Welcome to SC Media

Welcome to SC Media, our blog is a dedicated place to find all the latest research within the music industry. Our blog is designed and maintained by two A level media students who work hard and listen to a wide variety of music and genres.

Monday, 10 January 2011

Music Genre research - Grime


Grime is a genre of music that oringated within the UK and has seen much success over recent years as the number of people listening to the genre has risen. Grime can be considered a sub-genre of UK Garage and hip-hop but has its own distinctive style which sets it apart from other similar genres. Generally grime has a similar style within each song in which it maintains a consistent beat and the artists says his lines to go with the beat. Unlike other genres grime allows many different artists to collaborate in one song with each artist doing an 8-bar or sometimes depending on the song length a 16-bar.


Recent examples of this would include "Game over" by Tinchy Stryder which features Giggs, Example, Prof. Green, Tinie Tempah and Chipmunk. The commerical success of grime has been dependant on the promotion of the track via the artists or radio stations. Grime has had a recent push for promotion on radio stations such as 1xtra and Logan Sama where usually an artists comes into the studio and speaks with the host i.e. JME on 1xtra with Tim Westwood. Another outlet of  promotion for the grime scene has been on TV with music channels such as Channel AKA(formally Channel U) which often plays grime music videos to those who don't have record deals and trying to break into the scene.


Grime is seen as a creative innovative music style where the artist has creative freedom, with top songs from top grime scene artists such as Skepta, P Money, Kano etc. Often with grime it has a negative tag within the media and publications as some of the lyrics some artists say threaten or promote the actions of violence. These lyrics stopped the growth of grime in its early years but since then more and more artists have dropped the violence tag for more subtle words and phases in their songs.


Within grime the growth of music videos has become prominent with more artists making music videos for their songs. Usually grime videos have certain conventions which most videos tend to adhere to. Examples of this would include Tempa T "Next Hype", the video has an urban backdrop as well as some scenes within a gym and within a building. However some grime videos don't stick to these conventions and  do something completely different and do a different style within the video which often works well. Examples of this include "Game over" in which the video does a 360 degree pan around the artists and some cuts, close-ups, mid shots, and some long shots.

Sunday, 9 January 2011

Designing CD cover analysis - Grime


This is our first try at making a CD cover. For the grime genre we attempted to make a CD cover for Skepta's single "So Alive ft N-dubz". When creating it we decided that it would be very effective to use a shot from the music video itself and it goes well with the CD test and title. For the text Skepta's album and CD covers usually have bold text that looks basic but is really effective when looked upon so we designed a black rectangular shape and and put Skepta's name in a basic font and complements the shot very well in the background.