G324: Audience Profile Research Task

The Lafontaines
The Lafontaines are a Scottish hip-hop/rock/pop band, from Motherwell.

They are currently unsigned, although they have somewhat of a cult following as a result of tours with bands like Sonic Boom Six and 3OH!3, despite differing musical styles.
They recently performed at the Classic Grand in Glasgow.

I don't feel like the design of this flyer really reflects the group's music at this stage; some of their songs are not entirely serious and the design of the flyer makes them seem like a much more established group, with a much more defined, classy style.
However it makes them seem quite simplistic, which is reflected in their music - they are straightforward with their message.
The artwork for their EP, Light Up The Background, is quite simplistic as well. I feel like this makes them rely more on their individual style and following than their image, mainly because upon looking at their artwork and flyers, they do not seem to be the sort of band who would make such music.

At their Classic Grand show, the band performed wearing suits, a far cry from their usual get up of casual t-shirts and jeans. This seems to be their way of creating a more recognisable imagine for themselves and trying to find their niche; how many hip-hop artists perform wearing a shirt and braces?

I don't feel like The Lafontaines' image reflects them very much as artists of their genre. It breaks typical conventions of rap music; they don't have scantily-clad women in their videos, don't rap about violence, sex and drugs, and don't wear the sort of clothes one expects to see in a video by such an artist.

A more comprehensive look into the fans of The LaFontaines can be found here. 

Hyro Da Hero
This Texan rap-rock artist is a solo outfit. He is a relatively new artist, who has toured with many groups in the last few years, such as The Blackout, Deftones, Letlive and All That Remains.

He released his first studio album, Birth, School, Work, Death in 2011. It has quite unique album artwork for an artist in the rap side of his genre; it is reminiscent of some heavier styles of rock music, despite the fact that is not what a lot of his songs sound like at all.
I don't think his image relies on many gimmicks; his costume onstage is rather casual. I think this reflects his music - he is not trying too hard to make the two styles work together.
Artwork for his album can be seen to the left, in Digipak format, which may be helpful for my work later on.
I think it incorporates iconography that is stereotypically associated with the two genres his music fits into. For instance, the blades that can be seen in the inside of the digipak, an icon that is commonly used when it comes to rap music. It also has a large skull, which is more typically associated with rock music.
I think Hyro has a more established image for himself and his musical style has not changed as he has become more known either.


3OH!3
This band is technically classed as being electropop but many of their tracks have roots in hip-hop.
They are a more well established band than the previous two, with three studio albums, with the covers all echoing a particular motif that has been carried through the group since day one - the hand gesture/sign. It is featured on all the covers of their tracks, to differing degrees each time. For instance, the silhouette-esqe style one shown here is actually the front cover for their first album. Recently, they released a new album, which features the same icon. It is carried through in their live performances too; as can be seen in the photograph below, the crowd often replicate the sign themselves.
Their music is not very serious and does not carry strong messages like that of The Lafontaines and Hyro Da Hero.
3OH!3 have an image of making music that has little artistic value and is more suited to "college parties", despite the fact that some of their tracks have a lot of meaning behind them. There are a lot of reasons for this; unlike some artists the members have almost all their photoshoots in a jokey, odd manner and a lot of their videos echo this - they have little in common with the lyrics of the track. A good example of this is shown in the video below for their song, "Touchin' On My". Their videos rely a lot more on concept rather than being performance or narrative based, although there is often a strong performance element to them.


Audience Profiling
Stereotypically, this music is not held in high esteem by many people and hence the stereotypical image of people who like this music is negative due to bands such as Limp Bizkit and Hollywood Undead making the fusion of rap, rock and hip-hop seem undesirable.
Fashion choices of these sorts of people are likely to be darker, with logos on their clothes and probably with dyed dark hair.
Although highly stereotypical, it is often thought that these sorts of people spend their leisure time hanging around in public places, drinking (3OH!3 fans in particular are often thought to spend a lot of time partying) and causing trouble.
Socio-economically, there is probably no set group which fans fit into. It is possibly more common that these people will be of a lower social grade, as commonly believed is true of rap fans.
The audience for this kind of music probably goes to a lot of live performances too, since this kind of music translates well into this kind of environment as it is energetic and fun.