Anna Calvi - Desire

The music video for Anna Calvi's song Desire features a lot of iconography and imagery. In order to pull together an analysis for it, I shall be examining the section 2:00-2:35.


We see a lot of religious symbolism in the song which fits closely with lyrics from the song; she sings of desire being "heavenly", which fits well with images of cherubs, but she also sings of the "fire", which has connotations with hell, just a few moments before, which has obviously strong links with imagery such as that shown in the image to the right, of some kind of skull. The track, when paired with the video, seems to strongly link religion with desire, and the addition of a snake in certain places makes it seem as though she is referring to the Fall, in which Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge through the advice of a snake inspiring the desire to do so within them.

This section seems to focus a lot on a picture which looks relatively non-descript, which appears odd to us as Calvi is singing into the portrait and looking at it with great intent. The slow pan into the picture also creates suspense around this. We feel as though we are about to witness something interesting, but it seems to not come for a long period of time through the drawn out approach. 
The way in which the camera tracks around the back of Calvi as she sings to the painting also creates an essence of voyeurism, (Goodwin, '93), as it seems as though we are looking at her and studying her to find out why she is quite so absorbed in terms of the artwork. 


This voyeurism is also notable in the first few seconds of this section; we see the mantlepiece she is standing opposite from a sideways angle, with her guitar coming into view every now and again; this indicates that we are seeing Calvi in a candid manner, as she idolises the things in front of her. The way in which we only see her hands (very slightly) for less than a second of time reinforces this idea and suggests that the few glimpses we do get of Calvi are almost 'stolen' and not authorised.
There is a skull below the painting, which is interesting as it is a different one to the one seen in the first screengrab. It almost suggests that there is a lot of religious material in the home (the skull is shown in conjunction with the snake and cherub), bringing more meaning to lyrics such as but it's just the devil in me.

 We see why Calvi is so interested in the painting towards the end of the section. Her pupils dilate, which is sign of desire and attraction in humans. They widen as the painting begins to morph into something far more interesting; that is, the blurry grey painting transforms into crashing waves which correspond well with the track, signifying some kind of climax in the song; like a wave, it has built up for a long period of time before coming crashing down in a dramatic manner.

This also is a symbol of pathetic fallacy; a technique often used in literature to suggest an emotion. For instance, when a passage is happy, the weather may be pleasant, and respectively, when a passage features sadness, it may be raining outside. In this situation, the wave crashing suggests anger and very strong emotion. It suggests that this 'desire' Calvi is experiencing is wrong and she is not feeling at ease with it. This is reinforced in the beginning of the section where flies crawl over a garment of clothing, which looks very much like a corset. This also suggests that the desire is wrong, and the fact that it's flies rather than any other insect seems to imply that it is almost disgusting.
The shot shown here  depicts a girl sitting on the bed, her back bare looks incredibly voyeuristic. Lights flash on her skin repeatedly, which makes it seems as though the girl is in the middle of some sort of storm or in a very urban area. The exposure of her skin helps to make her look vulnerable and weak, since she ==//

There are a wide variety of shots used in this piece. There are some moments where the camera seems to be focusing on things other than the main symbols, like Calvi herself, and this is interesting because usually in a music video, these look unnecessary. However, as I previously analysed, these shots that look unrelated actually carry a lot of meaning; for instance, one shot looks to be an unfocused and unsteady shot, half of the wall and half of a room, but on closer inspection, it is very voyeuristic and appears to be showing someone peeping around the wall to see Calvi - as can be seen in the shot to the right here. 
The camera shots seem to change a bit more towards the point in the song where there is a shift of focus away from the repetition of verses and choruses, to a section that seems like a build up to the climax of the song, where she sings "only the lonely". The camera seems to switch between Calvi and a painting on the wall, which helps to suggest that there is a link between Calvi and the painting that she is facing. The camera varies in its distance from Calvi and the painting, getting progressively closer to each between shots, culminating in an extreme close up of Calvi's eye and the entire screen being filled with the painting. The angle remains more or less the same - that is, equal to Calvi, although the camera seems to be slightly tilted when we see the painting. This upwards tilt seems to be putting emphasis on the painting and implying that it has a lot of importance. 
This is something I feel would be well incorporated in my video. This helps to emphasise an important point in the video, and considering how my plot includes a boy turning his back on something that has become such a large part of his life I think it would be helpful to include. 
Angles are incredibly helpful in establishing people's position in regards to others and so I would like to be able to use this in my own work.

I wanna go to the sun
Hold my life like I've never done
But it's just the devil in me
The devil that's calling as I come undone
The sky is getting dark tonight
Darker than the fear that's gonna pull us apart
The beating is the sound of love
The sound of love is beating like a fevered heart
And it's the fire, the fire, the fire
It's heavenly, heavenly,
Desire, desire
Desire, Desire
I wanna lay in the dust
The dust is gonna fall when I lie
God knows it's just the devil in me
The devil that's taking my hand to the fire
I never wanna leave you now
Leave you like the sun is gonna disappear
But it's just believing now
Believing in my heart is what I've come to fear
And it's the fire, the fire, the fire
It's heavenly, heavenly
Desire, desire
Desire, desire
I've got desire, desire
I've got desire, desire
And only the lonely
Only the lonely fall
Only the lonely
Only the lonely fall
Fall
Oh, and I go to the fire
But God knows it's the sound of, it's the sound of love
It's the beat of my heart that you
Finally beating, it's coming, coming, coming for you
And it's just the devil in me
It's just a door to the devil gathered in disguise
Taking me by the hand
And leading me, leading me off to the fire
And it's the fire, the fire, the fire

It's heavenly, heavenly

Desire, desire

Desire, desire

You don't have to be lost 

(Desire, desire)

You don't have to be lost 

(Desire, desire)

You don't have to be lost 

(Desire, desire)

Edits to text made in blue

G324 - Jessie J Audience Profiling - Survey Analysis

In order to find out some characteristics of Jessie J fans, I created a survey on the online survey service called Surveymonkey. I created a survey that had three qualitative questions and seven quantitative ones.

I posted the link to the site on Facebook, as well as contacting popular Jessie J fan page jessiejheaven.com. They agreed to post the link on their Facebook page and their Twitter, which I feel gave me some more responses. 
In my survey, I got 21 responses. Firstly, I asked the respondents what their gender was. I gave an option for people to opt out of saying, but they all chose to answer. There was 18 female responses, and 3 male ones. 
This supports what I previously wrote about Jessie J's fans being predominantly female. I am glad that I have the male responses however as it shows a little variation in the fan base.

This next question aimed to find out the variety of ages in the sample. I found that there was quite a varied range of ages, although the majority of the fan base was aged 16 to 19. There was also quite a few fans who were aged 12 to 15, but more surprisingly 28 or over; this was not an age range I had expected would be a fan of Jessie J, mainly due to the simple nature of her more popular songs. However, I found from my research when posting the questionnaire that this is in fact something the artist is attempting to challenge in her next album. 


The variety of ages suggests that she although she appeals predominantly to one certain age group in particular, 16 to 19 year olds, certain elements of her music appeal to a variety of audiences.


Next, I queried to find out what kind of radio stations they listened to as I felt this would give me an indication as to any variety in their personalities. A majority of the respondents listened to radio channels that corresponded with Jessie J's musical style, such as Capital, Heart and Kiss. BBC Radio 1 plays slightly more alternative music, and as this was the fourth most popular response it suggests that Jessie J fans do not religiously stick to listening to one genre of music; rock and indie music is frequently given airplay on Radio 1. One respondent also listened to Kerrang!, a radio station that plays much more heavy music, including rock and metal. Also, Radio 2 was listened to as often as this, which often plays older pop music. This contrasts my original opinion on the musical tastes of Jessie J fans; I was under the impression that her fans were entirely pop oriented and were almost rigid in their tastes.

Three responses were gathered under the section of "other". One mentioned using music channels in order to listen to music, such as Starz TV, and the other two mentioned less mainstream radio channels, such as Kisstory, a channel that plays "old school" hip hop and dance, and BBC 6 Music, a channel that "brings forward the cutting edge music of today, [and] the iconic and groundbreaking music of the past 40 years". These also suggest that her fans are not as single minded and have a lot of variety in the music they choose to listen to.
I then asked fans about their tastes in magazines, believing it would reveal more about them as to whether or not they were as easy to pinhole as I had originally thought.

 

Reflecting upon the options I provided, I believe I influenced them too heavily with my expectations of the answers I was going to receive. Consequently, I did not provide any answers that were targeted towards male respondents, and I gave answers that were very stereotypical, tabloid, real life or fashion. In the other section, I got answers such as Good Housekeeping and Horse Life, suggesting that the fans read a more varied selection of magazines. I can see from these responses however that a lot of the respondents do in fact read these magazines, and subsequently my predictions were not too incorrect. Magazines like WeLovePop, Reveal and Closer all frequently have stories about artists such as Jessie J, and magazines like Company and Glamour all regularly draw on popular artists to show the latest trends and fashions.

In relation to this, I next asked about the respondents' fashion choices, offering them seven statements to choose from and asking them to select which one they felt they belonged to the most. I assumed that they would be very into fashion and keep up to date with the latest trends. However, the results contradicted this somewhat.
Most of the respondents claimed that they simply wear whatever is comfortable to them. Next, people wore comfortable, cheap clothes that made them feel at ease. This indicates that they do not make their clothing choices based on the preferences of the artists they most listen to. Two respondents wore "clothes [they saw their] favourite artists wear, because they look good". Two people liked to stand out from the crowd, although one was more for fashion reasons, and the other for the point of shocking people. 
Three of my respondents enjoyed wearing unusual clothes that made them look and feel good. These responses are generally in line with my presumptions; that Jessie J fans draw inspiration from her, and that they did not like to blend in with the crowd and they enjoyed having somewhat of an style which they felt was unique to them. I do not think that the graphic I put together showing a variety of clothing choices likely to be worn by fans of the artist is too wrong; although it was my intention to put together an idea of what the fans may typically wear, the hybrid nature of many genres and fashions nowadays in our postmodernist society suggests that they pick and choose which ones they wanted for themselves. 
Following this question was a question about social networking sites. I believed that they would all use social networking sites, because of their age, and as well because of the fact Jessie J is such a popular artist who is likely to use Twitter and Facebook to communicate with her fans.

The results confirmed this assumption. However, not as many used Twitter as I expected them to, with only 11 of 21 respondents using it, compared to 18 of 21 for Facebook. Video and photo sharing websites Vine and Instagram were relatively popular. This allows for artists like Jessie J to communicate with her audience through more personal videos and photos about her life.
As expected, people no longer actively used social networking sites like Myspace and Bebo, and only one respondent used Tagged. None of the respondents did not use any form of social networking; even the child who was under 11.
These results suggest that Jessie J fans are somewhat mature and very sociable.
Then I asked the respondents to choose four activities out of a list of 16 that they most preferred to do in their spare time. I set the questionnaire so that only four results could be selected; no more and no less.
I found from this that listening to music was the most popular activity, with 81% of the sample choosing this as one of their favourite activities. Next, people liked to watch movies, then meet friends. This was closely followed by people who preferred to read books and watch television. No Jessie J fans listed playing video games, playing an instrument or looking online for the latest trends as their favourite. However, there was a definite spread across the answers and clearly some variation in the kind of social activities that fans did. The fact that more fans liked to meet friends than use social networking sites is a positive thing as it suggests that Jessie J fans are positive, friendly people who enjoy spending time with friends. This is something that I suggested may be true based on the stereotyping I did in the previous post on this topic area.
Next were my qualitative questions. In order to analyse these I put some of the responses into Wordle, a free piece of online software that allows you to create word clouds. as a form of content analysis. The question was "What do you most admire about Jessie J?". The words which came up the most frequently are in the largest font; for instance 'awesome', 'charity', 'people', 'fashion' and 'honesty'. These words reflect how people see her as a person and I feel that these reflect them as individuals; for instance, the people who commented on her charity work did not also mention her fashion sense. The people who commented on her being 'awesome' did necessarily not talk about the other words on the cloud, such as 'dedication', 'confident' and 'inspiring'. I think this is important to note as it reflects how different people see her; it may be helpful to know individual responses and hence I went a little more indepth. Surveymonkey has a feature which allows you to see each respondent's answers individually; I chose a respondent who had answered "she does charity work" as a reason why they admired her. This respondent "wore comfortable, cheap clothes". In contrast, another wrote she has an "awesome fashion sense" and this same person declared that they often wore clothes they had seen their favourite artists wear.
I think this is important as it highlights the sort of things which people look for from their favourite artists. Some look to her to see how she is inspirational and committed to charity work, having shaved her head for Red Nose Day. Others look to her as a fashion icon and someone to see as a TV personality on shows such as The Voice. I then looked to see which song of hers they would say was their favourite and found out the following; the two most popular songs were Price Tag and Who You Are. An excerpt of the lyrics from each song are shown here too. I think this is a very important point because as I said in regard to the previous question, it reflects what people look to the artist for. In particular these two songs send messages that often are contradicted in more popular songs. Songs by rap artists and many pop artists brag about wealth and how happy and complete it makes a person feel. For instance the song Billionaire by Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars talks about the positives of having money and about the different kinds of entertainment and fun it offers a person. On the other hand, Jessie J asks "why is everyone so obsessed; money can't by us happiness". The song also asks why we can't "enjoy right now"; Travie McCoy's song states "oh the world better prepare; for when I'm a billionaire". This shows different ways of thinking in popular music, and is most likely a reason why Jessie J is popular for being a little bit different to her industry colleagues.
The second most popular song is Who You Are; the lyrics are also pictured. This song discusses feelings of insecurity and offers support to people who are feeling left out and unusual in their lives, friendships and schools. It is almost inspirational in some aspects, giving messages to these fans that they are not alone and that they do not have to feel bad for feeling that way in the first place.
I think that this shows a lot of her fans see Jessie as a strong role model who, despite her views being unorthodox as far as pop music is concerned, conveys positive messages of strength and honesty to her listeners.
This question leads into the next well. I then asked "Do you think Jessie J is a good role model? Why/why not?".
The overwhelming consensus from this question was "Yes". One person stated they didn't think so, claiming they believed she dressed provocatively.
Upon reading the responses, I think it is clear what Jessie J fans see in their favourite artist and why they have selected her as such. I have inserted the responses here, highlighting in bold some of the key words that they used to justify their reasoning. These include inspirational phrases she has used before. I think that this one sums them all up well: "Never expect, never assume, always work hard and always stay true to who you are".
From these answers I also think that people enjoy listening to Jessie J and have chosen her as a favourite artist because she is a role model to them in many ways; even if they are not acutely aware of her being someone they look up to, their answers here and in the previous qualitative questions reinforce this opinion; they all gave inspirational songs and commented on her in a way that suggests they would perhaps mimic her actions in their own lives (charity work and such).

In conclusion, Jessie J fans are very different in terms of their social lives, fashion sense, gender and age. However, the qualitative questions have revealed that they all like her for very similar reasons. I believe this leads me to the conclusion that people enjoy Jessie J as an artist because of her status as an inspirational and active member of charities. She has had a difficult life, one she spoke about often in songs like Who's Laughing Now, a song that talks about being bullied as a child, and has dedicated herself to raising £1million a year for charities that are 'close to her heart', ones that she became familiar with through difficulties in her youth, such as having a stroke at the age of 18 due to a condition she was diagnosed with at 11.
I think this also suggests to many young fans that they can always be successful no matter what they have dealt with at previous points in their lives. This is a positive message for young people and one that has hopefully reached a lot of her fans.