Genre

Definition

Simply speaking, genre is just a style or category that a media product is classed under. When looking specifically at music, it is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions.

Indie Rock

Indie rock is a sub-genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom during the 1980s. It began as a very diverse genre, with many different styles incorporated within it. Some examples of early sub-genres are indie pop, jangle pop, and lo-fi. Some prominent indie rock record labels  were also founded during this period, though by the 1990s the term was used to describe bands that retained their independent status. In the early 2000s, bands that played a stripped-down and back-to-basics version of guitar rock such as The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives and The Vines broke through into the mainstream.

As profit isn't as much of a concern as personal taste for some indie rock bands, the sounds, emotions, and lyrical subjects of indie rock music don't tend to appeal to large, mainstream audiences, with influences varying from punk and post-punk to psychedelia and country. In terms of musical style, indie rock includes a number of varying musical approaches which are not always compatible with mainstream tastes, although artists tend to be linked by a mindset more than a musical approach. The indie rock movement encompassed a wide range of styles, from hard-edged, grunge-influenced bands, through to DIY experimental bands like Pavement, to punk-folk singers such as Ani DiFranco.

Arcade Fire are a modern day example of an indie rock band. Their website and album artwork consist of quite irregular imagery and themes, thus conforming to the convention of not conforming to mainstream tastes. The Airborne Toxic Event are another example, and, similarly to the latter, have some unusual images on their website and album covers.

The typical target audience for this type of music is both males and females (possibly slightly more male orientated) between the ages of 16-25. The ethnicity is predominately white British, though this does not mean that people from other ethnicities do not listen to it. The majority of the audience will probably be classed no higher than C2 on the socio-economic scale, as they are either students or earning a wage of around £21,000 a year. Judging by this, the typical psychographic for indie rock music is as follows:

• Student
• Enjoy spending time with friends and going to gigs.
• Consider music to be a large part of their life and listen to it frequently.
• Likely to play an instrument (i.e. guitar, drums, bass, et cetera).
• Wear fashionable clothing purchased from popular chain shops.

The main focus of an indie rock promo is typically image, as is the case with most music promos. There tends to be a theme running through the video that has synergetic links to the band image as a whole. The video would normally tend to be mainly performance based with perhaps a small, meaningful and true to life narrative. As most indie bands are independent, they portray themselves as themselves rather than a product, as is the case with most pop promos.

Mise-en-Scene - Props used to add meaning and tell a story.
                         - Lighting and colours represent the mood and tone of the song.

Editing - Cinematic effects and filters are often used to give the promo more a short film feel.
             - Changes in the speed and tempo can be used, sometimes symbolising time running out.

Camera - Close ups and extreme close ups often feature to show the artists or actors emotion, as well as the instruments.
             - Establishing shots are also used to show the whole band and their performance.