Are you a Pop Star or a Musician?

This week in class we analyzed 3 songs and talked about how the presentation of the artist and the song its self and how they can differ. a couple of weeks ago we talked about The Temptations and how their colorful hypnotizing music video did not go with their make a difference song. This sparked the question on does an artists appearance matter when they are making music.

Artists are supposed to make music for the purposes of where they want to be in the industry. Some want to be big hit pop stars, while others just want to make music. Making music for a specific reason  or to get a point across takes more time. An artist who does not care about the cause or what they are singing about will show how they're not invested. Being able to write something thats supposed to being social change or cause up roar needs patience. If someone is making music just to become rich and famous, they won't want to take that time to truly get the right point across. They won't want to wait the extra 2 or 3 years to make that one song. However, an artist who is wanting to make music for a change will take their time to get everything out they way they want it.

Now we talk about image. When listening to the songs in class I noticed that 2 out of the 3 songs were very blunt in lyrics but the videos were very calm and powerful. One song we listened to was Tracy Chapman, " Revolution". This song was very blunt in its main topic of people living in poverty. the video struck me because she was so calm with just her voice and guitar; then the camera panned to the thousands of people in the crowd. This showed that Chapman wasn't a performer but just loved making music. I found it powerful that she did not have to do a whole performance to please such a big crowd. I believed this really helped get the lyrics out more because their was no distraction.

We then Listened to " Born in the U.S.A by Bruce Springsteen. We talked about how many Americans brush over the actual lyrics and just go straight to the "Born in the U.S.A" part. In class we watched the music video for this which differed to Chapmans. He had many visuals and the parts where it showed him playing he was very into the song. He was more performing than just standing and playing which is also the difference between the genres of music. However, I believe that having so much going on in the video takes less emphasis on what the song is actually talking about.