Blog 14: Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

  Michael Jackson had a 44 year career as a popstar and first appeared as a member of the Jackson 5 at the age of 6 and he went on to be an all-round popstar in terms of entertainment and his voice. He was the lead singer of the Jackson 5 from a very young age and he was seen as a cute, young talent. They were managed by their dad and they were hugely successful. Their songs included Rockin' Robin, ABC, and later on Blame it on the Boogie.
  In his solo career, Michael Jackson began with the album Off the Wall and went on to make many more albums over the course of his life, with the hit Thriller arguably his most famous and the most successful album of the 20th century. This made was originally a 14 minute video that was shown in cinemas worldwide and was like a short-film with the 4 minute song in the middle of it. Vincent Price, a well known horror movie actor provided the voice over in an attempt to make the film more scary. There is a famously choreographed scene in the film and with Michael Jackson wearing his famous red leather jacket that is now remembered worldwide. It brought music videos to the next level in terms of how important they were to create or further enhance an artists image.
  The album Thriller is widely regarded as one of the most successful albums of the 20th century. After having released the album, Michael Jackson hit the headlines for many of the wrong reasons. There were rumours of him having a skin disease known as Vitiligo which made his dark skin colour turn white. However, after a short while without a song of his having been released, he returned on September 7th 1987 with the chart-topping single Bad. This was such big news to Michael Jackson fans, that the BBC even televised the release of his single at midnight. Many people stayed up to see his new look and hear his latest song. He was back with a bang and made headlines for all the right reasons. However, after the album Bad was released, he was once again on the spotlight, but this time, it was due to some serious allegations.
  In 1993, Evan Chandler accused Michael Jackson of sexually abusing his 13 year old son Jordan Chandler. It was soon found that Michael Jackson had children visit his private theme park "Neverland" and played with them before sometimes asking the children to stay in his bed for a sleepover. This obviously raised questions due to the suspicious nature of the situation, with Jackson being a grown man and Jordan Chandler being a young boy who had just entered his teenage years. 

Blog 7 Brand Identity/Spice Girls

Spice Girls 

 During the mid 1990's, a family management team consisting of Bob Herbert, Chris Herbert, and Lindsey Casbon decided that they should create a girl group that could rightly compete with the boy bands that had previously dominated the pop music of the 1990's. February 1994 saw an advertisement placed in The Stage trade magazine by Heart Management and it read "WANTED: R.U. 18-23 with the ability sing/dance? R.U. streetwise, outgoing, ambitious, and dedicated?" This was the advertisement that sparked life into 5 girls who would go on to become arguably the most successful girl group of the last 30 years. 

 The Spice Girls were promptly formed and moulded into pop stars. Their clothes were chosen very carefully before they first appeared on American TV. Victoria appeared with a sophisticated slinky black number, Emma in a baby-pink dress, Mel B in her leopard-skin trousers, Geri in red hot pants, a top and bra, and Mel C in her favourite Liverpool shirt and tracksuit bottoms. 

 Although The Spice Girls were sold to us as a group of good friends having a laugh together and making top-selling singles together, they were in fact strangers and a very carefully selected group of girls who were seen as unique and had been the fortunate few to make it after a number of auditions where hundreds of girls were sent home disappointed. They had a number of companies hoping for an appearance on their TV adverts and Pepsi and Polaroid had the girls advertising their products. Also, there were Barbie-esque dolls made in the style of each of The Spice Girls in terms of the fashion and looks of each of the band members. Everything about the group was under the control of men or corporations even the names they were given (sporty, scary, posh, baby, and ginger). According to "Ginger Spice", she almost didn't make it into the group as she looked too old. She reportedly said "I'm as old as you want me to be. I'll be 10 with big boobs if you want."

 Artists are often sold as a brand and the music video acts as a product of the band, in the hope that the audience will be inspired to "buy into the band" and occasionally artists feel that the image is of the most importance as opposed to the quality of the product. The Spice Girls are a very good example of this. Other times it is the meaning of the song that is sold and the image of the artist is not important to them. For example,

Blog 13: Sexism in Pop Videos

Sexism in Pop Videos

 Laura Mulvey's theory can be applied to pop videos, where there are many examples of sexism, with recent examples including Nicki Minaj's Anaconda, Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea's song Booty, and Robin Thickes hugely controversial song Blurred Lines where there were two videos with fully clothed women and one with explicit content.

 Not only was this a controversial song because of the nudity, but also the way that the girls danced around or more paraded around with the three men staring at them in a lustful way as if they were pieces of meat.
 The video to the song Anaconda is also incredibly explicit and has received many reviews, positive and negative. The incredibly controversial video is just a video with women shaking their bums and dancing about wearing very little. Not only was the graphical content deemed explicit for audiences, but the lyrics are only about having a big behind. The song has very little purpose, other than gaining male attention and money. It is not a good enough song to win awards or to even be nominated, but it attracts a lot of attention, due to its explicit nature.
 There is a song that Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea sung together called Booty where the whole video is just backside rubbing up against each other and water running down women's bodies while they are wearing lycra swimsuits.
 In almost every music video where the song is written by a modern day artist, it is almost definitely going to be a sexist video.