Genre Conventions

In Friday's lesson we were introduced to some of the genre codes and conventions, relative to the style of music. Alongside this, we saw a number of theorist interpretations of genre including Steve Neal who said "Genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations". One theorist that particularly interested me was Susan Haywood and her idea that genre was "according to the ideological climate of the time". This works around the principle that genre is relative to, for example, political or social circumstance. Immediately this made me think of Katy Perry's video for Chained to the Rhythm, which on the surface conforms to the conventions of a Pop music video but actually has political intent.