Post 6: My Chosen Track

I first looked chose some prospective tracks for my music video, then narrowed them down to find my chosen track. I then researched my chosen track to understand the background of the song and what condition it was produced in. This helped me to understand and infer the meaning of the song more easily. Watching and analysing various performances allowed me to see what the artist infers most from the song, helping me to take my own individual reading. 

Prospective Tracks Ideas

I had six other prospective tracks for my music video. These were all specially chosen based on a certain criteria. All the songs had to be within the pop genre, so I chose songs that were as close to pure pop as possible, sifting through various chart hits and recognisable songs fitting this brief. I also wanted the voice to be believable to my own in order to create a realistic and authentic music video and performance bed. This meant the song had to be sung by a female in her early to mid-twenties in order for it to look and sound believable to my own voice. The song needed to be appropriate for an audience as young as 16, meaning it had to be clean and have minimal references to illegal and explicit activity. These requirements left me with the following songs to consider for my chosen song.

It's Not U, It's Me - Bea Miller

IDGAF - Dua Lipa

Sleep Talking - Charlotte Lawrence

Meant to Be - Bebe Rexha

Ain't My Fault - Zara Larsson

Ruin My Life - Zara Larsson

I listened to all the songs, thinking about potential inferences of the lyrics and angles I could take with my own music video in terms of the message and meaning of the song. I immediately rejected 'Meant to Be' and 'It's Not u it's Me' as they are both duets with a man. As I am the performer and sole artist within my brand, it would confuse my brand identity to release my debut single as a duet with another artist. From there, I rejected 'Sleep Talking' as the song was not upbeat enough for my liking and also had very limited scope for multiple interpretations.

My final song choice was 'Sweet But Psycho' by Ava Max due to its chart success as a pop song; suitability to my brand identity and to the brief of the task; and because the song has room for multiple interpretations and to portray polar opposite sides of my artist to create an engaging, entertaining and fun video. 'Sweet But Psycho' is a diverse song that really allowed me to explore my artist through challenging presentations of women in society while remaining a fun song that is catchy and iconically within the pop genre.

Investigating my Chosen Track

My Interpretation of the Song

After deciding my chosen song, I printed out the lyrics for 'Sweet But Psycho' and began to annotate the lyrics for any possible interpretations and themes of the song. This really helped me to find the core of the song and really understand what story it's trying to tell. 

My interpretation of the song is that this is a story of a very manipulative woman, who is aware of her power over men and likes being in charge and exercising power and control over others. The lyrics are paradoxical throughout, with contrasting words thrown together like "sweet but a psycho", "curse but she a blessing" and "poison but tasty". I really want to convey this duality and complex nature of the protagonist in my own video.

Existing Music Videos and Live Performances

This research was beneficial to me as it allowed me to pick a suitable song that adhered to the brief and also represented my artist and allowed me to form an interesting and authentic brand identity that fits in with the pop music genre. My research has also allowed me to more fully understand the meaning of the song and pick out multiple interpretations, through looking at existing readings and also interpreting the song myself in a new and individual way. This has allowed me to really connect with my song, helping me to understand which aspects and themes I would like to pull out in my own music video to show the audience my intended reading and interpretation of the song.

My sources for this post are:
- Wikipedia 
-YouTube
- Spotify
- Google Images