Codes and Conventions

Each of the promotional and marketing techniques used by artists in order to distribute their music have various different conventions that link with the genre of the music.

Codes - different signs that create different meanings, e.g. the colour red often codes for danger
Conventions - aspects that are expected within a media text

Both of these aspects are used to enable people to familiarise themselves with different genres in order to separate these genres from one another in order to tell them apart.

Music Videos
Music videos often include various different conventions as a whole, these include:
- Aspects of performance, in which we see the artist or band performing the lyrics towards the camera. In music videos this often involves mime, and it is slightly more typical of bands to include musical instruments such as guitars or drums within their performances.
- Narrative-based performances. These performances fit widely within a storyline, which ultimately links with the lyrics of the song and therefore the story in which it is tyring to portray. We often see narrative within slightly less upbeat songs.
- Cinematography. The camera movements and shots often relate to the genre of the music. For example, slow tempo songs often feature more close-up shots than long shots in order to show emotion within the performers face and allow the audience to see their expression. More upbeat songs feature more long shots than close-up in order to show the artist dancing etc.
-Editing. The editing of music videos is often used in order to reflect the beat of the music. For example, up-beat songs will feature editing within their music videos that includes short, snappy cuts of different shots. Slower songs will feature shots that play for a longer duration.
- The mise-en-scene. Different genres includes very different props, costumes, lighting, sound and colour within their music videos. The hip-hop genre includes typical props that are conventional to this particular type of music, such as cars, girls, and lots of gold, which is also incorporated into the costumes of the artists, who often wear very small, ellaborate outfits within their video in order to represent their confident image. The sound within the hip-hop genre is largely non-diagetic due to them largely being performance based, however in some narrative based videos diagetic sound creeps in through the music in order to emphasise the story line by adding dialogue into the video. Lighting within the hip-hop genre is fairly bright and flashy, whereas in slower, more emotional songs the lighting is slightly dimmer.

Album Covers
General conventions of an album cover include:
- The name of the artist/band in the largest font upon the cover; this is to ensure that the text stands out and to enable potential buyers to instantly recognise who the album belongs to.
- The name of the album. Conventionally, this is usually written in a slightly smaller font than that of the artists name.
- An image of the artist or band. If the album belongs to only one artist then the image is usually a close-up shot of the artists face. This makes the performer the most dominant aspect of the album cover, which allows the audience to recognise who the album belongs to and makes the artist look dominant. Covers for a bands album usually feature a long shot of all the members of the band, with the lead singer standing in the middle of the group.
The images of album covers usally represent the image of the artist. For example, the image includes conventions of the genre that artist belongs to, but also the type of image that they, as individuals, wish to portray.



The above image is a shot of the cover of rihannas fifth album 'Loud'. This image portrays Rihanna's image in that she is a very attractive female who often portrays sexual connotations within her lyrics and her image. We often see Rihanna scantily clad singing songs that have hidden meanings. This album cover portrays this image in many ways. For example, Rihanna's hair and lips are both coloured in deep red. Red often codes for passion and love. Rihanna's lips are also parted slightly within the image, which is often seen as a provacative action, and her eyes are closed to allow us to see her long eyelashes, which emphasise her femininity. We cannot see any clothes within the image, but can instead see the skin of Rihanna's neck and shoulder. Upon her neck, we can also see evidence of a tattoo; an aspect of the hip-hop genre which is often seen to be conventional.




The above image here is of the band The Saturdays, who belong to the Pop genre in terms of their music. The name of the band is written in a large font across the top of the cover, and beneath is the image of the band. The image is shot in black and white, however is edited to show each of the five girls outfits in colour. Bright colours are conventional of the pop genre, and so this image helps to show how they stand out against the crowd.