Star Image/ Music Video

Chris Brown, is an American R&B singer, songwriter, dance and actor. He was born on May 5th 1989, in the small town of Tappahannockwas, Virginia.
Introduction into the music industry:
He came into the music industry at the age of 16, making his recording debut in late 2005 with his self-titled ablum 'Chris Brown'. The albumed featured the hit single 'Run It!', which had climbed the billboard hot 100, making Brown the first male artist as a lead to have made his debut single top of the chart since Puffy Daddy, 1997. This had become a big success for a young artist, which helped Chris build a massive sense of confidence and courage to make more singles for the industry. Most of the songs produced by him were aimed at young or teenage audience. For example; 'Yo(Excuse Me Miss)' was the second single on the album 'Chris Brown' which had reached 2nd on the billboard hot 100. The music video illistrates Chris running after a young-glamorous girl, he trys to get her attention by showing some dance moves. This catchy song, had promoted his album and himself to the wide world with now a fan base of around 35 million.
Awards

Awards and nominations Award Wins Nominations American Music Awards 3 7 BET Awards 8 6 BET Hip Hop Awards 0 2 Billboard Music Awards 3 3 Grammy Awards 0 8 MOBO Awards 2 4 MTV Video Music Awards 2 14 MuchMusic Video Awards 0 1 NAACP Image Awards 2 4 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards 2 3 People's Choice Awards 0 4 Soul Train Music Awards 1 3 Teen Choice Awards 7 20 World Music Awards 1 2 BET Pre-Awards 1 1 Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Awards 0 3 International Dance Music Awards 0 1 MTV Movie Awards 0 1 Ozone Awards 1 2 TRL Awards 1 1
Totals
Awards won	39
Nominations	86

Star Image & Domestic Violence Case

Image and presentation is essential for music artist and Chris Brown no different. He Chris Brown style is famous all over the world. There are a number of people in the world who try to imitate the Chris Brown style. However in the year 2009, he got into some kind of trouble with girlfriend, Rihanna.A Domestic Violence was put on Chris Brown, And was guilty to attacking Rhianna. Nevertheless, he had to pay for the consequences with community service and a restriction order. His singing career and popularity also got affected due this trouble which resulted to fans being against their favourite artist and losing a huge fan base. Apart from producing some of the best single tracks some of his duet songs with the other singers gained huge popularity. He had brought out the album 'Graffiti', which was produced in 2008-9. The songs had a significant meaning about the troubled times he had faced over the domestic violence case and had an embed message to Rihanna and his fans. For example; the single on the album 'All Back' speaks about how he wants everything to be back to normal. 'I want it, I want it all back, girl, I want it all'. His other single 'Crawl' which featured on the album shows a representation of Rhianna being played by an actor in the music video.

Album Cover Analysis

Released	10 May 2010[1]
Recorded	2007–2010

I have chosen 'Keane-Night Train' album cover, An EP that I believe it has been constructed in an interesting yet appealing. Although this is album cover is from my favourite band, I don't tend to look at the album cover. Nowadays, the albums being sold on Itunes, the image of the album covers are smaller and less appealing. Keane I have used a variety of powerful covers to draw the attention of their target audience which are young teenage, indie rock stars. The luminous blue and black constrast each other which makes it look bold which follows a render with a light yellow/orange luminous colour for lights. The album name 'Night Train' was chosen as a transitional release, however, Night Train points to an even bigger and brighter future. I believe this is a unique selling point for the artist as this allows them to send a visual and meaningful message to their target audience.

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
BBC Music	Favourable
Entertainment Weekly	B-
NME	3/10
Pitchfork Media	3.0/10
Rolling Stone
Slant Magazine
Q magazine

Country	Sales	Certification
United Kingdom	60,000+	Silver[25]
Worldwide	160,000+

Applying Goodwin Theory to a music video

Goodwins Theory is based upon 8 main principles:

1.The relation between the lyrics and visual content.
2.The relation between music and visuals (Complimentary, Contracting or Amplification)
3.Genre characteristics
4. Intertextual references
5.Notions of looking (Obectification of woman)
6.Voyeurism (Direct gaze, other people looking at artist, insight into artist life screens and mirrors)
7. Demands of the Record Label (Represention of the artist)
8.Performance based, narrative based or concept based music videos.

The music video I have chosen to apply Goodwin to is:

Rizzle Kicks - Miss Cigarette 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA_tBIOt8MY&feature=relmfu

Lyics, Music & Visual Content

Goodwin suggest lyrics will make constant references to visuals on screens. An example of this can be shown in Devlin - Let It Go (ft Labrinth) music video. The lyrics depict a young guy comparing the girl he likes to a cigarette. This is emphasised more in music video,by showing the girl he likes smoking and comparing her to different types of cigarettes. He sings 'Shes bad for me' as in comparison to smoking which is harmful. There is also a visual content of him holding a cigarette pack with the label saying 'smoking kills' whilst singing the lyrics 'bad for me' to show a contrast between the visual content and the lyric.
Genre
The genre is a hip hop and pop rap type of style, this can be shown by the instruments played in the background and the rythm of the lyrics. Rizzle Kick have referred back to the subject of the song with some punchlines and funny visual context. The typical pop rap video would have something out the ordinary with some sort of story which Rizzle Kicks includes in theirs.
Notions of Looking

Notions of looking plays of the idea of gaze and the way someone in particular is seen. For example, in a lot of music videos women are often represented according to Goodwins theory as objects. In the video we can see that the female is depicted as an object and being referred to a cigarette which relates to the title of the song, 'Miss Cigarette'. Her eyes have narrow but demanding look to make it look like a sexual gaze to the audience. Also the way the cigarette is being held shows a sexual intention to which the audience can interpret in many ways.

Goodwins theory on Voyerism

Goodwins theory argues that the female performer will frequenctly be objectified in this fashion often through the contrustion of the camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots which emphasizes  a deep sexual treatement of the star/ act in the music video.  An example of this can be shown in ‘Waka Flaka Flames – No Hands’ video. We can see below in the image that the star ( Waka Flaka Flames) is sitting on the lounge with two attractive woman with champagne classes to show his sexual attraction.

This image presents us a group of girls dancing behind the artist. This supports the idea of  voyeuristic treatement of the female body is open apparent with the use of dancers to reach the demands of flattering the male star’s ego and to show his sexual appeal to the audience. We can also depict in the image that he is pointing back at the women behind him dancing as in a way of boosting to the audience which also shows his attraction.

However some of the males body and other idea’s bring the idea that it becomes more complex when we see the ale body on display and we might raise the question about how the female viewers is invited to respond. Nevertheless, the this music video we are not shown the body of the star but his gold teeth to represent wealth, money and modern terminology ,‘swag’.

 

Equallym more powerful indepent female artist of the recent years from Madonna to artists such as Beyonce, have added to the complexity of the gaze by sexually provocating.