Funk Rock (Genre detailed post)

What is genre?
When we think of genre we think of a type of style or theme that runs through a whole
piece of media and they have certain conventions that they follow, when it comes to
genre and music videos and songs there are many different genres such as: Rock,
funk, metal, RnB, classical, EDM and much more! For example when you think of
the rock genre, you think about very harsh and loud locals with loud and very
prominent instruments to go along with the vocals (electric guitars and so forth), the
setting for it to be in being very dark. As well as normal genres there can be things
called hybrid genres in which are mixtures of two or more genres such as funk-rock.

Genre is a useful piece of information as it can give you an idea of who the target
audience is mainly from the key concepts of it (the conventions) in areas like mise-enscene, camerawork, editing and so forth. It can allow an audience to determine the
differences between various genres and pick up on hybrids.
All in all genres is a repertoire of elements that an audience expect to see in a media
text.
Our genre and its musical history
For our main production the genre we have chosen to look into and then to inevitably
produce a music promo for is funk-rock what is a hybrid like I talked about earlier
between rock and funk. And now the musical history of this genre:
1960s:
With funk rock the first artist that got world recognised was Jimi Hendrix and was
well known for combining the rhythms and riffs of early funk to his rock sound. The
earliest example of funk rock is his song Little miss lover. After this song he then
went on to create more music along this funk-rock style especially when making his
one of his first albums Band of gypsys featuring a lot of funky riffs and rhythms
throughout.

1970s:
When it came to the 1970s the next icon in the funk-rock genre was George Clinton,
who was later given the title Godfather of the genre. He created the name P-Funk for
the innovative new concepts that he culled from the former members of James
Browns band (such as Maceo Parker and Bootsy Collins) and these new young
players like the guitar hero that revelled Hendix named Eddie hazel. His groups,
Funkadelic and Parliament, in which practically defined funk since the release of
the influential funk rock Funkadelic classic Maggot Brain. After this more and more
artists, bands and songs started using the funk-rock genre people such as: Cosmic
slop, Standing on the verge of getting on, Hardcore Jollies and then Lets take it
too the stage. Then further after this it then influence bands such as the red hot chili
peppers and even snoop dog.

1980s:
When the 1980s came about funk-rock was a very prominent genre heard nearly every
day and became extremely popular, one of the most popular funk-rock songs of the
1980s was Queens Another one bites the dust. Also in this decade more and more
versions of funk were created such as Synth-funk (a combination of funk and
synthpop) created by bands such as: Scritti Politti in which a noticeable album was
Cupid and Psyche 85. And again there was more influxes of new artists and bands
jumping on the funk rock band wagon such as: Janes addiction, Fishbone, Faith no
more, Mr Bungle, Primus and Spin doctors.
As well as this, band Red Hot Chili Peppers really changed their style to primarily
going towards producing funk-rock music producing their second and third albums
mainly as funk-rock orientated. These albums mostly known for songs containing a
driving bass-line which is played over a sparse guitar track occasionally punctuated
by metal like riffs and solos.

1990s to present day:

In this decade a lot of new styles came out of funk especially ones were they
combined the funky rhythms with heavy metal guitar sound producing a new hybrid
of funk-metal , where the emphasis is in using a much heavier distorted guitar
sounds in the mix. Whereas funk-rock employs a much lighter, crunchier distorted
guitar sounds, and the musical emphasis tends to be more beat driven with prominent
bass line; more of a rhythmic RnB style. One album displaying these features
perfectly was critically acclaimed sugar sex magik by again the well-known Red
Hot Chili Peppers. And other artist such as Stevie Salas and TM Stevens were
excellent also.

Typical lyrical content/themes in the funk-rock genre:

When it comes to thinking about what lyrical content and themes in the funk-rock
genre it is extremely easy to get mixed up and jump the gun and just automatically
think about rock and assume funk rock follows the style of lyrical content that rock
does (and with the funk coming through in the musical instrumental side of the
concept); this being content that is full of bad emotions such rage and anger in which
the band/artist almost take it out on audience by being very full on in the way they
sing (very harsh and powerful conveyance) and the type of music they produce as
well (again very loud and in your face with very bold instruments played very roughly
in small harsh strokes; electric guitars, drums and bass) what is the stereotypical
themes for a very performance driven genre . But in reality funk-rock is completely

different to the lyrical content/themes than rock in many ways: Firstly the actual lyrics
themselves are content that goes towards not only more subtle sad emotions but also
can be very upbeat and happy, it has lyrics that the audience can probably relate to
more as normally the narrative is to do with some everyday problems such as break
ups and sad family times; For example in our chosen band the song we are doing
(imitating) is called Put on ya boots (by 3rd rock revolution)- It contains a chorus in
which starts This pain (with the word pain extended) put on your boots an d keep
and walking when looking into this the idea our group got from this is the
metaphorical pain life gives to us as humans in the form of stress and loss, and the
put on ya boots and keep on walking.. part shows us that to be honest we just have to
put up with it and keep on living our lives to the fullest, this sending a good life lesson
to the audience of the band and this does really help out in life as most people do take
music and their message very seriously if they are good enough to notice them. This
more subtle lyrical content backed up by the more relaxed but still a little in your face
style of the band/artists, still has a pretty powerful conveyance but that powerfulness
done by the lyrics (emotional hard hitting words) and not the actual movements as
they are a little more relaxed and not so angrily conveyed like in rock.
Musical style/characteristics in the funk-rock genre
When it comes to this genre; Funk-Rock it is a hybrid between two different genres
and this creates a mixture of styles that actually comes across pretty well. When we
hear rock the idea we get from it is: very loud and fast paced while very in your face
song lyrics (extremely angry and chaotic), very in your face band members that
convey the lyrics very harshly (this emphasised mainly by the excessive use of close
ups on band members while staring angrily into the screen almost straight into the
audiences eyes, so that get the strong raw emotion and powerful style), strong
prominent instruments such as electric guitars, very dark and scruffy clothing and a
very performance based narrative/style. But when we think of funk the ideas we get
from it is: a medium paced style song with parts in which the pace increases and then
decreases, normal casual style clothing with normal colourings that isnt so scruffy as
those seen in rock, something more formal , there is more subtle instruments like
acoustic guitars and even some saxophones, the style is less in your face and
prominent as it is a little more relaxed and something you can dance along to more as
it has an easier rhythm/melody to follow and also contains more subtle emotions and
things the audience can maybe relate to more like we said in the earlier paragraphs.
Another convention that funk gives to its songs are little sections in which focuses on
the instruments especially the electric guitar/bass in particular in which it is
cresendod more than the other instruments to single it out and a riff is played what is
normally a small set of nots played repeatedly and sometime distorted a little in which
the audience can enjoy immensely. But when it comes to funk-rock elements are taken
from both to create a pretty awesome new style It mainly keeps the rock style genre
instruments such as the electric guitars, drums and then the addition of the funky bass
instruments. The pace of the whole funk rock genre is taken from funk songs: it is
quite medium paced but has certain points in which the pace is fastened for example
normally at the beginning, middle and end just like that of a thriller film, mostly these
spikes of fast pace are in the form of those riffs we mentioned earlier. The
narrative/style is more like that of funk very subtle and less in the audience face,
something that is very impactful on the audience via the lyrics and not really by the
behaviour of the band/artist, this making it slightly easier to listen to casually and

because the music has the nice riffs in places it makes it usually nice to listen to and
dance to or jam to as you would say.
How the artists/bands of the funk genre are visually represented
In this section I will be analysing how artists and bands are represented, especially
looking into the type of clothing they wear when out and about performing and that of
the clothes in their music videos, here are a few examples of what some funk-rock
artists/bands look like:

As we can see already from these pictures that elements from the rock genre and the
funk genre have been combined to form this pretty sweet costume: The first thing we
really see coming through is the funk genre style costumes; these are much more
formal than those seen in rock as we can see band members and artists wearing suits
with ties and if not they are wearing blazers or even waistcoats, this giving the whole
band a more formal and smart looking vibe (maybe helping appeal to those of a
higher socio-economic class, as they can relate more), the colours are very funk style
with there being quite bright colours like the bright red tops and the orange style
waistcoat seen in the pictures above, not only making the band very colourful and eye
catching to the audience, but also giving the band a sense of fun and happiness
whereas in rock the colours of the clothes are very dark all the time and the clothes
arent very smart as even sometimes in rock some band members dont wear tops. But
although it is smarter it still takes a little from the rock genre as yes it is smart but it is

on the verge of a little scruffy side still keeping the on edge feel from rock and
keeping the coolness of those artists in rock.
The idealology (beliefs/whats important) to the performers of this genre
When it comes to what idealology (beliefs/whats important) in this genre it is clear to
see that they want to give you the best of both worlds and have a perfect mixture
between rock style and the funk style to accommodate a mass audience perfectly and
keep people who enjoy both genres interested, done perfectly by implementing
elements from each such as: the rock style instruments (electric guitars, drums etc.)
with the addition of the funk style bass instrument, the scruffy look of clothing of the
rock genre but applying it to more formal funky style clothing coming from the funk
genre like the colourful suits and tops etc , they have wanted to impact on the
audience still, like rock does with heavy and harsh behaviour (very in your face
movements) but not in the same way, they wanted to convey this powerful ness
through their lyrics and music rather than behaviour, so their behaviour is a little more
relaxed but the lyrics contain very hard hitting emotional subjects to engage the
audience, this in perfect harmony of that amazing addition of riffs of the funk genre,
singular instruments taking front stage and playing an amazing tune to memorise and
pleasure the audience.
Audience profile
Demographic- Age
When it comes to funk rock, it seems that the age range is in the middle life range
around 17/18 years old to mid-40s like 45. The reasoning behind this is because
people of a younger age (under 17/18) dont particularly like the hard rock/funk genre
but are actually more into the pop, EDM and dubstep genre(s) that are becoming more
and more prominent lately, that is quite chaotic compared to the little more relaxed
funk/blues-rock genre and then people over the age of around 50 will probably like
the genre but not as much as those in the 18-45 age range as it seems the older
generation prefer something that has a slower pace and something more classical,
whereas fun/blues-rock is a bit faster paced.
Demographic- Gender
When it comes to funk-rock the gender that you would think stereotypically would
enjoy the genre more is male and I think that this stereotype is adhered too. I think the
target audience is mostly male but females are a part of it also but not as much; the
reasoning behind this is that males generally like the chaos that the rock-funk genre
brings whereas females prefer things a little more subtle and conformitive, and also as
most of the band in rock-funk are male, maybe this results in males relating to the
band more than females would as there are no females in the band, as typically
females like an artist who is also female.
Socio-economic class
When it came to choosing a socio-economic class for our genre the category(s) we
went for were the C2, D and E section but at a push C1 could also fit into it as well.
The reasoning behind this is that these are the categories that would primarily fit into
our age range of around 20-45 (give or take a few years) as they are what kinds of
jobs those with that age would probably be doing. Not only that but these kinds of
people have time to listen to this kind of music, when they have breaks from work or

even can listen to them at work, as funk-rock it is quite relaxing and enjoyable to
listen to due to its middle paced rhythms.
Psychographics
For our genre of funk-rock the psychographic section we picked was the 'Explorer'
section and there are a few reasons why; the first being that they like searching for a
new discovery this relates well with funk-rock as it is a new kind of hybrid genre
never really seen in the early years of music but now it has a lot more people are
discovering it now and enjoying it. And another reason is that in this section of people
it says they are young in nature but not necessarily in reality, this relates to our midrange age target and how yes they might be middle aged but they still enjoy the quite
fast/mid paced music that the younger generations like listening too.