Taylor Swift : 'Shake It Off '
Music in the pop genre doesn't have as rigid genre expectations as others such as heavy metal. Pop is a much more fluid genre and can use aspects from a variety of other genres. It often reflects the zeitgeist such as individuality.
Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off' is from the genre of pop. The song follows the conventional verse-chorus-verse structure of a pop song. It also features the repetitive phrase of 'Shake It Off' which is catchy and therefore often remains stuck in the audience's mind. The music video was directed by Mark Romanek and filmed in Los Angeles in June 2014 over three days.
The mise-en-scene of the music video is very varied which goes against the typical conventions of the pop genre. Hartley argues that genres 'limit the meaning of a given text' and limit creativity but Swift has the intertextual references of other genres in her video including hip-hop, lyrical, ballet and jazz. This indicates that she is not limited or constrained by her genre.
Fiske says that genre conventions 'embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in which they are popular' meaning that the genre and the lyrics indicate the zeitgeist of the time. Swift's lyrics are about being yourself and not letting other people bring you down with their snide comments, which indeed represents the zeitgeist of people being who they want to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment