Tuesday 23 June 2015

Textual Analysis of Pharrell Williams' - Happy


In 2014, Pharrell Williams released the infamous song 'Happy' to his fans. Williams climbed the charts to make it a number one all around the world and it was one of the first forms of musical media to release a 24 hour music video to go with the chart topping single. This is a great example of Cross Media Convergence.

Users were able to  log onto the 24 hours of happy website and depending on where they are in the world, a different clip was shown and this also linked to the time of day that they visited. They were able to share the clips onto social media. The music video edit for the 24 hours of footage was released on YouTube a few weeks later, earning 668 million+ views. The 24 hour music video was aired at the Buenos Aires Film Festival. This is a good example of a mass product appealing to a niche market audience.

It created encouragement for Exchange as a large number of fans of the song created multiple versions that are similar to the original. Theses are all uploaded to YouTube and are labelled 'We Are Happy From...'. Cities from around the world have got involved. This occurred through an active embrace of digital technology, exchange and changes in copyright. A lot of the videos looked extremely professional and earned millions of views themselves.

The music video even went on to win Grammy Awards for its success. This can also be linked to the aspect that it was included on the soundtrack for the popular children's film, Despicable Me 2- even 'Minions' from the film were included in a short cameo in the video.



 

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