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A study of the changes in star image of Metronomy

Metronomy first began in 1999, as a bedroom project of the frontman, Joseph
Mount. In the early stages, Mount made electronic music with his father's
equipment, sampling and remixing different tracks into a new electronic
piece. Once Mount moved to Brighton to study at Brighton University, he
expanded this project into a DJ career at local nightclubs. At one of Mount's
gigs, he was approached by a record label scout, who offered to print copies
of Mount's songs and remixes. In 2005, Mount released his debut album, 'Pip
Paine (Pay the 500 You Owe)'. In this release, Mount was still marketed
primarily as a remixer, expanding his work to include self-written tracks.
Soon after the release of Pip Paine, Mount recruited two more band members:
his cousin Oscar Cash on lead guitar and keyboard, his childhood friend
Gabriel Stebbing on bass. In the next 3 years, the trio collaborated further on
remixes to be released on their original artists' albums, while Mount
continued to write songs on the side. In 2008, Metronomy released their
second album 'Nights Out', their first as a full 3-member band. As a group,
the band were marketed through promotion and in music videos as a quirky,
lef-field indietronica band, youthful and relatable. This can be seen most
clearly the music video for the album's single, 'Heartbreaker'.
However, in April 2009, Stebbing left the group to pursue a solo career, under
the name of Your Twenties. The band quickly recruited two new members,
drummer Anna Prior and bassist Gbenga Adelekan. In this new set-up, the
group continued to produce remixes and release them through Myspace,
including the Gorillaz' 'El Manana' and Kate Nash's 'Foundations'. Since the
set-up of the band had become more similar to a rock-band layout through
the addition of percussion, the band's stylistic choices had shifted to further
resemble the rising popularity of the indie rock genre, though Mount still
referred to his music as 'electro-pop' and 'indietronica'. This was shown
primarily through the band's continued use of MySpace, the same page as
that under
On the April 11th 2011, Metronomy released their third studio album, English
Riviera. Propelled by the popularity of the single 'The Look' through plays on
BBC Radio 1, this album cemented Metronomy as a face for the indietronica
genre, alongside their contemporary MGMT. Compared to the marketing of
Nights Out, the branding of the current band, dubbed by Mount as
'Metronomy 2.0', was taken much more seriously as a band. By comparison to
Heartbreaker's quirky and indie-film-inspired appearance, The Look's higher
production value and use of editing through stop-motion animation seemed
to portray the band as much more powerful and influential. Though the style
of production was intentionally more professional, the music video still kept

faihtful to the indie-inspired appearance of the band at the time of Nights Out
(Metronomy 1.0).
English Riviera became popular much quicker than the previous two albums,
charting at 28 in the UK, compared to Nights Out's 106. This was in part due
to the use of The Look in Barclaycard commercials. Following the release of
the English Riviera, Metronomy went on tour promoting the album, from
February 2012 through to Autumn 2012. In March 2014, the band released
their most recent album, Love Letters. The release was preceded by an online
campaign beginning on November 11th 2013, through which free downloads
and streaming of the single 'I'm Aquarius' were released through the app
'Night Sky'. In this instance, Metronomy's portrayal largely stayed similar to
their's in English Riviera: having taken on their recent popularity, having been
named Zane Lowe's Most Anticipated Album of 2014, the band played on
their previous appearance in the 'The Look' once again in the 'Love Letters'
video, wearing red blazers and with a similar band set-up. The band
portrayed their increased popularity through designing the room around them
: from the crowds of viewers visible through the windows, to the painting of a
fully-booked theatre hall of fans listening to their concert. Though the band
had gone through several iterations and had been shifting toward a more
indie rock-inspired appearance, the band still stayed fairly similar in sound to
Mount's original indietronica, experimental roots, spanning over a decade.