Drum and Bass genre example

Drum and bass (commonly abbreviated to D&B or DnB) is a type of electronic dance music which emerged in the mid 1990s, and is a style of electronic music focussing heavily on loud bass and fast-tempo drum beats. Current drum and Bass is characterised by bands such as Chase and Status, KG, DJ Hazard, etc. I analysed Chase and Status video for Pieces to study this genre of music.

The camera angles in this video included a lot of close-ups on the main artist on his guitar , and a lot of mid/close shots of his reaction to his girlfriend trashing his house. The action switches between a hand-held camera held by his ex, and him and his friends watching whats happening on a screen. The streets spin as the camera is turned really quickly and the camera also travels quickly down a road showing the busy streets and lights. POV shots are also included. The editing is straight cuts and action is added between old events such as birthdays captured on camera. The editing is quicker when the music speeds up, and there is a section where there are extremely quick edits of his face in different bits of town that give the impression of him walking a far distance. The sound of the video is just the song and voices are written at the bottom of the screen. The Mise en Scene shows girls kissing and other people having sex, with drunks smashing and destroying the flat and the artists baggy expensive t-shirts. There is swearing and fighting with a lot of anger, and the action switches from the destroyed flat to the rich studio.

Typical representations of this genre of music are clearly shown in this video, such as anger and destruction, and this all speeds up once the music goes quicker and the bass drops in. Stylish clothes and a modern flat summarise what the artists life is like, and we can conclude that the artists life is all about the music he makes shown by the importance of the lyric book he has made.

The CD cover is very basic for this song showing smashed glass in two corners of the cover, with the name of the song and artist in the middle. The colours fit in with the green of the hand-held camera in the video, and I think this cover gives off an urban vibe, just as the video does. The smashed glass images also match the vdeo, in the way that everything is broken in the artists flat.