Genre-Pop Punk

 

Genre is a denomination that something falls into in its field judged on its content and form as well as what its conventions fall into as well.

 

Pop Punk is a musical genre which contains pop rock and standard pop music to a varying degree, it originates in many different countries from the 1970s. However, some bands have included elements from more hardcore punk genres and included it in their music. This makes for varying sounds that can change by band or even by each individual songs as it is a constantly changing genre.

 

The lyrical themes do not particularly fit to one subject, but a lot of songs are based around modern occurrences and love. However, saying this, some bands also include psychological  themes in their music such as confusion and interesting subjects about decision.

 

The sound of pop punk once again, varies by the band. The vocals are either done by male or female or the occasional mix of both. The genre also has conventions of “poppy” vocals and choruses. However, some bands such as Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! Come under pop punk but include screaming in their music from hardcore punk and metal. The instruments usually consist of 1 or 2 guitars, lead and rhythm if 2 are used but otherwise just lead, drums and a bass guitar. The tuning of the guitar is often, if not always, up tuned to provide a lighter feel to the music.

This is All Time Low, a pop punk band from Baltimore, Maryland, USA. As we can see, they wear “normal” clothes that we would see in the streets everyday on people of their age, this allows them to be recognised and familiarised with the audience. So this represents them as normal people that we can all relate to, the bands in the genre are also mainly down-to-earth people who are usually normal and not considered bad people by the press.

This band is Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! Who come from Paris, they emerged from more of the punk side of pop punk but are still represented in the same way that All Time Low are, normal and down to earth, this is once shown again by their clothing.

 

The ideology to artists in this genre are friendships, relationships and life in general as often related to in their music, Many bands also write a song about their origins and where they come from to get the audience to know a little more about them as well as showing their love for their families and homes.

 

The target audience for pop punk is teenagers, male and female. This is because the poppy themes and songs are not hard on the ear for standard pop fans but also not too light for rock fans as well as the themes of the songs relating to the audience and teenage themes. Their target audience is of varying demographics as they do not particularly aim at one in particular. The class they would be seen to look at is middle and working as it is not a “posh” style of music.

 

We Are The In Crowd- Rumour Mill

This is a conventional shot from the pop punk genre of music promos as it is a long shot of the band, this is very common in this genre as more or less every band who create a pop punk promo use long shots of themselves. The camera is also constantly moving which gives us a feeling of pace and speed to the music whilst also making it feel more fun and energetic, like the music itself, as well as being up beat and lifting. The camera usually alternates between long and mid shots of the band and keeps up with the pace of the music and alternates to different instruments when they are the dominant one in use.

 

Long shot of the band

The editing of this music video is also very fast paced, especially when the song kicks into a faster beat and during the opening. This, similar to the camera movement, increases the speed if the music promo. The transitions used are standard straight cuts, This is because it is a fast, simple transition with multiple uses and keeps up with the music. However, focus pull edits are used in the promo to change the main focus of the shot to different parts.

 

 

From this shot, the editing cuts into 3 more very, very quickly.

 

 

The mise-en-scene of the promo is one that the target audience of teenagers can relate to as the setting is a standard town and many of the audience will live in one. The costume of the band members are also very stereotypical of the age group as well as the target audience, this will help with the band appearing normal to the audience as they do not wear upper class clothing.

 

 

 

 

Here, we can see the singer/ guitarist is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, this is very stereotypical of the target audience and age group.

 

 

 A tracking shot of one of the members in the narrative showing a normal, town set, mise-en-scene.

There is a joint narrative and performance in this promo, both of which, use members of the band. Some of the images set in the narrative are also rather humorous so provide entertainment. However, performance nor narrative is taken over the other, leading to a very split narrative and performance, they also do not relate to each other or come together.