R+P Post 16: My Band or Artist

Our indie pop artist is a band called The Acrylics, made up of lead singer Casey Tyler, her brother Hugh Tyler on guitar, and their close friends Guy Chapman and Terence Kitchener on drums and keyboard respectively.

Casey is the most important member of the band, being the lead singer and "face" of the group, and thus she has the biggest public-facing personality. She is a young woman, university age, and while she has had some boyfriends in the past, she recently came out as a lesbian, and thus is a staunch supporter of LGBT causes. She is upbeat and quirky, and has a good relationship with all the other band members, and loves performing with them all. However, her best relationship is with her brother Hugh, who is a similar age. He is a bit more mature than Casey, and generally acts a bit "cooler," but he still loves to mess around with his sister and bandmates while performing, and is a good showman. Guy Chapman is a childhood friend of the siblings, who is often considered the cheeky one (although Casey still has a generally bigger personality when it comes to this,) but while performing he is quieter and he likes to get lost in the music. Terence is the oldest and most mature of the band, and considers himself "too cool for school," but nevertheless he still enjoys performing with his bandmates.

The band as a whole generally subscribes to the conventional hipster indie style, albeit with an emphasis on pastel colours- while pastel colours are also conventional, they are sometimes dropped in favour of brighter or more subdued colours. They try to look stylish while remaining informal, by using formal clothes such as jackets and shirts and wearing them casually, and they often wear matching clothes. Hats, skirts, jewellery, and quite a lot of denim are some more of their preferred fashion choices. This casual yet smart design aesthetic also extend to their performance and poses for promo shots and so on- they like to pose dramatically and perform quirky gestures to show off their fashion and style, but in a less serious and formal manner than some artists.

As mentioned previously on this blog, Echosmith has been an inspiration. They have the same line-up as our band in terms of gender and number, and a very similar style of casually wearing smart or formal clothing, often with pastel colours as opposed to very bright ones. The lead singer, Sydney, particularly inspired us as she is the face of the band with the biggest personality and most prominent position in the band's videos and promotional images. Click to enlarge.

A promotional shot of the band Sheppard. They are another indie pop band who influenced our band, as they share the bright pastel colour scheme and interesting clothing, including denim jackets, hats, patterned clothes, hats, and more. They also influenced our band's personalities- as you can see, they are all very friendly and have good chemistry, playfully leaning into the camera while they laugh and put their arms around one another. Click to enlarge.

Paperdoll, another influential band with a similar line-up to our band. They have a similar clothing style to what we are planning, and a similar but slightly more subdued colour scheme. We like how they look cool but casual, with the lead singer putting her arm behind her back, and one of the guitarists putting his thumb in his pocket, and we seek to emulate this to some degree. Click to enlarge.

When planning and constructing our band, we also looked to media theory to help us. The ideas of David Gauntlett were of particular help- as our audience research and knowledge of audience theory pointed us towards creating a relatable and aspirational lead singer, to help gratify our target audience, we decided to look at his ideas on role models and identity. He says identity is fluid, and role models serve as navigation points to guide people in steering their ever-changing identity. Casey herself has a fluid personality, as more and more about her is revealed as you watch the video, see her on the website, and read her social media. She provides a role model for our target audience, many of whom are in their teens- they see a successful female fighting for LGBT rights, and thus she creates aspiration, especially amongst female and LGBT audience members. Following this same route, we looked at Richard Dyer's 'star' theory. It claims there is a difference between a performer and a star, in that the star has a public-facing image constructed through what is essentially a marketing campaign with them at the centre. All of Casey's clothing, gestures, social media posts and so on build her up as a star as well as a role model. People agree with her ideals and opinions and thus like her more. Her real personality becomes larger than life through all this, and makes people want to buy the products associated with her as well as simply aspire to be like her- this allows the label to sell music and merchandise through her, which is necessary for our band to be successful.

Overall we have planned the band with Casey as the figurehead, with an associated aesthetic, set of ideals, and so on tailored to the target audience, that all make the target audience like them more.