillbilly music from similar roots, in the mid-20th century.

Chosen Genre

For the main basis of the media coursework, we have to work in small groups of about 3 or 4 to create a music video. In my group of 4 people, we have chosen to replicate Passion Pit's; Constant Conversations. Therefore, once the song had been chosen, it was then important to look further into the genre of this song and artist. We found that the artist belonged to a very unusual genre called; Indietronica. The Google definition of Indietronica is: is a music genre that combines indie, electronica, rock and pop music.



A little about Passion Pit
Passion Pit is an American indietronica band from Cambridge, Massachusetts, formed in 2007. The band consists of members: Michael Angelakos (lead vocals, keyboards), Ian Hultquist (keyboards, guitar), Xander Singh (synthesizer, samples), Jeff Apruzzese (bass, synth bass) and Chris Hartz (drums, percussion).
Passion Pit's debut EP, 'Chunk Of Change', was released September 16th 2008. The first and only single which was released from this EP was called "Sleepyhead", and it received a good deal of exposure through its use in numerous media campaigns and advertisements, while the video for the song was included on Pitchfork's Top 40 Music Videos of 2008 list.
The band's first full-length studio album, 'Manners', was released 18 May 2009 in the UK and 19 May in USA and Canada.
The follow up album to 'Manners' called 'Gossamer' was to be released early 2012. "Constant Conversations" was the third track to be released from this album and was reviewed and features as "best new track" by Pitchfork.
September 24, 2013 saw the release of the Constant Conversations EP, which was originally only released through Spotify but was then later extended to be available on iTunes as well.