Reinvented stars - Miss Miller

Michael Jackson

Artists may want to reinvent themselves to change their genre or image, they may have done something bad and then wanted a new representation of themselves to breakaway from a previous representation, sometimes artist reinvent themselves due to growing up and maturity, and therefore to attract a new target audience.
Justin Bieber is an example of a star who has reinvented, the reason for Justin Bieber having to reinvent himself is due to him growing up and maturity. With Justin Bieber's target audience growing up with him the target audience can easily adapt to the reinvented Justin Bieber.

Michael Jackson first began as a very young artist with the jackson five, The song i will be using is 'ABC'. Within this song one of Goodwins theory is clearly identified, this is number seven. Whether the music video is primarily performance based, narrative based or concept based.  In this music video the performance based is clearly shown through the singing and dancing on stage. The purpose of this is to engage to the target audience of the audience as it is interesting to watch the dancing as well as singing. Choreography is used to keep all the jackson five in time dancing and make the music video more memorable, and easy for the target audience to imitate and relate to. This video is conventional to the soul genre because in the soul genre the artist usually try to make it easy for the audience to build a relationship with the artist. Michael Jackson has done that her by performing, singing and dancing.

The genre of Michael Jackson in the music video is soul, and this it is unconventional being performance based as soul genre is stereotypically known for having narrative that the audience can relate to within the music video. Which makes Michael Jackson not very relatable, but then Michael including dancing within the music video makes him more relatable for the audience, so by not including a narrative but by dancing Michael Jackson makes himself unconventional to the genre but still relatable. Additionally through the use of mis en scene, especially the costume, is bright wacky colours this is something the target audience might wear being a young audience. It is conventionally to the genre as soul is something that is about the artists personality's and life and the artist wearing bright, fun colours portrays him as a young friendly individual.

Richard Dyer came up with a theory that the word 'star' refers to the semi mythological set of meanings constructed around music performers in order to seek the performer to a large and loyal audience. He wrote about the role of stars and said they all have common features irrespective of the type of media. He stated a star is an image, not a real person that is constructed out of a range of materials for example advertising. He believed stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meaning. Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent, incomplete and open. Dyer say this because its based upon two key paradoxes.

The first paradox is that the star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer. This is seen in the Jackson five ' ABC ' when you can see Michael as an ordinary brother of five but with an extraordinary talent for dancing and singing which the audience can look up to an idolise.  The music video does show Michael as a product because although he is ordinary he is being used to make a show and be famous.

The second paradox is that the star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer. This could be shown as through the stage performance he is present to the audience because he is putting on a show for them. However Michael is not on he's own therefore the camera is not always on Michael and there are absent parts throughout the music video. Hegemony means that the star image can be used to position the consumer in relation to dominant and influential social values. However because Michael Jackson is young and this music video is targeted towards a young target audience, the music video it doesn't have any influential social values such as drug taking because it wouldn't suit he's target audience. The message and values in this music video are not completely clear as it is just an on stage performance, but i think the main message is to enjoy yourself and be happy.

The second stage is presented in the song 'the way you make me feel'. This music video presents goodwins theory, especially the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals when he is singing "you really turn me on" because the artist is dancing sexually towards the female in the music video. The purpose of this is to help he's audience understand what he is talking about help them understand the emotion he is feeling towards the female in the music video. Due to he's target audience being a similar age him they will have similar emotions towards the opposite sex, and understand the concert of the music video.

This music genre is now R&B for this music video, and is conventional to the genre because it is upbeat happy tune. Additionally it has got performance, narrative and concept in the music video which is conventional to R&B as it is stereotypical to have all three especially performance and narrative which are clearly shown by the artist dancing and singing to the camera, and the narrative of him chasing after a girl, at a young adult age this is commonly seen and understood by the audience the the genre. Throughout the music video the lighting is quite low key which is unconventional of a r&b style genre, because usually the lighting is brighter to show a clear message, but because the message is not for the younger audience to understand, the low key lighting hides and blurs the meaning to the younger audience.
The video represents the artist as trying to grow up and reinvent himself with a new image because he is now on he's own and changed to a different genre. Additionally it is to show how Michael maturity is turning him into a man and is not a young little boy anymore. The artist can be viewed as a product because he is an young man after a girl, which makes both male and female young adults want to buy Michael jackson songs and merchandise, because he has branded himself as an artist who is very relatable to he's target audience.
The target audience for this music video is a similar age to Michael Jackson, which is 17-25. It has changed since he's last video because he has reinvented himself to be able to mature with he's audience. He has decided to do this so he is still relatable to the target audience that he first targeted, as they are growing up with him. The message and values of this music video are for men and women to have fun and be happy.

The third video is the final stage and the stage Michael finished with the music video ' PYT ' the genre of this music video is funk disco. This is music video is very unconventional to goodwins theory as one of goodwins theory demonstrates that the music video must have lots of close ups of the artist, and this music video is more of a slideshow of pictures that the artist has put together to create a story. The purpose of this is to show a timeline showing how far he has come since he's first began he's sining career.

The genre of the music video is funk disco and the music video is unconventional as you would usually expect a disco setting and neon lights, but within this music video the video is very basic and slow changing pictures of Michael, which makes it hard for the audience to be able to dance along to the song, because the are use to re in acting Michael's dance moves. The music video represents the artist as someone who is coming to the end of there career and letting out all their emotion out, after a long time in the press and media. The artist can be viewed as a product in this video because people we want to buy the artist final image of letting go of everything. He is conventional to the genre because in the disco genre the artists let go, and Michael is portraying a not caring about what people think image. Which is important to the audience as the target audience has followed him through he's growing up and maturity and they can understand what he is feeling and going through, by him showing he's timeline it brings back memories for the audience of all the old versions of Michael, as he has reinvented himself three times.

Overall Michael Jackson did reinvent himself three times over he's whole career starting off as a young boy in a band with he's brothers, moving into a young adult and targeting away from the soul genre and into the r&b genre. Finally in he's final few years reinventing himself as an artist into the disco funk genre and physical appearance. I think he has reinvented himself to grow up with he's target audience and make he's videos engaging to them as they have been fans since the very beginning. This research will help me decided on my artist because it will make me look at all their songs they have produced to see if they have changed over time. Furthermore i will look for the messages and concepts they try to portray and i can think about whether i want to portray similar concepts in my music video. I have learnt that you should maintain a target audience and create a music video that is easily relatable for them and you know will suit them.