Transcript Bombay Bicycle club

BOMBAY BICYCLE
CLUB
Bombay Bicycle Club are an indie-rock band from London,
formed in 2005 by Jack Steadman, Jamie MacColl and Suren de
Saram. Ed Nash later joined the band in 2006. The band released
their debut EP ‘The Boy I Used to Be’ in February 2007 on their
own independent record label – Mmm… Records. The band’s
second EP ‘How We Are’ which debuted at Number 2 in the
charts was later produced the same year in October 2007 and the
band headlined their first UK tour in November 2007. The band
are now signed to Island Records, with whom their most recent
albums ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose’ - 2009,
‘Flaws’ – 2010 and ‘A Different Kind of Fix’ – 2011 were
released.
Bombay Bicycle Club’s target audience are likely to be niche indie
and alternative music fans rather than mainstream audiences or
fans of the rock or metal genre, however the record company
they are signed to targets various different sub-cultures due to
being a subsection of Universal Records. The band can
specifically market their records to their target audience by
creating an indie ‘look’ for the band, conforming to the
stereotypes of this genre and by specifically making the album
covers and merchandise that they sell conform to this too. The
band have a website which may benefit them in the long run as it
simply and easily showcases their genre and makes them
accessible to potential fans.
Music videos for songs from the indie-rock sub genre often
conform to common conventions of being anti-establishment,
appealing to those who also consider themselves alternative and
individual. A main convention most artists and bands use in their
videos is a performance aspect – which Bombay Bicycle club use
in almost all of their music videos. This shows the band’s motives
for making and producing music, as the genre itself was mainly
about playing music and not specifically focused on success.
Narrative is also a popular style used within the indie genre as the
lyrics are often abstract so the use of a storyline could help fans
draw conclusions as to what the meaning of the song is. Mise-enscene is also important as it establishes the specific genre that the
band belongs to from the start of a video.