Research into Target Audience

Genre's Audience

The genre for our music video (Tonight I let You Go by The colours) is Pop/Alternative/Dance. The audience for these genres are similar in some ways -  for example, the age groups that mainly consume these types of music are quite similar.

Pop

The main audience of pop music is the mainstream audience of 16-25 year olds. There is commonly a voyeuristic representation of women in this genre, as they often wear revealing costumes - for example, look at the images of Britney Spears and Rihanna above. The representation of males in this genre is quite diverse, as it can be quite casual (e.g. the t-shirt and jeans of One Direction above) or quite formal and stylish (e.g. the formal hat and suit of Bruno Mars above).

Pop (coming from the word "popular") music originated in the form we now know in the 1950's when it was derived from rock and roll music. Pop music can be quite varied, as it often takes parts of other genres into its songs. However, there are some core features that define pop music:

-Short to medium length songs
-Basic writing format - usually the verse-chorus structure
-Repeated choruses
-Melodic tunes
-Catchy "hooks"

Alternative

Alternative music is also known as alternative rock (or alt rock) and is a genre of rock music that came from independent music in the 1980s and became popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock is a type of music that differs greatly from other genres in terms of its sound, social context and regional roots. It became more popular by the end of the 1980s due to publicity mainly through magazines, college radio airplay and word of mouth. Once the diversity of alternative rock music had been publicised, many new genres within the genre were born, including gothic rock, industrial rock and noise pop.

Before Nirvana and the grunge and Britpop movements that made alternative music much more popular in the 1990s, alternative musicians were mainly signed by independent record labels and rarely received much attention form the mainstream audience compared to the other genres of pop and rock music that were popular at the time.

Fans of alternative music can be any age - it is quite a niche genre so people in their twenties, who have passed the mainstream pop/rock music stage, are probably the main audience. These fans are probably quite unique and independent in terms of there style, just like the alternative musicians.

Dance

Dance music is primarily trying to cause or supplement dancing. It can be part of a large musical arrangement or played on its own. The main categories of dance music are live and recorded dance music.

The origins of dance music are in old folk dancing and communal dance music, for example the kind played at old square dances in the USA. The origins of Brazilian dance music are in things such as Samba, contrastingly.

Dance music fans nowadays are usually relatively young - 18-25 years olds. These fans are the kinds of people who would regularly go to nightclubs or gigs - e.g. for Skrillex, pictured above. These nightclubs are usually pictured with strobe lights and quite intense performances. The fans of dance music are often thought of as wearing modern, trendy clothes that fit in with their nightclub environment.

Lyrics

The lyrics of our song basically tell a story of a person wanting something, reflecting on it, and then letting it go, as you can see in these lyrics from the start and end of our selected song:

First verse:

Your empty promises
Stop filling up my mind while my loves' away
Temptation calls me
To this and loveless fools believe
Their guilty hearts still bleed
But their cold lifeless heart beats wear them out

Last verse:

You know I want to be on my own tonight
I just keep on running
You know I want to be on my own tonight
Tonight I let you go

Tonight I let you go

Tonight I let you go

As you can see, there is a progression of emotions that is evident in these lyrics. This progression is the kind of thing commonly seen in pop music - a story is often told in pop songs. This shows that our lyrics could appeal to the pop music - the emotional lyrics such as "Their guilty hearts still bleed" also appeal to the partly teenage age demographic the pop genre targets. These people are often evolving emotionally as a person so these kinds of lyrics could make the song appeal more to them.