The Killers have been going since 2001 and originated Las Vegas, Nevada. Their style of music is portrayed by the image that they present. They're a rock band and classified under alternative rock. Most altertnative rock bands are male and include 3 or more members.
Most bands in music videos and photo shoot put a lot of emphasis on guitars as this is a big symbol for rock and also can represent masculinity depending on the colour of the guitar normally black, blue or red. Bands like The Killers tend to wear a lot of dark colours like black and shades of blue which represent the style of music as powerful perhaps. Bands also wear jeans and hoodies a lot in the recent generation of alternative rock, however this style has more impact on punk and skater music styles.The Killers are more of a mature band than those wear hoodies and jeans however as this normally appeals to more teenage bands. The Killers are normally seen in a smart/casual style. I have concluded from this that the band shown in my video. Whilst differientiating from The Killers smart style slightly as a more undergroundy and teenage style, should carry on with the alternative rock style and wear clothes such as jeans, hoodies and dark colours.
What is Indie/Alternative Rock? Indie/ Alternative rock is a genre which comes off one of the Rock genre branches. The genre consists of Rock mixed with a slight bit of pop culture, making it alternative. It's popularity has grown over the years.Lyrics of this genre tend to address topics of social concern, such as drug use, depression, and environmentalism. History of Alternative/Indie Rock Indie Rock (A shorter version for independent rock) is continuously growing. There is also an Indie Chart amongst the UK charts. Indie Rock originated in the 1980s in the USA and UK. In the UK bands such as the Smiths, My Bloody Valentine and The Cure started to influence the indie rock scene which is also be known as a alternative rock. With the growing increase in interest for Indie rock many record companies set up in America specialising in Indie Rock. In the 1990's punk revival bands such as Greenday and The Offspring became popular with punk revival being a smaller genre inside indie rock. Alternative Rock at the time began to be classified as any bands that made it into the mainstream charts and indie rock referred to bands that had not made it into mainstream charts.
From 2000 to the present day there have been alternative rock bands such as Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem , Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Franz Ferdinand Kasabian, Bloc Party, Gorillaz and The Killers have all found their way into either The UK and US mainstream charts or both. A suggested reason for the success behind alternative and indie rock bands from the year 2000 is decline in record sales and increased media exposure on viral marketing of Indie bands online.
The audience of Indie Rock When indie rock originated in the 80s it was sometimes known as College rock in the US due to it's links with college radio. With many students in the US listening to these stations they became the primary audience for Indie and Alternative Rock.
Now days the Indie and Alternative rock genre appeals to mainly teenagers and students as well as various groups of people 20 - 30 years old. A large proportion of people born in the decades 80's and 90's. The songs usually relate to teenagers because of the topic of social concern, with teenagers being confused or not knowing what to think of these subjects as they are still young, they find ways to relate to the lyrics.
The Future of Alternative and Indie Rock With the younger generation now taking more of a liking to Rap and RnB. The popularity of Alternative and Indie rock will die down, with the target audience age growing. There will still be the indie rock chart but it may not get as much coverage as the present day. However with the success that indie and alternative rock bands are having in this day and age, may inspire up and coming bands to perform rock music in the future. Also some smaller bands in the alternative rock and indie rock genre may be able to appear to wider audience by posting videos online on sites such as MySpace and Youtube.
The Killers are under the genre of Alternative Rock/ Indie Rock. Typically The Killers made it big in the UK first, then grew internationally famous one of the reasons they made it this big could be their appeal to a wide range of target audience. They are now big around the world however the countries with the biggest audience are notably the UK and US. The majority of the age range of their audience are probably teens to mid 20's which like similar alternative/indie rock artists.
The audience's hobbies may include playing rock music, Guitar Hero, Video games, Sports. The audience consists of mixed sexes, very close to half and half it is hard to tell by the massive size of the target audience.
Many will be likely to attend gigs, concerts and festivals of the same genre. The majority could possibly be fans of other similar artists such as Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes, Coldplay, Muse and The Arctic Monkeys.
Apart from teens, an age that will also be particularly interested are people who were influenced by 80's alternative and electro rock music which The Killers were also influenced by.
The target audience would mainly download albums and songs online due to the introduction of easy and quick access to songs. However older parts of the target audience would go out at physically buy the album over the counter as it is the way of buying music they have grown up with and the traditional way to buy an album, this method of buying music is dying down though due to p2p file sharing and itunes making songs easy and fast to download at a instance rather than going out to find a record shop to buy the CD as a result of this many record stores are disappearing from high streets.
Some of The Killers target audience could be inexperienced bands of Alternative / Indie Rock that have looked at The Killers as inspiration for their own music and how they might inspire to be as big as The Killers.
The Killers have had many videos since their debut album Hot Fuss. The Killers first released the song "Somebody told me" with the music video showing the band playing in an American Desert with a large LED screen behind them flashing and displaying the band's logo. The music video was directed by Brett Simon who is an American short film and music video director. He has worked with rock groups such as Lost Prophets, Rise Against and Queens of the Stone Age in the past. Despite his success "Somebody told me" was his only work with The Killers. The concept of the music video was very similar to New Order's "Crystal" in which features a fictional band at the time called "The Killers" miming the song "Crystal" in front of a large video screen displaying random colours and images. This where the main inspiration for the video came from and where The Killers got their band name.
The start of the video shows the bands silhouettes against a bright, daylight back ground. Then a close up of the drummer with the screen in the background showing the drummer again however in daylight opposed to the darkness of the night that they are playing in. There are also zooming in close ups of the band members against the screen clipped together with a zoom shot of a close up of small lights. As well as a silhouette of a woman infront of the screen displaying The Killers written in pink.Also there is a extreme close up of a red guitar which represents the song as rock early into the video. There then is a lot of establishing shots which pan around the lead singer and the band. There is a collection of two shots in the video as well for example the drummer and bassist. In this shot they have the bassist in the foreground with the drummer behind him and a close up of the bassist Mark Stoermer. Other parts of the video to note is when The Killers name and logo is on the screen in the background it pans out in a 3D effect into the foreground. The end of the video shows an establishing shot which pans down of the band with the night gone and the dawn rising.
Mr.Brightside was the next song to be released in 2004. The song has two versions of music video, the original video shows the band playing on Staten Island New York (this was only shown in the UK), this video was filmed on a low budget before the band was signed up by high ranked record company. They then decided to make an American version music video in November 2004 for Mr.Brightside with a larger budget. This video shows the lead singer Brandon Flowers, Izabella Miko and Eric Roberts as the lead roles of the video taking place in a burlesque show (inspired by the film Moulin Rouge!) directed by British music video director Sophie Muller. Some of the most notable videos she has directed include:
Kings of Leon - Use Somebody, Sex on Fire
No Doubt - Don't Speak
Blur - Song 2, Beetlebum, On your own
Coldplay - In my place
Maroon 5 - She will be loved
Shakira - Hips Don't lie
Mika - Grace Kelly
and many more.
The American version of the video won the "MTV VMA (MTV Music Video awards) Best New Artist in Video award" in 2005 as The Killers had just made it into mainstream music.
The video begins with an establishing shot of The Killers performing on stage which then cuts to another establishing shot of the audience and a close up of a woman (who is the main character in the vide0) with her hand to the side of her bored expressioned face. It also shows a close up man sitting down holding an apple, he is sitting in a single seated, red leather seat and there are none in the establishing shot of the audience this represnts him as the dominant male and shows he has authority and possibly the binary opposite to the lead singer.
After the chorus and various close up and establishing shots of band members and women. It cuts to a midshot of the lead singer and the main female from the beginning looking out from a balcony with fireworks exploding in the foreground, as the female protagonist runs to the main of authority sitting down in a two shot and then a extreme close up of both of their faces.
Towards the end of the video it shows the high authority male (villan) and the lead singer playing checkers which features two extreme close up shots of their faces and a close up of a move on the board which then cuts to a clip of the female character dancing on stage with a smoke effect, followed by a two shot of the males playing and extreme close ups again. Finally capped of with the lead singer Brandon Flower tipping the table over. The video is capped off with close ups of the band and the female character and the lead singer inbetween cuts and finally a long shot of the two sitting down with the lead singer walking away as the screen fades out.
The Killers have been going since 2001 and originated Las Vegas, Nevada. Their style of music is portrayed by the image that they present. They're a rock band and classified under alternative rock. Most altertnative rock bands are male and include 3 or more members.
In this shot they have the bassist in the foreground with the drummer behind him and a close up of the bassist Mark Stoermer. Other parts of the video to note is when The Killers name and logo is on the screen in the background it pans out in a 3D effect into the foreground. The end of the video shows an establishing shot which pans down of the band with the night gone and the dawn rising.