Individual Initial Idea

Now I've got my group (myself, Odelia and Charley) we are starting to come up with ideas.
All three of us are keen to be in the music video and the teachers agree it would be the best idea as we now have performance and lip-syncing experience from the workshop day, plus all three of us have dance backgrounds. Plus it would be a lot of fun!

For now we're researching girl bands, but rather than groups like Girls Aloud and Saturdays, we're aiming for more rocky bands with a bit of an edge and maybe some instruments.

So far I'm taking inspiration from Plasticines, a female rock band from France (but they sing in English so their songs could definitely be used).

Here is my initial track selection proposal:



Barcelona - I like the sound: rocky without trying too hard. It does already have a video but I am not keen on it as it is quite basic and the styling seems a little over-the-top to me, as I am imagining a cooler, more laid-back look.
For our video, I proposed that we have two set-ups. The first would be a performance, using the school studio, where the three of us simply sang and played our instruments to the camera.
The second part would be a narrative. The song itself is about going to Barcelona, and while filming the video there would be perfect, of course that isn't at all practical! So I came up with another idea set in a club called Barcelona. It would show the three band members getting ready to go out, dancing around a room and putting on makeup, etc.

They would also be poring over travel brochures about Barcelona, pointing at the pictures inside and looking excited. Around halfway through the video, they would leave and jump into a cab, they pull up outside a London club, clearly showing the name outside: Barcelona. They would then enter the club, and inside it is set up with a Spanish theme: holiday-style cocktails with umbrellas, flamenco dancers, etc.

The rest of my group liked the song but weren't so inspired by the lyrics and sound, and I soon realised that my idea might be possible if simplified a bit, but it would take a lot of effort and would only work if we had a venue available to hire which would be potentially very tricky. We decided to try and come up with something else instead that we were all keen on and would work in real life as a practical and feasible project.

However, the other girls in my group did really like the sound and style of the band, so I decided to research into them a little more and maybe get some inspiration.


The band themselves are really cool and I like their style: trendy without being too pretentious. They are the kind of people that girls want to be and boys want to be with. This is the appeal we are going for, rather than someone like, say, the Pussycat Dolls. Although they are very popular, it is mainly because their music is catchy, and they aren't particularly great role models for girls. They are a bit too sexualised for my liking, as I believe that to appeal to girls as well as boys, a group should be more than just "hot".


PCD - Not the look we are going for!

I've also researched into some other girl bands from recent years. Another band called The Faders had quite a good sound, but image-wise I feel we should be a bit more girly looking, as they dress quite grungy and have a definite tomboy vibe. I think we should go for the middle-ground between them and a group like The Pussycat Dolls.

The Faders

I also think we should move away from the idea of a 'girl band' being a gimmick just because they're females. This quote from the Plasticines sums that up: there should be more all-female bands that are taken seriously as musicians and rock artists. We will definitely be taking on this idea as inspiration for our own band, as although we don't have a final idea at the moment we are all pretty set on being an all-female rock group, so this is definitely relevant.