Looking at an official website: One Direction

When you first go onto the official One Direction website, the first thing you see on their welcome page is their music video. This has been done for promotion; to make people watch the video again, even before they've even gotten onto the site. Below the video on the left you can also see links to Amazon, HMV and iTunes so that people can easily buy the song, and on the right there are icons for Facebook and Twitter so that it is easy to interact and share. This interactivity has been shown throughout the website, as you can see below.



If you navigate through the website, there are buttons to 'like', tweet or comment on any of the stories, filling the purpose of two things: targeting the core audience and gaining publicity. Nowadays, almost every teenager has a Facebook account, and many are starting to get Twitter accounts, especially those who are into music and celebrities. So by adding Facebook and Twitter connections on the website, this is targeting their audience of (pre)teen females by adding something that they are familiar with, and something that they can use for interactivity. If they click on any of the buttons, they can 'share' their information on their accounts, therefore adding publicity by showing the website to their friends (who the majority of should like the band too).
If you scroll down to the bottom of every page they also have the icons for Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, leading to their official pages, allowing people to 'become a fan', 'follow' them or subscribe and watch their videos.
Finally they also have a separate page called 'Newsletter', where fans can easily sign up and recieve emailed newsletters every so often, updating them with all the latest news. News can range from updating fans on when their next single is out, any signings that are coming up, and competitions.

There are quite a lot of competitions that appear every now and then on the website too to get fans involved, for example their European campaign 'Bring 1D To Me.' Here, they allow fans from Sweden, Holland, Germany and Italy to show why they love One Direction; by taking fan photos, creating fan art, and getting as many people to click on the website/tweet about One Direction. From this, again they get publicity as fans are again tweeting/writing on Facebook about the band, and are also getting their friends involved. And by making it a competition where the prize is to meet the boys, there is a huge incentive for fans to get involved.

Apart from interacting via social networking, the website also allows fans to get involved with the band by actually buying their music and merchandise. There are pictures and links showing us where to buy the single on almost every page, and there is also a separate link called 'Shop'. This links you to their other website onedirectionstore, where fans can buy merchandise ranging from posters and calendars to jewellery and apparel.

Early Planning & Research: Inspirational/influential artists and music videos

As mentioned in the previous 'early research & planning' post, as a group, Jess W, Charley and I have decided to do a pop/rock style girlband. We have looked at many different bands, listened to many of the songs and watched their videos, and these are a few which we could look to for inspiration.



4ever - The Veronicas
When we were discussing different song choices and what bands it could be good to cover, The Veronicas were a band that we all had thought of straight away. An iconic sister act, The Veronicas are rocky and edgy yet a little bit sexy too, a look we may decide to do.
This video for 4ever is simple yet quite effective: the two main girls get almost 90% screen time (with the band and the crowd getting the other 10%) and are just shot singing the lyrics straight into the camera, but watching this just makes you want to dance along in the crowd. The main close ups and mid close ups show the girls clearly just singing the lyrics, but we get a lot of information about their artist identity. Firstly we can see that they are sisters, as they look very similar, but we can tell that they have two different identities as one is blonde and the other has black hair. This contrasts to their previous music and videos where they both had black hair and looked identical.
The styling in this video is rocky with a touch of glamour with the black leather jackets, leopard print cardigans, black lace tops, black shorts and then sparkly chunky necklaces. Their make up also reflects this glam rock look with the dark black thick eyeliner and eyeshadow and bright red lips, making the girls stand out from all the people in the crowd. This is a look we think could work really well for our band, so looking at The Veronicas for inspiration for styling could be key.



Secret - The Pierces
Similar to The Veronicas in that they are a sister double act too, The Pierces are another band we could look at for inspiration. The Pierces are actually under the genre of folk rock so are much softer than The Veronicas, with the majority of their songs being slow. This video for Secret is split into performance and narrative, giving a few more layers than 4ever. The narrative for this video goes along with the lyrics; to keep a secret from getting out, the best way is to kill the person you told. The song even has a middle eight where it is just speech allowing the band to act it out, with the 'Hello Catherine' and 'Yes Allison.'
If comparing the two videos above, it looks as though Secret is made on a much smaller budget with simple settings and props. This can reflect on our project as our budget will not be huge either, showing us that you can still make a great video with narrative and performance aspects with a simple idea.
There are also shots of just performance in this video where the two girls are dancing synchronised during the choruses infront of a blank white screen, which is again simple but effective, showing artist identity. We see the connection the two girls have by dancing together, showing their sisterly relationship (despite the fact that the rest of the video shows one killing the other.) This use of plain performance with a few dance moves could be good to look at for inspiration as we may want to have a few dance motifs in our video too. The strong make up around the eyes during these shots could also give us inspiration for our video too, and we can decided to do crazy make up to create an identity for our new band.

Goodwin Analysis: If This Is Love - The Saturdays

I decided to use the video for If This Is Love by The Saturdays as this song was their debut single as a band, which is what we will be doing for our project.

Genre characteristics
As a music video for a girlband in the genre of pop, there are a few conventions it had to include to show this. Firstly, there are many close ups/medium close ups of each other the band members, all well lit, making them seem perfect and flawless. This use of beauty shots highlights the fantasy of girlbands, making girls look up to them and boys being attracted to them. There are also many long shots of the whole band, either walking together or performing in a set position, showing the unity of the band. On the walking shots the camera also concentrates on the girls' legs, showing the pop convention of sexualising or showing the perfection of the artists.

Relationships between the lyrics and visuals
There isn't a perfect straightfoward link between the lyrics and the visuals in this video, with this being a performance based video, with the narrative of the girls performing in a shop window. There may be the odd links, for example Vanessa leans back into her chair when she sings the line 'Are you picturing me lying across your bed?', and we also see the narrative of when the boy leans to the window and gives Frankie his phone number, reflecting the message of love in the song.

Relationships between the music and visuals
The video has been edited and cut in post production to match the beat of the music, and to highlight the different parts of the song. This has been shown especially well at the beginning of the song (before the singing begins), the bridges and the middle eight. At the beginning of the song just before the lyrics kick in we hear some fast beats to the music and this has been shown by showing short clips of each of the girls getting ready, all cut to each beat of the music. This has also been shown in the middle eight, where it starts off slow and then picks up the pace, which is again shown with longer shots and then fast shots, all cut to the beat. The end of the video also reflects with the end of the song too, with the fade to black of the girls walking away, and then the turning off of the lights in the shop.

Artist identity - close ups and motifs
As noted in the first paragraph, there are a lot of close ups to show the girls' faces and legs, to highlight the perfection of all five of the girls in the band. We see a lot of actions of the girls with their hair and eyes to emphasise the femininity; promoting their image and targeting to their female audience as role models. They are either running their hands through their hair, spraying their hair or turning their heads to move their hair, all of which highlight their girliness. We also get quite a lot of close ups of their faces when they are opening their eyes and batting their eyelashes, which is again a feminine trait.
As a girlband as a whole, we also get the artist identity of the girls being united with similar short dresses, but all of them are different bold colours to show their individuality. This motif has been used all over their branding, with the milticoloured dressed also being used for their album artwork.

References to the notion of looking
This video shows a large notion of looking, with the girls performing in a shop window, with people pressed to the glass, watching them. We see many long shots of the crowd jumping and screaming at the girls throughout the video, all with cameras. This notion of looking is also shown at the beginning with the shots of all the girls looking into the mirror and getting ready.

Postmodernism & Intertextuality: Hollywood - Michael Buble

As you can see from the video above, Michael's video for Hollywood is filled with intertextual references, with references to movies, singers, actors and Hollywood in general. Here's a quote from Michael himself, explaining the song and the concept behind the video:

[Hollywood is a] "tongue-in-cheek statement on the culture of celebrity... People will do anything for their 15 minutes, and you have to remember who you are and why you wanted it. At the end of the day, you should be careful: You might get what you wish for."
"You can see how much fun I had playing these characters. This video is about celebrity culture and people’s dreams about fame… And of course a reminder that it’s important to remember what’s real and what isn’t."

In the video, Michael walks from set to set visiting various versions of himself reinacting different scenes and famous people. The first lyrics of the song are 'Could you be a teenage idol, could you be a movie star, when l turn on my tv will you smile and wave at me telling Oprah who you are.', and this is translated straight onto screen with himself dressed up as Justin Bieber on a set which looks very similar to 'Oprah'. The styling - with the hoodie, purple tee and trainers - and the acting - the dancing at the beginning and the famous hairflip - have been done/directed perfectly, showing the audience exactly who he is meant to be impersonating. The fact that he decided to parody Justin Bieber in my view expands his target audience; to the millions of teenage girls who love Justin, and the many teenagers who don't (the ones who aslo enjoy mocking him).

Next in the video Michael impersonates Hollywood stars on the whole: the drunk rockers and the A-list superstars. For his 'drunk rocker' image he has long hair, bright clothing, and two blonde girls on either side. This shows the image of celebrities being sort of drunk and sleazy all the time, with that not-caring-for-the-world attitude.
On the other hand there are the beautifully groomed A-list celebrities, with their white shirts, black suits, shades and shiny cars, with hundreds of paparazzi running after them to get the money shot. Here, Michael parodies them and highlights the fact that A-list celebrities can be a bit snobbish, stuck up and pretentious, with him punching the paps (which we seem to have heard stars do many times before). Also at the end of this scene of the video we hear the lyrics 'when you shoot it with a smile' and he shows a big grin to the camera, showing that celebrities have a different face to the camera than in real life; they seem lovely but are in fact rude and pretentious in real life.

Next he visits a few more sets, including himself in a red shirt in a car, in old Western gear outside a saloon, with a moustache and sunglasses in a police car, and finally in a space gear. The first is actually parodying James Dean, with his number 130 car, the second is any classic Western film, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly and Clint Eastwood in particular, the third is parodying old cop shows and Starsky & Hutch, and the last is any astronaut or space related films. By dressing up as these characters, I feel that Michael is not only showing his fun side but also targeting his older male audience, with films or icons many men enjoy/aspire to be like.

Overall, I think that this music video works really effectively by being funny and entertaining to watch as well as targeting a wide audience. The fact that he references/dresses up as so many familiar and famous characters makes the video funny and a talking point, yet still linking well with the lyrics and the meaning of the song. The video also shows artist identity: it shows Michael as a fun guy with a good sense of humour, which any fan or anyone who's been to any of his concerts can tell you he is. The wide range of characters he dresses up as - from teen idols to male icons - opens up his reach, reaching to secondary audiences like teenage girls and older males, differentiating from his core audience of young/middle aged women. The pop culture references and intertextuality truly make this video what it is, and that's one of the reasons why it's made it onto my top videos list on the side of this blog!

Looking at an album cover: Speak Now - Taylor Swift

For my album cover, I have chosen to do Speak Now by Taylor Swift. It is personally one of my favourites as I love the actual album and the album art too, especially the inside album sleeve. Above is the front and back of the album cover, showing her in a MLS and LS wearing flowy purple and yellow dresses. This connotes a princess-y pretty theme, which a lot of her music is about: she often has lyrics about fairytales and meeting your prince charming. For example, one of her songs on the album is called 'Enchanted' and another song on her previous album was called 'Love Story', showing the continuation of the theme running through. This fairytale theme has also been shown by the fonts used: a slightly italic, soft and curly handwriting typeface. On the front cover she looks beautiful, but the photo itself is 'girl-pretty' and not 'guy-pretty', which appeals to her target audience: teenage girls. Teenage girls aspire to be her and think of her as a great idol and role model: she doesn't drink, smoke or swear, and this artist image has been shown through this cover. The fact that she looks beautiful but not sexy in a long flowey dress shows her innocence and beauty, targeting her core audience.

This is her third album (after Taylor Swift and Fearless), and this is a reason why this album is slightly 'safer'. The photo is a mid long shot, compared to her previous two albums of a close up of her face, and this is because at this point in her career she is a famous established artist with a huge fan base.
Also, if you look at all her albums, she always has her 'Taylor Swift' logo in that same font, and this has been used on all her websites, for all her merchandise; showing synergy and branding between them all.

Below I've added the images from the inside sleeve of her album, which may be some of my favourite album art. The whole album art all have that fantasy princessy theme, with flowy art and golden photo frames in the corners. All the images are very literal and match the meanings of the songs, for example on the page with the lyrics for Speak Now she has a photo of her ruining a wedding and 'speaking now' (instead of forever holding her peace).
Taylor is also known for writing songs about ex boyfriends and previous relationships, so there is a code which Taylor uses to her fans. In the album art where they add the lyrics to the songs, all the lyrics are written in lower case, with a few capitalised letters. If you read all the capital letters in the song, it actually spells out a meaning, sometimes the name of the boy that the song is about. These secret codes within the lyrics have actually been in all of her previous albums, adding a link between all her music, and a link between her and her fans.

Finally, just on a last note, she is releasing a perfume soon called 'Wonderstruck' and the first teaser advert for it actually came out yesterday. The advert continues the same fairytale magical theme running through Speak Now, and features the song 'Enchanted'. This shows the synergy and branding of the album, further enhancing the theme and advertising it to her target audience.

Looking at different album covers

Madonna - Like A Virgin (1984), Michael Jackson - Bad (1987), Mariah Carey - Music Box (1993), Phil Collins - (1993), Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane (2002), Mika - Life Im Cartoon Motion (2007), Lady Gaga - The Fame (2008), The Fray - The Fray (2009), Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday (2010), The Killers - Day & Age (2008), Katy Perry - Teenage Dream (2010), Kanye West - Late Registration (2005), The Saturdays - Headlines! (2010), Jessie J - Who You Are (2011), The Wanted - The Wanted (2010), Adele - 21 (2011)

1. What are the typical features that an album cover has?
As you can see from the various album covers above, they all include the artist's name, and the name of the album (unless it is the same as the artist's name, e.g. The Wanted). The majority of album covers have an image of the artist on the cover, but the ones that don't include artwork/drawings or something that represents the artist, e.g. Maroon 5's cover has a drawing of a girl and Kanye West has the bear on many of his album covers.
The back of the albums all have the track listing giving information about the album, selling the buyer about the type of songs that are featured. The backs also all feature a barcode, institutional information, the record label, the official website, copyright; all of which to inform the buyer about the album. As Sam said in our class discussion, "The front cover sells the artist, the back cover sells the album."
All of the CD's are also the same physically too, as they are all square, the same size, have a front, back and spine. The spine is also the same on every album too, with the artist and album name, all of which are written going downwards, so that if all the CDs were stacked on a shelf, it would be easy to read.

2. How would you categorise the covers in front of you?
Either by genre, photo of the artist/artwork, or perhaps even by year. The most obvious way would to be categorise the albums by genre and type of artist (as in gender or if they are solo/band), for example the album covers for The Saturdays and The Wanted are really similar, with beauty shots of the bands looking perfect. The covers for Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj are also really similar and would be categorised together too, as they highlight the beauty/sex appeal of the female body, with the dominant colour of pink to emphasise the gender of the artists.
Secondly we can categorise the covers by if they have an image of the artist or if they just have artwork. So the covers for The Killers, Mika, Maroon 5, The Fray and Kanye West would be in a separate category, as they all do not include the artist on the cover. To make the categories even smaller, you could even put the first three albums under the category of 'artwork' and The Fray and Kanye West one under 'photo, but not of artist'.
Thirdly, we could also categorise them by era. For example the top row of album covers are older than the rest, and although they are of different artists, the look of the covers are slightly similar in the way they are photographed.
For example, below I have a few album covers by Mariah Carey, and although they are the same artist and same genre, the look of the albums do differ, and it is quite easy to tell which ones are older and newer by the photography/styling/fonts/design used (and not just how old or young she looks!).

Another way of categorising albums are also by how far along the artists are in their career, for example if they are starting with their debut or if they are firm and established in the industry. Again, looking at the Mariah albums above, the CDs differ because Mariah became a worldwide famous artist. At the beginning of her career it was important to show the world who she was: therefore having close ups of her face, but further down she was well known, leading to mid and long shots.

3. What do you think the different functions/purposes of album covers?
I think the main function of album covers are to advertise the artists and their music. For example, if you were in a music store and had no CDs in mind to buy, which ones do you pick up to look at: the ones which look nice, right? The album covers are there to show who the artists are; show the artist identity and branding. For example, Jessie J's album cover shows exactly who she is. With a close up of her face with her mouth slightly open with black lipstick, straight black hair and black nail varnish, it shows that she's not your average pop singer; she has a bit more edge and attitude. Same with Lady Gaga's album, it shows her artist identity through her trademark sunglasses decorated with diamonds, showing her quirkiness and outrageous outfit choices that make Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga.
The covers also show the genre and style of music too, and what the album will include/represent. For example, Adele's cover shows the kind of artist she is, as the image is just of her with her eyes closed. There isn't the hint of being sexy which so many females use in the industry nowadays, which is sort of what she represents: a curvier woman with a voice. The fact that it's just in black and white shows her down to earth, simple, unglamorous character, and the fact that the album will be all about the voice and the beautifully written ballads. Even covers without the artist on the front, for example the Maroon 5 cover, can show what the album will sound like: it's all red with a naked woman on it, signifying songs about love and songs about women (which matches the album name Songs About Jane perfectly).

Early Planning & Research: Girlbands

My group contains Jessica Wilson, Charley Packham and I, so when it came down to track selections and ideas, we thought one of the best things to do was a girlband. As Charley and I were both picked to be part of the band for our 5ive video remake, we thought that it would be great to be in the band for our final project too, as we seemed to have the right skills for lipsyncing.

Brainstorming ideas and researching current girlbands.
After searching through various iPods, seeing various lists on Google and watching various videos on YouTube, we got the gist of the main styles/groups of different girlbands: the pop mainstream 'sex appeal' girlbands, the slightly more indie girlgroups/duos and the pop/rock or rockier girlgroups/duos.

As our first idea, we thought it would be easiest and most effective if we did a mainstream pop girlband. With a wide choice of song selections and many bands such as Girls Aloud, The Saturdays, Pussycat Dolls, Sugababes and Girlicious to look at for inspiration, we thought that mainstream pop could be ideal for our project.

After listening to many songs on Spotify and YouTube, Charley found the song Puppet, by The Saturdays. We thought it would be great to do a video to, as it's not released, and the theme of puppets could be great to translate to screen; we could all be puppets on strings, similar to NSync's video for It's Gonna Be Me.



However, after speaking to our teacher and discussing this idea further, we realised that if we did a song by The Saturdays or any other famous mainstream girlband, the first thing our audience would do is compare us to the real groups. Our video would just contain all the mainstream pop video conventions: beauty shots, slightly tight clothing, heels, sychronised dance routines... and it would just look like we were copying The Saturdays instead of being a new different girlband. So after a lot of thought, we have decided to not do this song, go back to the drawing board and go into a new direction.

Going less mainstream and more rocky.
After looking at more girlgroups, we found that more rockier or indie duos were more fitting for us; we could create a new artist identity and as there are only 3 of us in the group, the sound of less voices on the track could look more authentic when we're lipsyncing. We found groups like The Veronicas, The Pierces, Uh Huh Her and Soho Dolls could be more fitting and ideal.
We also found that a lot of the girl duos included were striking and almost binary opposites, with one being blonde and another having black hair. This was true with The Pierces and Uh Huh Her, and has also been the image for older bands too, such as The Runaways with Joan Jett and Cherie Currie being the two frontwomen. We thought that this could be something we could easily recreate, as I have dark hair, and Jess and Charley are both blonde.

Looking at a music video director: Roman White

For me, it was pretty easy to choose a music director to look at, as a large majority of my favourite music videos were directed by Roman White. I knew him before our A2 project had begun, so once I heard we had to choose a music director, my first thought went to him. As you can see on the right hand side of my blog, I have listed a few of my favourite videos, and a few of them e.g. Mine - Taylor Swift, You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift and Just A Dream - Carrie Underwood were all directed by him.

The majority of Roman's videos are narrative based, with aspects of performances within. Some of his videos, e.g. You Belong With Me and Just A Dream are completely narrative based, without any shots of just pure performance. The artists still lipsync to the songs, but are in character the whole time so the music video is more of a short story than a music video.

As you can see in Taylor Swift's video for You Belong With Me, Roman's style is very literal, with the video being exactly what you would expect from the song; about a nerdy shy girl who sees the boy of her dreams with the wrong girl. However, unlike the actual song, we get a resolution to the story, with the boy telling her that he loves her back.
And as you may already know, this was the music video which won 'Best Female Video' at the 2009 MTV VMAs where the 'Kanye West incident' occured.



However most of his videos do have both narrative and performance, but while cross cutting between two, narrative is more emphasised with more screen time.

As we can see from Carrie Underwood's video for Last Name, again the narrative is the most emphasised and goes along with the lyrics, but there are also some shots where Carrie sings straight into the camera, showing the performance aspects of the song.



Roman has worked with many different artists, but as we can see from the two videos above, the main genre which he seems to make videos for our Country. (If you look at his website http://romanwhite.com/ he has a link for his videos made for Pop or Rock artists, and one link just for Country itself.) I think one of the main reasons for this is because a lot of Country music is about telling a story, with lyrics which can easily be transmitted to screen, which is a large part of White's style.

He in fact did Carrie Underwood's whole set of music videos, with some continuing on from eachother, as if they were all short episodes of a tv programme. The video for Before He Cheats is almost like the next episode of Carrie's relationship with the character in the video from Last Name, with the two beginning's of the videos being the same, with the vandalism of his car. I particularly liked how all of her videos were made to link on with eachother, for example as you may have also noticed, the beginning of Last Name had the caption 'Three Months Earlier (Before He Cheated)', showing not only the continuation of the story, but also adding the title of her other single for promotion. This video for Before He Cheats also won Video Of The Year at the 2007 CMT Awards.



A few of White's videos also include some CGI and animation, and when he does, the themes of nature, swirls and textures come up a lot, for example in Fifteen - Taylor Swift, That Year - Brandie Carlile, and Don't Waste Your Time - Kelly Clarkson

Finally, as you can see from a lot of the videos and gifs above, a large majority of his videos include a lot of bright and rich colours, especially for all the beauty shots in his videos. Below are a few screencaps from some of his other music videos, including: All The Way Up - Emily Osment, One Less Lonely Girl - Justin Bieber and I Want Somebody - Kristin Chenoweth.

Music & Me: Reflections

After posting our 'Music & Me' song selections, the following lesson we went round the class and discussed our choices. The large majority of people had confessed their younger guilty pleasures; from S Club 7 and Steps to Spice Girls and Atomic Kitten. We had all basically admitted that when we were younger we would all listen to the same sort of music, especially all the mainstream pop music, as a sort of 'follow-the-crowd' theme. It was 'cool' back then to all listen to the same pop-py music, ones we could scream all the lyrics to at parties, jump and air guitar along to. It still is pretty 'cool' to do that, and there's no point denying that we still don't scream along to songs during parties, but our music taste has all broadened and become more unique.



For example in my last post I had written that my favourite artist is Taylor Swift, but she is barely ever played on the radio over here in the UK. I'm pretty sure I found out about her on the internet, searched her on YouTube, downloaded the rest of her albums and fell in love with her music style. As we also discussed during the lesson, a lot of our favourite artists when we older were found using the internet, showing that we're not always just listening to whatever DJs are making us listen to.
Quite a few people also said that a lot of the music they listen to were found through different TV shows, which I can totally relate to as well. A lot of the music I download now are from TV show soundtracks, for example Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries, expanding the genres that I listen to.
Music can also be all about promotion, for example if one of your favourite bands talks about another band, you're almost definitely going to search them up because you may like their music too. For example NeedToBreathe are an American band which barely no one has heard of, but as they were supporting Taylor Swift on her Speak Now Tour, I searched them up and currently love their new album.



So to summarise, we basically realised how music is all around us, and how people can influence our music tastes greatly. When we were younger it was all about what your friends and family were listening to, nowadays it's more of what you can search out; what media can show you, whether it be the internet, TV or films.
All in all I think that music is a great way of communicating; you can convey a message through lyrics, you can create a conversation with someone new if you have similar tastes - it's just been a large part of my life to be honest. I listen to music every morning when I wake up and when I'm lying in bed at night, so it was really fun and interesting to see what music means to me, and all my other classmates.

Music & Me

Getting To Know You - The King & I
Not really a mainstream song, such as the likes of S Club 7 or Steps, but this song was definitely a huge part of my childhood. Why? Well, I used to be in the West End musical production of The King & I, by Rodgers and Hammerstein in the London Palladium. I played the part of 'Cute II' - one of the twin princesses out of the Siamese childeren - for two years, when I was 6 and 7. I also played the part of a 'swing' for a few months, which meant I would fill in for any of the other children if they were sick.
Out of all the songs from the musical, this definitely stands out, as a) it's probably one of the most famous, and b) this is the song which I probably participated most in. I can still remember holding hands with all the other children, skipping around Elaine Paige (who played the role of Anna) singing the lyrics to the song, with our hair slicked back into buns with crowns and wearing the same bright costumes as there are in the film version.



Forever and For Always - Shania Twain (2002)
Again, not really a song that you would probably think of when you think of a pre-teen girl, but growing up, I never really had control over the car radio.. Which meant it was my always parents's choice, aka 105.8, Magic FM.
As a current listener of Pop/mainstream music, I never really was a big fan of slow, strong ballads, but from now and again something would come up on Magic which I loved, for example Michael Buble, or as you can see here, Shania Twain. Without knowing it, Magic had actually introduced to me the the world of Country, the one genre which I have now grown to love (which is explained in my next track choice).
This song 'Forever and For Always' is one of my favourite tracks from Shania's album 'Up!', which is special to me as it was actually the first album I had ever bought!



Fearless - Taylor Swift (2008)
Fearless. This was the easiest and fastest track choice for me; not only is it my most played song on my iTunes, it is my favourite song ever to be honest. If anyone ever asks me to think of a song or think of an artist, it will definitely be this song, and Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is my idol and inspiration, and the one person in the world that I would love to meet.
Fearless, which is also the name of her second album, was the first album that I had ever listened to where I loved every single track, and could easily listen to every day without getting bored. Her Fearless Tour in 2009 (which is where all the footage from the music video is from) was also probably the best night of my life; I had front row seats on the side, and actually caught a guitar pick after Taylor's violinist had pointed out that she loved my handmade T-shirt.
Her Fearless Platinum Edition album also includes a DVD with bonus features, and it was then when I realised that out of all the songs on the album, Fearless was actually my favourite. This was because during all the backstage footage, they played the song Fearless in the background, and that was the first time I song had actually made me cry.
So from then on, Fearless has always been my favourite song, and the lyrics from this song were actually my '15 words' in our year 11 yearbook.
And just to finish this post, below is a graphic with the words from the album art - what Fearless means to her - which basically sums up the album: