Record Label Research

A record label is a brand that markets music recordings and music videos in order to promote bands signed to the label, and generate profit through the distribution and sale of music through tools such as the internet (music downloads), record stores, radio and television (music video channels). Record labels also manage the copyright of music produced by them and bands signed by them.

After receiving recognition and fame, some artists find that it benefits them financially to release albums and singles without the aid of a record label, Jimmy Eat World being no exception; self-producing their sixth album ‘Chase This Light’ released in October 2007, along with the singles ‘Big Casino’ and ‘Always Be’.

Jimmy Eat World, like many emocore style bands, started out life playing in the indie underground scene in the mid 90’s before being noticed by a talent scout from Capitol Records. Most emocore bands that sign to major labels are seen as ‘sell-outs’ by die hard emocore fans that enjoy the underground scene and abhor the mainstream music culture, style and sound. Jimmy Eat World, however, have found themselves still widely excepted as an emocore band signed to a major label, without being heralded as ‘sell-outs’ or conforming to the traditional mainstream rock band sound. This is somewhat due to the idea of emocore being a very emotional genre, with gripping sound and heartfelt lyrics that are meant to provoke emotion and connect with fans as opposed to just focusing on what will generate a large profit. It would seem apparent that Jimmy Eat World, however, have managed to combine the two by connecting with and relating to what is an ever growing fan base hat they have drawn in.

Jimmy Eat World, like most bands started out releasing singles and EP’s, followed by a full-length album on a small, local, independent label known as ‘Wooden Blue Records’ and will have made the majority of their money through playing their material at live shows in the hope of being noticed. An independent label as one not controlled by a major record label, even if they are part of large conglomerates.

They then signed to major music label Capitol Records, and eventually Interscope Records after Capitol planned to shelf one of their releases. Major record labels are usually very large conglomerate companies within themselves, and may have a parent and sister companies that are also very large organisations. This gives them a massive budget, allowing for them to offer the highest quality recording from world-class recording studios. It also allows them to market their products to huge audiences through various advertisements and promotional material, such as music videos, which can have extensive budgets to make them as aesthetically pleasing as possible, often spending in excess of $100,000. The money spent on a particular artist or band depends hugely on their popularity as record labels are still businesses, and look to maximise their profits were possible.

Jimmy Eat World - Background + Song (Pain)

This is a blog entry about the band we are constructing our music video around, 'Jimmy Eat World'.

Jimmy Eat World are an American Alternative rock band, originating from Mesa, Arizona, formed in 1993. The band lineup is a typical rock setup, being frontman playing rhythm guitar and vocals, lead guitarist (plus backing vocals), bassist (plus backing vocals) and drummer.

The band released two albums through the record label 'Capitol Records', being 'Static Prevails' (On which album the band first started to experiment with emocore) and 'Clarity', within which Jim Adkins took over lead vocals, replacing Tom Linton. On this record label, the band remained on the underground indie scene, attracting attention but still within the alternative music scene.

Jimmy Eat World's main breakthrough was with the album 'Bleed American', on which the band decided to not rely on a record label, supporting itself with touring and by compiling it's previously-released singles on their EP release (singles). This album features a few famous singles such as 'Sweetness', and 'The Middle'. The middle is the band's biggest-selling single yet, reaching #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In 2004, after lengthy touring supporting the album 'Bleed American', the band started to work on a follow-up album. The band also hired a new producer, 'Gil Norton', due to their old producer's ('Trombino'), unavailabilities. The alubm was released titled 'Futures' in October 2004, with 'Pain' as the leading song on the album.

The song 'Pain' off the 'Futures' album is a song about a broken relationship with an ex-girlfriend, and how the narrator is trying to persuade themselves that they are over the breakup, and is either relating the feeling to quitting drugs or actually taking them, emphasising that it 'takes the pain away'. This song we have chosen to do for our sequence, as there are a lot of stylistic themes within it for us to build on. These stylistic themes are mainly features of the 'emo' conventions, which I have referred to and described in a previous post.

Textual Analysis - Time To Waste (Alkaline Trio)

On May 24th, 2005, Alkaline Trio released the album 'Crimson', which featured the single 'Time To Waste'.

The music video represents the band as a band following the 'emo' music conventions, both through their music, as well as their style. It does so in multiple ways, which I will explore further later on in this post. The overview of the music video is that the band all arrive at an abandoned hangar, in which they set up their instruments and play the song, doing so in smart attire with a gothic edge to it.

I have chosen to research this video is that there is not a narrative, and so the whole video is focused around making the band appear as stylistic as possible, and so there are aspects of it that we can bring forward into the making of our own music video.

Here are the lyrics to the song, which I shall be referring to throughout the post.

There's someone down below blowing you a kiss.

They watch from their windows

as all arms fall to their sides,

and all eyes fix on the death of tomorrow.

And you found everything you need

to make a life complete,

completely revolting and they have safety and relief

For sale down the street.

I see you in line every day

You had time to waste and I'm not sorry,

such a basket case, hide the cutlery.

I had time to kill, it's dead and buried.

You've got guts to spill but no one trustworthy.

These creatures are waking up in these dark trees.

Awaiting like vultures.

Eyes roll back turn white in time to feed

They salivate in hunger.

for you, and everything they need

to make a death complete,

completely unnatural and salvation lies

behind those dead eyes that watch you while you sleep every night, and

You had time to waste and I'm not sorry,

such a basket case, hide the cutlery.

I had time to kill, it's dead and buried.

You've got guts to spill but no one trustworthy.

You had time to waste and I'm not sorry,

such a basket case, hide the cutlery.

I had time to kill, it's dead and buried.

You've got guts to spill but no one trustworthy.

The video starts with the three band members arriving at an empty hangar, all in 3 separate black cars. The band are smartly dressed, wearing smart attire with a dark theme (black shirts, dark suits etc). The camera shots as they're arriving at all smooth panning dolly and tripod shots, inferring the sincerity of the occasion. As they arrive, people are setting up the instruments and equipment, and the band walk in a line towards all the gear. They put on their instruments and are poised to start the song, and as the main riff of the song comes in bright lights come on and they thrash around, playing the song. In this section of the video, all of the camera shots are handheld, naturally to enhance the energy of the band shots. As the song progresses in to the verse, the music has got quieter and the camera shots follow suit, becoming steadier handheld shots as well as dolly shots. As there are bright lights behind the band, the shots of the singer flare behind him and illuminate the back of his head, a very stylistic shot which is something we would want to imitate, explore and develop in our own media production. An interesting factor to take into consideration with this music video is that the band is facing the entrance to the hangar, and as the camerawork is all inside the hangar the entrance is over exposed and appears on screen as bright white, representing the band almost facing the unknown, reflected in the lyrics: "and all eyes fixed, on the death of tomorrow".

The band shots like this continue for the majority of the song, with mostly dolly and handheld shots, revolving around the band and looking at them from different angles, both with the flare of the bright lights behind as well as the overexposure from the entrance to the hangar. In the middle of the song, the hangar doors close and the lights get brighter inside.

In the bridge of the song as all the instruments cut out to just the piano heard in the intro, all of the lights go off in the hangar, shown in a tripod shot facing lengthways down the hangar, representing almost a CCTV like bit of footage, perhaps introducing a theme that what they are doing is illegal, that they shouldn't be in the hangar. The action of the shots slows down to very slowmoving handheld shots. In this bridge, there are bursts of all the instruments to break up the piano, and in these a bright white strobe like light illuminates the whole hangar as well as the band, and this is effective as a huge curtain is falling down behind the band, and with the strobe is appears to be falling down in a stop-frame fashion. This is a great, stylistic and haunting image, but something we would not be able to include or reflect somehow due to our budget.

The band then proceed to play the last chorus, illuminated by these flashing lights, with even more energy than before, and this enhances the progression in the video. The music ends on a sudden note, and the video fades out to black, on a shot of the whole band.

Overall I think this music video is mediocre, but this is from the perspective that it does not include any form of narrative, and so is not very interesting to watch. Despite this, the band shots are very nicely filmed and are very stylistic, with great and relevant mise-en-scene. These elements I would like to carry forward and explore in the making of our music video, except making it our own by adding a narrative.

The 'Emo' genre conventions

The song that we our building our video around for our A2 coursework, 'Pain' by 'Jimmy Eat World', is generally regarded as an example of the 'Emo' genre. To create a stylistic video playing on this theme, we have decided to research the conventions so we can easily express them during production.

The term 'emo' was first coined in the mid 1980's, during the hardcore punk movement in Washington DC. This minor, lamenting form of punk music was originally described as 'emotional hardcore', and later 'emocore'. This movement was pioneered by bands such as 'Embrace' and 'Rites of Spring', and grew very rapidly in popularity, and as other bands sprung up playing this style, it changed and developed over the years.

'Emocore' only really became mainstream in the early 2000's, with bands such as 'Dashboard Confessional', as well as 'Jimmy Eat World' themselves.

As the musical genre has developed over time, it has grown an associated fashion, being based around skinny-fit jeans, studded belts, dark colours as well as the hairstyles, often dark with a side swept fringe. This fashion is based around the ideas of negative emotions, of remorse and lamentation.

Jimmy Eat World is a perfect example of the emo genre, being one of the bands that brought it to mainstream music culture. Their appearance as well as their music reflects the genre, with many band shoots emphasising dark colours and a 'washed out' look. An example of this is their 'Futures' album cover (album featuring 'Pain'), which features a man in a hoody, standing and staring at a broken bus shelter.

Textual Analysis - Thnks Fr Th Mmrs (Fall Out Boy)

I decided to conduct research on Fall Out Boy's 'Thnks Fr Th Mmrs' as this band is a similar genre (emocore) to Jimmy Eat World. The two bands share several similarities, namely their lineup (4 male members), target audience (14-20 year olds), and the ideas they play around with through their songs.

The video on the surface is a romcom/emo style video about Fall Out Boy trying to film the video itself, directed and filmed by a crew of chimpanzees. The video starts in a dark hall, and when the band start playing they are stopped by the 'director' chimpanzee. The video progresses through various humorous scenarios involving the chimpanzees, and also a scene in which the bassist, Pete Wentz, kisses Kim Kardashian.

Through different cinematographic techniques, the video achieves various enhanced effects:

Camerawork: In the intro, the camera is on tracks to get smooth shots panning forward, to enhance the elegant feel of this scene. The lighting in this section is also dark with light only focusing on the band members (which adds to the emo style), and the main light comes on when the chimpanzee shouts 'cut' to intensify the comedic anti-climax. The shots are also smooth rising and panning shots at the end, apart from when Pete loses his temper with the chimpanzees and starts smashing the equipment, at which stage the camerawork is very jerky to intensify the chaotic feel.

Mise-En-Scene: Throughout the video, the band members are dressed in suits, due to the elegant feel that the chimpanzees are aiming for with their filming. They also wear these 'offset' in the video. Props and scenery include the chimpanzee offset buffet (consisting mostly of bananas) to add to the comedy, and also the big 'FOB' letters on stage at the end which add to the show-like feel of the video.

This video works effectively for it's romcom purpose, and is also relevant to the target audience. It does this by adopting the sort of humour which teenagers generally find funny, as well as playing on the public's views of Pete Wentz.

Though the video is fit for it's purpose, the only elements that I would want to carry from it are the stylistic effects, namely the 'emo' feel aswell as the elegant cinematography and mise-en-scene adopted in the opening scene.

Blog Introduction

This is a blog that we (Simeon Lees and Will North) are going to use as an outlet to display our research, ideas, planning and development as we strive to create and refine a finished music video, and ancillary tasks (digipak cover and magazine advertisement).

We have decided to form the music video around the song 'Pain' By 'Jimmy Eat World'. Our reasoning for this is that 'Pain' is a very stylistic song, true to the 'emo' genre of the band. This genre bears it's own fashions which are a great and versatile base on which to build and expand our own ideas, with which we can complete the project with a successful, stylistic video.