Fan Base

BLOC PARTY'S DEMOGRAPHIC

After researching Bloc Party’s public image it was clear that there is a specific image associated with the band along with a specific group of followers that was vital to maintain in relation with our music video. It is important that our video portrays many of the images that are associated with past Bloc Party videos to show the coherence between our video and the band's videos; which will allow the band's fan base to relate to our video. To understand the look and image that the band have already obtained we looked at different media appearances that band made and how they were presented in each, this includes interviews, magazine features and public appearances.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF BLOC PARTY'S MAIN AUDIENCE.

Bloc party’s genre is typically focused on an Indie/ Rock or Alternative Dance / Rock. Since there breakthrough in 2003 they have appealed to a wide variety of people, however it would seem that their target audience is that of the ‘Indie’ genre producing music. The term "indie" is often used to describe a certain sound that a musician creates. "Indie" often refers to an artist or band that is not part of the mainstream culture and/or making music outside its influence. Though the sound of these bands may differ greatly, the "indie" definition comes from the do-it-yourself attitude and ability to work outside large corporations, and has become one of the largest and most appealing genres in the music industry. With NME stating "One of the most common and simplest definitions of "indie" is the definition of not being connected with a major recording label (currently one of the "Big Four" recording companies: Warner, Universal, Sony BMG and EMI)"-http://www.neardistance.co.uk/ . We looked into the ‘Indie’ stereotype to insure that the target audience for the group was the same as the audience we were trying to present to. This is vital as if we did not it would result in a lack of interest from existing fans, limiting our audience. It is therefore vital that research into popular music magazines that display "indie" bands was made. NME is the better known and established magazine that Bloc Party have featured in over the years. This obviously provides us with our first insight into Bloc Party's target audience. Seen here on the front page of NME as well as most of the surrounding articles being based on them it can be assumed that Bloc Party are considered as "headliners" in the indie rock genre and if our video is to match the cohesion of other Bloc Party videos then the audience watching them must be taken into consideration. With the indie stereotype originally standing for independent music labels it has since been defined by a type of music somewhere between rock and pop. Indie singers and bands have certain ethics like remaining faithful to their surroundings and where they started as well as ingonring the celebrity money-grabbing culture. An Indie band is said to 'sell out' if they let their music be used corporately on an advert or television programme. Indie bands commonly write their own songs. Yet our main concern with the indie genre is the audience. The questions that needed to be answered in relation to audience is what do they like to listen to? what do they wear? and how do they present themselves in terms of interests and hobbies? Whilst the answer to the first question is relatively self explanatory with Bloc Party and similar bands such as Artic Monkeys and Kasabian representing a diversified genre the other questions would require more information and insight into the indie genre.The NME reader profile allows insight into much needed information about the audience of the indie genre in general. It is here that it states that 69% of readers are male whilst 39% are female with the average age being 24. This gives us a generalised overview of the indie audience along with franchise information such as well known brands like Topman, Jack Daniels and the importance of living a good well informed life all represented. This therefore embeds them into the ABC1 category and provides a broad insight into their lives. Whilst this information is helpful it doesn't specifically relate to Bloc Party who, from listening to their music clearly diversify away from a typical indie rock band, so more detailed information and research on a Bloc Party fan base will have to be concocted.

Despite drawing influences from the likes of The Cure, Sonic Youth, Joy Division, The Smiths and Blur Bloc Parties sound has changed over previous albums from the deep bass and recognised guitar influence from their debut album Silent Alarm it was with their second album A Weekend In The City and in particular the song Flux that Bloc Party switched to a more electronic beat, an element that is clearly apparent in Ares) this has lead to a more defined audience compared with that of followers of the indie genre as a whole. This diversity is represented by vocalist Okereke who stated that their albums would display "some truly R'n'B styled beats, a song where [Tong] and [Moakes] play drums simultaneously [with] both eggshell-thin fragility and trouser-flapping hugeness", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloc_Party. So with this taken into consideration we can explore the fans of this "Trouser-flapping hugeness" and find out more about the target audience for our own music video.

BLOC PARTY PHYCOGRAPHICS

We looked onto the Bloc Party Facebook page to see how the band was presented in terms of fans and what sort of people were followers by analysing their interests, values , attitudes and lifestyles in an attempt to pick up on anything that can be used to strike a link to the audience in our music video. However due to the continued privacy over accounts on facebook only a broad summery can be made of the fan page which consists of 236,778 fans in total with their popularity continuing to rise. Despite only a brief analysis of fans due to security measures, we were able to access profiles in which most of the images were similar to each other with instruments, T-shirts consisting of logos and band appreciation were all common aspects. It is from this that we can assume that supporters of Bloc Party enjoy the instrumental aspects of the performance rather then just the appearance and attitudes of the band. This is also true of the stereotype of the ‘Indie’ culture which we previously made reference too.

DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

By looking at examples of media features we can analyse the demographic for Bloc Party. We have made reference to www.nrs.com to analyse the target audience and demographic of the band. Despite NME readers consisting of 69% male the band's demographics show 53% of the audience being male. This proves that whilst analysis of media coverage that they are featured in is helpful it doesn't provide complete insight into a bands followers. With this rise in percentage of female followers it may be wise to include less masculine themes in the music video, with the theme of war or violence perhaps less graphic and obvious. With 64% of the audience being aged between thirteen to-thirty four representations of both teenagers and young adults should be taken into consideration, this could occur in the form of the ages of the characters used in the music video. as far as disposable income goes it ranges from £0 to £60k suggesting that fans are either still in education (with ages ranging from 13 upwards it is likely) or earn a moderately high income, thus placing them into the ABC1 bracket as mentioned previously. 60% are also still in a form of education, and whilst this may be a stereotypical view on my behalf perhaps themes of derelict housing and abandonment in terms of settings should be avoided due to the audiences well educated manner of living. Yet with this all taken into consideration we can now establish a mental image of the indie audience with age providing a vital factor as to the themes that should be represented in our music video, with this information on board planning a video with the aim to relate it to Bloc Party and their audiences can now begin.