Music Video Analysis - Turn Up The Music by Chris Brown

‘Turn Up The Music’ was released by Chris Brown in February, 2012. The song was written by Alexander "Fuego" Palmer, Chris Brown, Damon Thomas, Harvey Mason, Jr., Michael "Mike J" Jimenez, Terence Coles and Agent X. It was produced by Fuego and The Underdogs. The song was released as a single for his album Fortune and was distributed by RCA Records. 

This music video is a mix between performance and narrative but the majority is performance. As for the narrative part of the music video, it starts with Chris Brown drinking alcohol in the streets before hailing a taxi. Inside the taxi, he asks the driver to take him to the best spot in town and turn up the air conditioning. The driver responds by turning up the music wearing a horse mask. He exits the cab onto a street full of people wearing animal heads and goes into a club and starts a dance sequence. A large majority of the video he is dancing but when the camera is on his face, lip-syncing is used. Considering that as part of the narrative, he enters the street which is filled with lots of people, I think the music video would have been quite expensive to produce as they would have had to pay lots of actors/extras. This music video relies heavily on Mise-En-Scene. 

Mise-En-Scene

Props used in this music video include: a bottle of alcohol in a paper bag, the animal masks and a futuristic hover cab. There are three costumes that Chris Brown wears during the music video: the first outfit is a black and white suit with a black tie and a pair of black brogues whereas the second outfit is the same as the first minus the shirt and plus a black hat. The third outfit is a pair of beige suspender trousers, a black sleeveless vest and a grey hat. As for the first costume which is the black and white suit which is featured the most frequently, the choice of costume links in with the narrative, although most people would go to a nightclub in more casual clothes, perhaps he has come from an event or meeting. Anyone who is Chris Brown who is featured in the music video is wearing some kind of mask; this links in with the futuristic and almost strange atmosphere of the video. As for location, it looks as if an empty nightclub was used for majority of the video including the dancing scenes along with the crowded street and an empty rundown building. As the music video was clearly meant to appear as if it was happening at night, lighting is relied on heavily to make it realistic. What looks like strobe lights are relied on in the otherwise dark dance scenes in the empty nightclub.

Camerawork

In terms of camerawork, the two main shot types used are close ups and long shots. The close up shots are used to capture the artist when lip-syncing in an attempt to make the audience feel connected to the artist and help to develop star image whereas the long shots are used frequently used to show the dance routine and establish location within the shot. Many of the shots appear to be hand held which are appropriate considering the narrative and upbeat tempo of the music. A relatively low angle shot is used to capture Chris Brown getting out the cab and onto the street – the effect of which is to make him appear vulnerable which he is considering he has walked out of the cab into an unknown location crowded with people wearing relatively scary masks. 

Sound

In terms of the lyrics and song writing process, the song was written by many people including Chris Brown himself, Damon Thomas, Leon Price and many others. ‘Turn Up The Music’ was produced by Fuego and The Underdogs. The song itself is classified as a electronic dance and house song due to its upbeat rhythm.

Key features of the song include the use of a synthesizer, pulsating beats and percussion. The sound effect of a car coming to a halt is used at the beginning when Chris Brown is hailing the futuristic hover cab. There is also the non-diegetic and muffled sound of the cab driver’s voice since he’s wearing a mask. The song officially starts when the driver says he’ll turn the music up – the song fades in. As for the ending of the song, it slowly fades out. 

Editing

In terms of editing, basic cuts are used frequently to transition between shots however, as the tempo speeds up so do the transitions. There is also a use of fade to black transitions when the rhythm of the music slows down towards the end of the song. Slow motion is used towards the end of the video when the tempo is slowing down. Special effects are also used to make it look like there are 3 Chris Brown in a shot towards the end of the video.  During the main chorus of the song, special effects are used again to create the illusion of crack appearing in the walls due to both the dancers’ performance and the bass of the music. 

▶    Discuss the representation of people especially focusing on gender identity including voyeurism

As Chris Brown is the main performer and artist, he is the only one who is shown in detail and is the main focus of the audience’s attention throughout the video. Similarly to the male gaze, Chris Brown is represented negatively as the purpose of his second costume (of which he is topless) is to attract a female audience. Women overall in this music video aren’t seen as they are all wearing masks but they wear relatively revealing clothes in comparison to the men who are very much covered up. Both high and low angle shots are used to represent Chris Brown in various ways – high angle shots are used to make him appear vulnerable particularly at the beginning of the music video in which he doesn’t know where he is whereas low angle shots are used to make him seem powerful and superior to the audience which is probably female due to his target audience.

▶    What can you say about the record label behind the production this? Has this influenced the final product? If so, how?

The record label behind the production of this music video was RCA Records which is owned by Sony Music. Although this record label is owned by one of the big 3, I don’t think that it influenced the final product as all of Chris Brown’s music video have the same genre characteristics which reflect him as an artist. However, it could be argued that the record label has influenced these genre characteristics in an attempt to attract a certain audience in order to keep them coming back, thus building a secure fan base for the artist.

▶    What audience has been targeted and how can you tell? What makes it suitable for them? What type of audiences wouldn’t it be suitable for and why? Are there any secondary audiences?

I think that the target audience for this music video is mainly young people, particularly young women due to the way that Chris Brown is presented. I think a large percentage of the target audience is also young men and those around the age of the artist as they can relate to him and see him as a role model who they aspire to be like. Also the fact that it is largely performance based means that it will probably appeal to a younger audience rather than the older generation.


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