EDEN- Website Research

Website:

Link: http://iameden.eu/
Eden is an artist that produces music from the genres electronic dance music, indie pop and dream pop. He is currently signed onto the record label Astrelwerks, with whom he released two albums: i think you think too much of me (2016) and vertigo (2018)
At the top of the website is the artist's name against a background of a sky, which is the brand image for his new album. There is no banner at the top of the website with links to his store, a gallery or other pages from his website, as they are incorporated throughout the home page in different sections as you scroll down. This is uncommon for a website for an artist in the music industry, as the links are usually at the top to make the website easier to navigate and to straight away promote the store and its products. It could be said that Eden's website is laid out like this to encourage the consumers to scroll through the website and to see the other sections of the website they weren't looking for, but may suddenly now be interested in due to scrolling past it.
 The website promotes the recent album vertigo by featuring a photo of a sky, with the name of the album, which is also the same photo used on the front cover of his album. This links to a separate website where people can listen to the music, which is the same website that the "Out Now- Click Here To Listen" button is linked to.
The colour scheme of the website is conventional to the genre of the music, such as dream pop and electronic. The pastel colours can link to dream pop as they are quite soft, and the photo of the sky to me connotes relaxation and curiosity. In terms of electronic the typical colours associated with the genre involve blue, which is shown a lot within the background photo and the album cover of the website.

Underneath this button we can see the logos of various social media ranging from Twitter to Instagram, which link to Eden's profiles on these platforms. The links are placed here so that the consumer can follow the artist on these different forms of social media, this promoting him and his music. It is common for a celebrity to promote their social media on a website, and in turn on these platforms they promote their music and perhaps other forms of social media.


The next section of the website promotes the artists new music video, "float", as well as his new album and tour. Once again a picture of the album cover is featured however this is the full photo with the artist's logo at the bottom. Under this photo we can see multiple links to different platforms from which the album can be purchased (Amazon, Vertigo store, iTunes) or streamed (Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play). The promotion of the tour is another button linking to a separate part of the website with all of the tour dates and locations. On this page  buttons names "Tickets", which once again links to a separate page names Bands in Town where an individual can purchase
them. It is very common for tours to be promoted on a musician's website, so Eden's website matches the conventions of one, as he wants people to see him perform songs from his new album on live.

We can also see that the social media logos appear again underneath a "Join Eden" button which when clicked on brings up a pop up where the consumer can join the community via Google or Facebook, giving them the chance to win tickets to a show. This is a common feature on websites of musicians so that people can receive updates on the artist, such as when their album comes out or if tour dates have been released. It is also common on other websites to offer this option, where people can sign up to 'receive newsletters', such as a clothing website to receive emails about new items of clothing in stock.
This button also appears further down on the home page of the website under a section about merchandise, from which the same pop up appears:

Back on the home page of the website the next section is on merchandise, with photos showing new items of clothing that are linked with the new album. Below these photos is a button called 'Eden Official Merch', and the 'Join Eden' button after that. All of the photos and the official merch button have the same link: Eden's merch page. This page is only small as there is a small amount of merch produced. Again on this website we see the 'Join Eden' option at the top, and his social media links at the bottom of the page. Unlike the home page, this page has a banner under Eden's name with links to "Home", "Music" and "Contact".

In this section there is no text nor are there links, but instead a selection of videos from YouTube. The first three videos are music videos for songs that are on Eden's recent album: crash, gold, and start//end. The last two are separate clips, with the one titled "movement" consisting of a montage of establishing shots and conceptual imagery alongside some fast-paced music. The video is quite mysterious, with only one piece of text at the end stating that "ends are beginnings", and doesn't seem to promote any music.
The last clip has a voiceover of Eden talking about his experiences throughout 2016, which then fades into a song and another montage of clips, e.g. of him performing in concert. On a website for a musician it is common for music videos to be featured, especially ones that are linked to a new album, to promote it so the audience may consider buying it from their store. The last video in particular can promote his tour due to all of the clips featured, making those who watch it want to see him live one day.

The rest of the website consists of more videos of music videos, a message to the audience from the artist talking about how amazing his year and tour experience has been, and some more album and tour promotion. An old album fro 2016 is shown, with both the album cover then further down a track list linked up to Spotify. The tour promotion just consists of posters from previous tours that he has been on and the name of them, to create this nostalgic feel as though the further a person scrolls the more they go back in time.

The website overall matches the conventions for both a musician's website and one that produces music from the genre of electronic music and dream pop
In terms of the target audience, as the music is part of the electronic genre and the website's appearance matches the conventions of this, I would say that the audience are younger, for example teenagers and young adults, as in concert Eden also likes to play music that people can dance to and have fun. 
I chose this website as I like the colour scheme of it and how pastel and subtle it is, and these colours and shots of the sky I could use as an idea for my own website, put perhaps one with sharper colours to make it less relevant to dream pop and more electronic in its look.

Audience research

For my audience research, I sent out a questionnaire to around 30 people, in which I asked a variety of questions about music and the genre of electropop, making sure to use both open and closed questions to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data.
I left the questionnaire available for just over a week after sending it off and managed to receive 24 responses, which I have listed below with the questions too:

The results of this question weren't broad as I confined the questionnaire to people in my school. This is because I had a rough idea of what I wanted the demographic of my target audience to be in terms of age. I associate the genre of electropop with the youth, as they can be seen as adventurous and possibly festival goers where they will experience this kind of music. 87.5% of the sample are between 14-17, which I calculated is 21/24, meaning only 3 people in my sample are 18 or over.

Question two in my opinion is similar to one in terms of the purpose and reason for asking. Again I wanted to know what the demographic of my audience was in terms of gender, and I also had an idea due to my possible song choices all consisting of female artists. my predictions came true in the results of the question, in which around 16 people in my sample are female.

From this question onward I started asking questions more suited to the topic of music, with the aim to see how my target audience feel about it, especially the genre electropop. I started with a simple question, as I wanted to find out how much my target audience are into music, and I found out that it was a lot. I made this a closed question to ensure I could use this quantitative data to be represented on a chart, as shown above. It shows that 91.7% of my sample listen to music everyday, which equates to about 22 people out of the 24 that took the survey. None of the participants selected "Never", which shows that music hold at least some aspect in all of the participant's lives.

In this question you can see that I made it so that the participants can choose more than one option for their answer. I did this as there are a variety of platforms in which music can be consumed, and as my prediction of the youth being heavily interested in music being correct, I thought that they would listen to music on more than one platform. YouTube and Spotify were at the top in terms of music consumption, which I found interesting as they are all methods of streaming music. This supports points made that streaming is becoming increasingly popular recently, especially in my target audience. This could be die to the fact that it is more accessible and free to use if a subscription is not paid. Owned copies however still have almost 50% of the sample consuming music in this way, showing that this is still a popular method of listening to music, as the audience can have their own copy on their phones.

"If you answered YouTube, do you watch the music videos when listening to music? (if you did not answer with YT, then select skip)"

I aimed this video to those of the sample who chose YouTube as an option in the previous question. I thought that this question was important considering my final piece is a music video, I want to see if my target audience actually watch the videos when using this platform for music, as my purpose for the music video is for them to watch and pay attention to the narrative within it. The results from this question show that everyone whom this question applied to does watch the music video at some point, whether it be rarely or never. Very few however do always, but again around 11 people (45.8%) do at least sometimes.

In this question I wanted to get more specific to see how many people in my sample would like electropop, and the results showed just what I wanted. 20 people in my sample listen to pop music and almost half listen to electronic music, showing that the sub-genre of electropop is something that could appeal to the majority of my sample, which in turn can be representative to my target audience in general. I did unfortunately have one of my participants use the 'Other' option in an inappropriate manner, giving an answer that had no reference to genres of music.

The next question focused on artists whose music can be categorised into the genre of electropop. The purpose of this question was to see if participants had listen to any electropop, to see how popular and/or well-known it. I made sure beforehand to do research in order to decide which artists I should include in this question. I made sure to include both mainstream artists like The Chainsmokers, as well as elecrtropop artists that may not be as well known but still have a large following, such as the k-pop band BTS. Once again I let the participants tick more than one box, as this is a question that requires them to give information on how much they know about artists from this genre. For this question I only got 22 responses instead of 24; nevertheless the results show that mainstream artists have the highest amount of people listening to them. For example, Calvin Harris, Charlie XCX, and The Chainsmokers all had 18 people tick the box, which is 81.8% of the sample. I included Halsey, the artist who's song I will be using for my music video, and I was pleased to see that she is popular within my sample, with over half of the participants saying that they have at least once listened to her music.

This question reflects a lot what kind of style I will use in my music video, as the results show what would appeal to my audience and what would be expected by them personally. I wanted to let the sample choose more than once box, as I understand that a music video can integrate multiple styles within them, especially in electropop. In the results there was a mixture of percentages for each style, with concept/visuals being the highest with 70.8%. Next came the performance then narrative, both of which had less than 50% of the sample selecting the results. I agree with the results here, as I do believe that visuals make up a big part of electropop videos in terms of the lighting and aesthetic of it (e.g. neon, parties, etc).

For this question I wanted to see if my audience actually felt that a video was necessary for an electropop song, as the previous question stated that only visuals mattered most in terms of style, rather than a narrative that could captivate the audience more- as the lyrics usually tell a story that could be portrayed in the video. The results were both very similar for the two options, almost 50/50. However the majority stated that they felt a music video was needed in order to visualise the artist's song (58.3%).

Like the previous one, this question had very similar results between the two options that I gave. Relating to Goodwin's theory of the 5 key aspects of a music video, a relationship between the visuals and lyrics is listed as one of them. I wanted to see if this was important to my target audience for an electropop music video, however the results were quite balanced. More of the participants however did say 'Yes', that they felt it was important for the video to follow the concept or narrative of the lyrics.


These next questions consist of part two of the questionnaire, where all the questions are open which allows the participants to give their own opinion in as much detail as they want.

The first question of this section relates to the location of the music video, as I believe it is very important in order to contribute to the aesthetic of both the artist and their music. Lots of the results had some kind of performance aspect to it, with answers such as: a club, concert, dance floor, studio, etc. It also has a theme of fun and going out for the night, not caring about any commitments. Other answers also included somewhere underground, outer space and a rooftop. One person in particular stated that it depends on the artist, which I agree with as each artist has their own brand image, which can include a specific location type.


The next question asked the sample what kind of lighting and colour that they would expect to see. My predictions for it would be that there would be a lot of bright colours with high-key lighting, which was reflected in the results, The majority of people said that neon or bright colours would be expected, as well as high key lighting. colours they expect to see in particular include blue, pink, black and purple, with the exception of a few saying rainbow/all colours. This is reflected in current electropop music videos, from which I made my prediction on the answers to this question.



This question unfortunately only got 19 out of the possible 24, however the results that I do have are helpful when it comes to planning my own music video. Props can be vital in music videos, whether it be for the narrative of the video, for conceptual imagery or even to reflect the artist's image. I got a variety of answers, few of which were 'not sure' which put together with those who didn't answer the question, I can understand, as it can be hard to try and think of props that would be in an electropop music video in particular; as there may be more of a focus on location and lighting. This can be supported by an answer from one person in particular, who said that there wouldn't be a lot due to the focus on the performer, but if there were to be props then objects that relate to the lyrics would be appropriate. Other answers for this question include: alcohol, broken cups, streamers, electric guitar, balloons and fire.



In electopop music videos, I feel that costume is very important in contributing to the visual theme, whether it be something dark and moody or bright with neon colours. The results reflected both of these themes, as I got a mixture of responses. Many people referred to festival clothing, with bright colours, also stating for it to be trendy and 'daring'. Few elaborated on this and said it should be vibrant but the main colour should be black, and that it should reflect an outfit worn to the club. Others spoke about how the outfit should just be casual and 'normal', with darker colours such as black and grey. Few people again said that it depends on the artist and their image, as well as the mood of the song, which I think is why I got a variety of responses, as there can be multiple moods to a video.



The last question I asked was about what kind of theme an electropop music video would have, either within the narrative or conceptual imagery. The responses all were very similar and matched my predictions, as fun and love were themes that I too associated with videos from this genre. People also referred to the theme of dancing, youth, living life fully and loving life. I agree with this as the vibe that I want associate does seem carefree and adventurous, like the characters are living their lives to the fullest. The fact that youth was names I'm pleased with as it clearly links to my target audience, and tis theme can appeal to them and their interests and/or aspirations.