Research: Detailed Research Into Chosen Artist: Gallant

Biography

Gallant, also know as Christopher Gallant, was born on November 14th, 1991. He is an american singer/songwriter who comes from Columbia, Maryland. He self-released a EP in his early years called Zebra. Gallant was born in Washington D.C. and started recording dongs quite early in his middle school years. His main inspiration and influence was R&B music however this later changed with age as his music taste did; alternative rock became his main source of influence. He then went on to study music at New York University and graduated in 2013. Three years after he released his Studio album Ology worldwide on April 2016.

Career

Gallant moved to Los Angeles, California to work on his music career in 2013 after he finished university. This was followed by the release of his EP Zebra he was found shortly after by Mind of a Genius Records, the founding David Dann. 2015 was the year his single Weight in Gold  was covered by artist Zane Lowe on Beats1 air date June 2015. During the same year of 2015, Gallant got the chance to tour with Sufjan Stevens in which he performed at 18 different shows all around North America. From this he was one out of 15 people on Spotify that was going to "break out" in 2016.

He was then featured in a tour with Zhu's, another artist by the same record label. This tour lasted through the months of April and May starting at Coachella. In 2016, after Coachella, Gallant and Jhene Aiko released their first self written song together called "skipping stones". The song was licenced under the Red Bull Media House and featured in the sound select collection along with B-side "Borderline". He performed both weekends at Coachella

From preforming for the whole weekend Billboard Had label him the most iconic moment at the entire festival. The first weekend included an appearance from seal; the pair performed Seal's song "Crazy"  and Gallant's song "Weight in Gold". The next weekend Gallant performed yet again but this time with a surprise appearance from Jhene Aiko where they performed their song "Skipping Stones"

Gallant started a series called In The Room on January 6, 2016. His first episode was with Surjan Stevens in which they both performed a song written by Gallant called "Blue Bucket of Gold". Gallant then went on to partner with Spotify for his second episode. This episode featured Seal who Gallant had performed with at Coachella the same year. In this episode both artists performed Gallant's hit song "Weight in Gold" and to finish the episode Seal stated he was in fact "Gallant's biggest fan". The third episode included Gallant and Jack Garratt covering "I Get Lonely" by Janet Jackson.


This got him noticed by John Legend in which they performed Legend's dong "Overload". This lead on to Gallant having more collaboration with Andra Day and Dua Lipa on the further episodes.

Soon after Gallants debut studio album was released on April 6, 2016 by his record label Mind of a Genius Records. His album was a hit and got a rating from pitchfork of a 7.5/10, 4/5 from The Guardian which made the bold statement that "If this is what R&B’s future looks like it’s brighter than ever". His album was also rated one of the 25 best albums of 2016 by Entertainment Weekly and they praised him on his diverse sound voice and lyricism.

Gallant then started to get TV exposure when on May 12, 2016 he ended up on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in which he performed "Weight in Gold". This ended with a standing ovation and Fallon then ending the show with the quote "Oh my goodness! I told you… Watch out for this guy". September of the same year he performed "Weight in Gold" and "Bourbon" for BBC on Later... With Jools Holland. Then the following month Gallant made an appearance at the 2016 Mnet Asian Music Awards as a Special Artists singing "Weight in Gold".

The following year was went his media exposure was at its pinnacle. January he was chosen as Elvis Duran's Artist of the month and on the 11th of the same month  he performed "Weight in Gold" live on NBC's Today show. On the 26th of the same month he released "Cave Me In" with Epik High's and Eric Nam. He then went on to he the opening act on John Legends tour Darkness and light.

Discography 

Studio albums

• Ology (2016)

EPs

• Zebra (2014)

Examples of Music

Interviews

EveningStandard interview

MV Research: Research into Top Three Artists

From my extensive research I have eliminated my options to these top three choices. Nothing more's song War, Gallant's song Shotgun and Steven's song Mr Man.

First choice

Name: Nothing More

Short Biography: Nothing more is an alternate/progressive metal band and they formed in San Antonio, Texas in 2003. The band consists of four members who are Jonny Hawkins (singer), Mark Vollelunga (lead guitarist), Daniel Oliver (bassist) and finally Ben Anderson (new drummer).

Album Title: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Record Label: Eleven Seven

Album Release Date: September 15, 2017

Album Track List:

1.	"(Ambition; Destruction)"	0:18
2.	"Do You Really Want It?"	3:53
3.	"(Convict; Divide)"	0:41
4.	"Let 'em Burn"	3:56
5.	"Ripping Me Apart"	4:04
6.	"Don't Stop"	4:15
7.	"Funny Little Creatures"	3:28
8.	"(React; Respond)"	2:29
9.	"The Great Divorce"	4:39
10.	"Still in Love"	4:36
11.	"(Alone; Together)"	1:31
12.	"Go to War"	4:05
13.	"Just Say When"	3:42
14.	"(Accept; Disconnect)"	1:54
15.	"Who We Are"	3:26
16.	"Tunnels"	4:11
17.	"(End; Begin)"	1:40
18.	"Fadein/Fadeout"	6:05

Chosen Song: Go to War

Reason for Choice: The reason I chose Go to war was because of the background behind the song. Jonny Hawkins states that the song "revolves around the story of trust". The song is a giant metaphor for how a controlling relationship spirals out of control and becomes a war between two people. The song will be easy to lip sing to and there are lots of parts where you can cut to the beat of the music. Not only this but the song would look very good as an artistic piece (contemporary) and there are lots of ways you can convey war without showing it.

Second Choice

Name: Gallant

Short Biography: Christopher Gallant Was born on November 14, 1991. He is better know by the mononym her uses which is Gallant. He is a songwriter, singer from Columbia, Maryland, USA. Earlier on in life around the time he was in middle school he stater recording music. His main source of influeneced was R&B singers but as he grew up he became inspired by alternate rock. In 2014 he self released his first EP called Zebra and that way how he got discovered by Mind of a Genius Records.

Album Title: Ology

Record Label: Mind of a Genius

Album Release Date: April 6, 2016

Album Track List:

1.	"First"	Stint	0:37
2.	"Talking to Myself"	Stint	3:57
3.	"Shotgun"	Stint	3:17
4.	"Bourbon"	Josh Abraham, Oligee	4:39
5.	"Bone + Tissue"	Stint	3:41
6.	"Oh, Universe"	Patrizio Moi	1:02
7.	"Weight in Gold"	Stint	3:23
8.	"Episode"	Bordeaux	4:36
9.	"Miyazaki"	Ebrahim Lakhani, Yannick Häzel Beaucaine	2:12
10.	"Counting"	Stint	4:34
11.	"Percogesic"	Stint	4:12
12.	"Jupiter"	Maths Time Joy	4:36
13.	"Open Up"	Stint	4:37
14.	"Skipping Stones" (featuring Jhené Aiko)	Stint Adrian Younge	3:04
15.	"Chandra"	Patrizio Moi	3:43
16.	"Last"	Stint	0:31

Chosen Song: Shotgun

Reason for Choice: Although slow in pace the song builds towards the end which I could potentially show the build in pace using editing and cutting to the beat. The song is about the attempt to get a girl but she is so out of hid league that every move is the wrong move. With this song I can show the juxtaposition of the strong female over the weak frail man trying to find love. This song also is only sung by one person so lip syncing won't be that difficult to do.

Third Choice

Name: Stephen

Short Biography: Stephen (full name Stephen Swartz) was born on December 13 1991 in Vienna, Virginia, USA. He is an alternative-electronic artist, singer-songwriter and producer in California. He takes inspiration from his own life especially major events. He has his own website where he documents these as well as the lyrics to most of his songs. 

Record Label: Halfway House

Album Release Date: May 10, 2016

Album Tracklist: 

1.	"Start a Fire" (feat. IN-Q)	2:27
2.	"Your Life"	4:06
3.	"Remembering Myself"	3:30
4.	"Line It Up"	3:27
5.	"Fly Down"	3:17
6.	"Solid as a Stone"	2:41
7.	"Outro"	2:05
8.	"Mr. Man"	4:04
9.	"Crossfire"	4:30
10.	"Sincerely"	4:47

Chosen Song: Mr Man

Reason for Choice: Mr man starts very acoustic and slow and slowly leads into the electronic phase of the song which has quite a few sharp beats which can be used as transitions and the possibility of creative camera angles can also be implemented. His whole album is about learning how to love oneself and that can be a hard thing for most people so I admire him for that. The way I view Mr Man  was apologising to yourself about bad choices you made which has given me a vast ideas for how I can create a narrative/ contemporary music video.

MV Research: Research Into Potential Artist/ Album/ Song Choice

For our music video research we had to find a selection of music from which we could be inspired and create a promotional package for starting with the music video.

To start my research I visited an indie music site called All Music and two youtube channels known for posting indie/alternate music called MrSuicideSheep and Aesthetic Antlers.

I started scouring these sites for indie/alternate music which is my preferred preference of music which some instances of alternate pop and metal. I tried to get the albums to vary to give me more opportunity to decide on a set song later. This also led me onto bands I haven't even heard of which expanded my musical knowledge.

I then set out to look for music I wouldn't normally listen to and came up with a selection of contender albums in which a good song could come from however I didn't rule out the previous albums I had researched. This also included different genres I wouldn't listen too such as pop and R&B as this would give me more options in the future.

After scouring for a variety of albums I then started to look at individual songs. When looking through the albums that I had collected I visualised how the video could be played out, for example if it would go well with a music video in a style of a pseudo-documentary or very contextual. Wether the artist should be a televised bard meaning they sing or a commercial exhibitionist which is where they show off their image. I also had to put into thought what would be achievable, and bands song like Go To War by Nothing More Would be good as a contextual piece and many things can be used to symbolise war and suffering however, it would be rather difficult to arrange the video in such a way that the performer was a televised bard as that means I would have to assemble a band to believable mimic the bands performance.

I went through listening the songs compiling them into lists of which ones would has aspects of Pseudo-documentary in them, contextual, narrative and stage. Through looking at a variety of different music videos I found that I wanted to do either and contextual or narrative as I can be creative with the editing. This helped me narrow down my song choice.

What I learned from AS Media

From getting a C in AS media i have learned that I need to tailor my revision to the end exam; focusing on essay writing more as that is my weak point. As i got an A in coursework last year I am pretty confident I can replicate it this year.

I have also learned that I need to go more in depth with my research as I only lightly touch upon topic and avoid going into mass detail where as it's the mass detail that gets the marks.

Another area I could delve into more is the terminology. Learning the terminology off by heart will really help me excel in A level asI be able to recall and use them in my music video. In addition to need I need to post every single idea/step I take into creating the Digipack/ music video/ magazine cover so the examiner knows my thought process and can follow my blog with ease.

I would prefer to work alone but if you think I would be better working as a pair then I don't really mind.