Genre Case Study

Genre

The genre of indie folk tends to refer to music produced independently and features melodic verses and 'laid-back' choruses. Indie folk - and its sub-genres - can be identified by its noticeable hybrid of traditional folk music and instruments with more contemporary sounds. While our chosen song contains some elements of indie-pop, it can be best categorised with indie folk among artists such as Ben Howard, Damien Rice and Beth Orton.

Many music videos within the indie folk genre are performance videos, featuring the artist singing to the camera (and may be playing an instrument - usually a guitar). To make our video as conventional as possible, we will likely try to follow these typical features. This is important because, according to Christine Gledhill, 'Genres permit the creation and maintenance of a loyal audience which becomes used to seeing programmes within a genre'. This means that straying too far from convention would be unpopular amongst the indie-folk fanbase.

All genres within the music industry - not just indie folk - use shared characteristics. Gledhill claims that this is so that audiences "can rely on [them] already having knowledge and expectations about the works within a genre." This is achieved through grouping similar sounds and music cultures together so that people can identify more easily with groups and music they like.

This concept links into the creation of music videos as well as the music itself. Because our song is in the indie folk genre, our video will not use characteristics such as satanic imagery and strobe lighting which is commonly found in music videos for death metal (and some other sub-genres of metal and hard rock). As seen in the screenshots above, all from different music videos in the indie folk genre, a convention of indie folk is close-up shots of the artist performing their music. This is a decision made to increase the recognition of the artist so that audiences can better identify them with their music.

However, this does not mean that our music video has to strictly stick to convention. As stated by Nicholas Abercrombie, “The boundaries between genres are shifting and becoming more permeable”. This means that, unlike the past where conventions within music would not mix with contrasting genres, we are becoming more accepting of the merging of different genres and sub genres. For example, in our music video we could use elements of concept imagery which is a convention of experimental/electronic music mixed with the narrative and performance aspects of indie folk.