F.L - Metanarrative, Caro Emerald

Caro Emerald Metanarrative

 Album Cover

• Through this simplistic album cover Caro Emerald portrays how her branding is heavily focused upon her era and style of music. Her 1920's styled clothing and 'dated' positioning pose leads to all focus being on her abstract style of music. As an artist this could present her as being more enigmatic as she places less emphasis on herself and more onto her music, causing the audience to want to understand her (and her music) more. 
• Dyer's theory of 'star image' is heavily portrayed in this artwork through her being the central feature to this image. Her strong posture and position could suggest her confidence and comfort within her abilities as an artist and therefore supports the idea of her being a 'star'.
• Emerald's gaze away from the camera portrays her as being absent, as proposed by Dyer, which could suggest that she is disconnected from her audience and this therefore encourages them to buy more of her content due to wanting to complete the enigma - thereby continuing and furthering her relationship with her career and brand.
• All of Emerald's album covers follow a similar style of herself centralised to the album with a statement background and simple text stating her name and album title. This simplistic and regulated approach towards her print marketing shows that she is targeting an older audience and is attempting to market herself as a more mature artist.
• The red colour scheme and Emerald's strong positioning all combine to connote a sense of danger and passion. Using Barthe's narrative codes, the red could be a symbolic code which represents Emerald's emotions and message behind this album. This could lead to an enigmatic nature surrounding her, where the audience is left wanting to know more about her and they are intrigued into listening and understanding her music more - leading to furthered consumption by the audience. 

Music Video

• The overall visual style of this video is largely bright and open, which connotes a ‘lighthearted' feel to the song, keeping it upbeat and lively. This suggests that as an artist, Emerald produces songs to entertain and provoke positive emotions within her audience, rather than using a dark colour scheme and overlay which would symbolically connote the idea of depressing thoughts. 
• Emerald does feature in her video but only as a singer, showing how she focused on her musical carer – professional and mature, not interested in popularity and appeal.
• Goodwin's proposal of meat shots are used, however they are not fetishistic, which again supports the idea that Emerald is keeping her visuals and brand based on the music and not focused on her body and face as her brand. This supports the idea of Emerald being a more mature artist who aims to portray herself as a more respected and professional artist. 

This example of a meat shot clearly portrays how Emerald is presenting her music through her aesthetic, whilst focusing attention onto her abilities as an artist and not a performer. 

• The narrative of the video jumps between a few concepts, which creates an enigmatic feel to the video, as proposed by Barthes, creating questions for the audience, making them want to understand Emerald’s intentions behind the song and video, which leads to further consumption of Emerald's products. 
• However, using Goodwin's theory you can understand that the relationship is loosely amplified - with the lyrics relating and being expanded on, by the video. The lyrics use male pronouns and describe love and relationships, which is followed and amplified in the video by following and focusing on a key heterosexual relationship. The video then leads on to the night time, which links with the song title, and the video follows the male and female protagonists journey through the night. 
• Extreme close-ups are used to focus attention onto Emerald's statement red components within her outfit. This could connote the idea of danger and passion (as previously mentioned within her album artwork, supporting the idea of her running theme throughout her branding as an artist). An extreme close-up is used of her lips which could be seen as a more festishistic shot - leading to an element of enigma surrounding her, causing the audience to be drawn into her absent yet charming and intriguing persona. 



This shot is a clear ECU of her lips,  showing her red makeup which have become a statement look for Emerald.



• Using Dyer's theory, you can understand that Emerald is presented as present throughout the video. Her absence from the narrative of the video portrays her as being in reality and in touch with her audience rather than in a narrative fiction. She is simply performing, which is a 'normal' and generic activity achievable by all people - this therefore presents her as being more relatable to and 'on the sam level' as her audience. 
• Overall, Emerald's metanarrative is composed to present her as a modern, musically-focused individual. She is presented as both enigmatic, yet present and relatable, which combines to lead her audience into wanting to consume further content of hers in order to complete 'the puzzle' and understand more about her as an artist.