Textual Analysis of Music Videos

I have chosen to analyse Foo Fighters video to 'The Pretender,' I have chosen this as my second analysis because I thought it would be helpful to me to analyse both a narrative-based video and a performance-based one, 'The Pretender' video directed by Sam Brown currently has 58,465,355 hits on Youtube and the band itself has had a massive following since the demise of Kurt Cobain - and evidently Nirvana - and the advent of the Foo Fighters.

 This music video belongs to the genre of Rock, it possesses many characteristics of this genre, for example, there are a lot of close ups of the members of the band playing their instruments and a lot of 'headbanging,' mostly from the lead singer Dave Grohl. As well as this, there are a lot of long shots so that the whole band can be seen by the audience. A lot of aggression is shown and the mise en scene is typical of a rock video, the band members are dressed mostly in black and white and are wearing skinny jeans and vans. The colour scheme is simple and effective white, black and red.

Due to the fact that it is a performance video, there are very few links to the lyrics and the video because the camera mainly focuses on the link between the music and the shots. However, there are a few lyrics that are illustrated by moments in the video.

The line "and so it all began," is illustrated in the video by the song actually beginning at this point. Although the guitar starts as soon as Grohl walks out onto the 'stage' the drums indicate the beginning of the entire band contributing to the music.

The drum beat that is used in this sequence is almost like the introduction to the second verse of the song. Many have said that drummers in bands are talentless and pointless but this single shot shows that without that drum beat the song would not have a real start point, I think that this is an important part of the video because - with Dave Grohl being a previous drummer himself - it is as though the video is blatently showing the importance that the drummers position holds in a band and this is being emphasised through this one shot.

Another line that is illustrated in the video is the line, "the secrets that you keep are ever ready," when Grohl says the word 'secrets' the camera moves up to look at the ceiling, this shows that the camera does not want to invade any secret that may be being kept by Grohl so the camera shot is almost personified by the fact that it 'looks away'

The final connection that I found between the lyrics and the video was when Dave Grohl is repeating the line "who are you," he does this whilst staring at the guards that have approached the line, this gives the impression that he is antagonising the guards and daring them to come forward and attack them, he makes them feel insignificant and inferior by literally saying to them 'who are you?'

Because it is a performance video, there are a lot of ways that the music is illustrated by shots in the video. For example, there is a close up of a William Goldsmiths guitar when his distinct guitar riff is heard at the beginning of the video, this shows the audience who is playing the instrument and what specific instrument is being played, it also illustrates the sounds that are being heard.

One of the most obvious links between the music and the video is the diegetic sound of Dave Grohl singing. When he is singing the camera is almost always showing him at the microphone miming/singing the lyrics. This clearly shows the audience that Grohl is the singer and the shots of the other band members with intruments establishes who is playing what instrument and what talents each member posesses.

  

Something that happens frequently throughout the video is cuts from shot to shot that occur to specific beats of the music. These happen really quickly and there are often several different shots in the space of one or two seconds. The video changes pace with the music and after the red wall explodes the pace of the video drastically changes.

There are many close ups of the lead singer, Dave Grohl, and he is flattered by the camera a lot throughout the video. The video actually starts with a solo of him singing and playing the guitar, then after the first verse the rest of the band come out and start to play their instruments. Interestingly, you dont actually see Grohl's face until the other band members start to come out which, although establishes him as the front man, suggests that he does not want to be seen as superior.

There are a lot of close up of Grohl's face where as the close ups of the other members of the band are mainly of them playing their instruments, this emphasises the point that Andrew Goodwin makes about the fact that there is a lot of demand on the part of the record company to offer a lot of close ups of the main singer to  the audience, this video accomplishes this goal.


This video is very dissimilar to most of the other videos that are made by the Foo Fighters, videos such as 'Walk,' 'Learn to fly,' and 'Everlong,' are comical and story based which gave the band a "carefree" reputation. However, the performance side of this video is similar to their video to 'All My Life.' The mise en scene is very similar with the simple set out of the stage, the backdrop and the very similar close ups of Grohl...

I dont think that this video really puts the band/singer on sexual display; thats very unconventional of a rock video, its more in rap videos that there are provocative dancers and the artist is seen as sexual. The clothes that are worn by the band and the policemen are very conservative and casual, interestingly, there are actually very few notions of looking in this video, I think that the reason for this is because the video focuses mainly on the performance and talents of the band as opposed to telling a story - which would usually use notions of looking, such as windows.

As I said earlier on in this post, there is only one main intertextual reference in this video. The video relates to the way that the band performs on stage, the movements and facial expressions that are shown by Grohl in the video are similar to that that he does when he performs, the headbanging especially.

The song itself, as said by Grohl, is about political unrest and people not getting what they were promised by the government, this is shown in the video through the use of the police squad - evidently hired by the government - trying to maintain social control and the band represent societies outrage to the government, there is a line on the floor in the video that suggests the divide between the government and society, and when the police squad step over the line they should be prepared to face the consequences - in this case, the paint. However, Grohl also said that he wants the song do be open to personal interpretation.

In conclusion, due to the fact that this is a performance based there are more links between the music and the video then the lyrics and the video, this is very common amongst performance based videos, its a very typical video in terms of what to expect when Foo Fighters release a video that is performance based, the close ups of the lead singer and drums, the mise en scene and the shots of the individual band members are all very similar.

Conventions of Music Videos

In 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' Andrew Goodwin talks about what is conventional of a music video, he talks about how there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in videos, with the visuals either illustrating or contradicting the lyrics. This statement can be supported by many music video's as evidence of this can be found in almost all of them, but I am going to show an example from Geri Halliwel's 'It's raining men',

In this music video, the line "humidity's rising," the camera literally rises up her body as if it is the humidity.

Similarly to this, Goodwin also says that a relationship exists between the music and the visuals, for example, a dance move can be emphasized in the music video when a distinct drum beat is heard.

Goodwin says that particular music genre's have their own music video style and iconography, this means that rap video's often stereotypically cast attractive women to attract the male gaze and a outfits and mise en scene that look expensive

In the music video for 'Otis' by Kanye West and Jay-Z an expensive car is shown with four girls sitting in the back, however the materialism of this music video is contradicted at the end when a message comes up that tells the audience what the car was made for. This message contradicts the stereotype of the video. 

In the music video to 'monster' by Kanye West, there is a lot of focus on expensive jewellery, his infamous 'diamond' teeth are focused on in a 5 second shot of just his mouth


 
Rock video's generally are more performance based, this is done to show the talent that the artists possess, close ups are used to show the instruments that are being played and the lead singer of the band is often flattered by the camera and features in the video more than the other band mates. However there are also a lot of rock video's that are comical such as Foo Fighters 'Walk,' although this video does still flatter the lead singer and feature a performance section at the end. The lead singer is often flattered by the camera because, according to Goodwin, there is a lot of demand on the part of the record company for a lot of close ups of the main vocalist, this always creates a front man of the band and distinguishes a single member of the band as the most popular, this in turn gives the band a positive stage presence as the audience jump at the chance to see the famous front man in person. However, there are some bands, such as Kasabian, which have established themselves as a band around having two front men, Serge Pizzorno and Tom Meighan.

 
 Country music video's are often American, these videos are often based around a single artist with an acoustic guitar and the scenery features a lot of the stereotypical American countryside - like Texas, this is shown throughout Keith Urban's video to 'Days Go By'






 

According to Goodwin, artists may develop their own star iconography in and out of their music videos which over time becomes part of their star image. A perfect example of this is Lady Gaga, from her first appearance in the music video world she has been seen as unusual. This image has is also stuck to outside of her music video and it is very rare that she is photographed looking 'normal', the most controversial picture that was taken of Gaga was when she was photographed at the 2010 Video Music Awards wearing an outfit that consisted entirely of meat, she later claimed that this was to show the world that "she was not a piece of meat," many artists have followed suit and copied Gaga in the aspect that they want to be viewed by the public as being exceptionally un-ordinary in order to increase their fame, although it can be argued that gaga is no the first unusual artist to break the music scene, with previous female artists such as Bjork and Kate Bush taking the industry by storm with their strange presence. Artists like Nicki Minaj and Azaelia Banks are now put in a similar category to Lady Gaga.



Goodwin argues that there is likely to be reference to voyeurism particularly in the treatment of women, but also in terms of systems of looking. Windows, doors etc give a sense of people watching other people, they can also frame the shot in the video. Similarly to this, location is an important part of the appearance and reputation of an artist, many artists such as Pitbull and Kanye West are very much centred around the Miami/Hollywood reputation

There are key elements of music videos, the first of these are the lyrics, these tend to help establish a general feeling or mood or a sense of subject matter rather than offer a coherent meaning. Key lines may play a part in the visuals in the video, but rarely will a music video simply illustrate a videos wholesale. An example of this is the video for Snow Patrol's video for "open your eyes," this video is simply a car, driving really really fast through a city, you don't see the driver or the car you just see the road ahead. The end of the video shows that he was driving so fast because he wanted to see - what is assumed to be - his girlfriend. 

This shows that the lyrics establish what the music video is going to feature because the video literally doesn't make sense until the last few seconds, the audience then realises that the line "I wont waste a minute without you" is why the car was going so fast.

The second of these key elements is the music, a music video tends to make use of the tempo of the track to drive the editing and may emphasise particular sounds from the track by foregrounding instruments such as guitar, keyboard or drums. This relates to what I was saying earlier in the post, if a distinct sound is heard in the track of the music video, then a particular action will occur in the video that will emphasise that sound.

In the video to 'In the air tonight' by Phil Collins the massively famous drum beat is complimented by a shot in the video that shows a multi-coloured face zoom in and out to the beat of the drums.



Finally, 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' by Andrew Goodwin is generally seen by those who are interested in/study media as offering a deep knowledge of the world of media and it is thought that it offers new insight into the psychological view of television and music videos. I searched the internet for a review of the book and found one that praises the work of Goodwin.

Textual Analysis of music videos

I am analysing Eminem's music video to the song 'stan' featuring Dido, directed by Philip Atwell & Dre. The genre of this music video is rap, the video possesses many characteristics of that genre, for example, a lot - but not all - of the lyrics are mimed, the colours and lighting in the video are very dark and a lot of the locations look like they are in poor areas and look very grimey. This presents rap as a very street born genre.

 According to Andrew Godwin, there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals either illustrating, amplifying or cotradicting the lyrics. This statement is validified throughout this music video.

Here we can see that during the line "I wrote you but you still ain't callin," the video shows that he is writing a letter to Eminem. As the audience, we know that he is writing to Eminem for many reasons, the fact that he is miming the words as he is writing them down gives the audience a look into what would be a private conversation between two people (in letter form,) but the basis of the rap song is that we are told what Stan is writing in his letters and this shows us his psychopathic tendancies towards Eminem. Also, we know that he is writing a letter to Eminem because one of the most predominant parts of mise en scene in the shot is the envelope on the table that is addressed to Eminem.

 


 Another relation to the lyrics and the video is when the line "I scribble addresses too sloppy when I jot 'em," and during this line, Stan aggressively scribbles on the piece of paper that he is writing on. The aerial shot of him writing shows his resemblance to Eminem which also highlights his obsession to the audience. A lot of the shots during this sequence also illustrate the lyric: "I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man."

One of the most simplistic yet obvious relationships between the lyrics and the video is during the line "My girlfriend's pregnant to, I'm 'bout to be a father," during this line the video cuts to a shot of Dido sitting on a bed with her pregnancy bump obvious. The room around her is dark which focuses all of the audiences attention on her, the shadows above her eyes suggest that she is tired, both physically and metaphorically.

 The second verse of the song mostly focuses on the anger that Stan feels towards Eminem because he hasnt yet responded to any of the countless letters that he has sent him. The anger that Stan is portraying is seen through the aggressive tone that he uses during the line "FUCKED UP you dont answer fans," the emphasis on the 'fucked up' shows the listener that he is angry even though he calms himself before he says it, "I aint mad," here the lyrics actually contradict eachother.

 In this sequence the video illustrates what the lyrics are saying, the line "we waited in the blistering cold for you," is shown in the video by a shot of Stan - only wearing a tshirt - and his little brother literally standing waiting for Eminem to come out whilst its snowing only to be disappointed when a girl lunges at him and causes the guards to take Eminem away. This sequence shows the ignorance of Stan because he doesnt realise that Eminem didnt leave through choice, he was taken away by his security team for his own safety but because Stan is practically a stalker he just sees it as Eminem intentionally 
ignoring him.

 Another of the most obvious ways that the video illustrates the lyrics is when Stan says, "remember when we met in Denver," and the video literally shows Stan and Eminem meeting in Denver.




In this video it is hard to find a close relationship between the music and the video because there arent many distinct beats that the video can cut to. However, in the scene where Stan is in the car recording the cassette for Eminem, the shots cut from a close of of stans face to a shot of the mirror which a picture of Eminem is hanging from, this makes it seem as though he literally feels like he is talking directly to Eminem because he is looking at the picture.


 As well as this, the fact that Stan has a picture of Eminem hanging from his mirror highlights more his obsession with Eminem.


In this video there are very few shots of Eminem in the main part because its meant to be more of a story based video as opposed to a performance based one. However, when Eminem is shown the shots/point in the story show him to be superior and very famous. For example, when Stan and Eminem meet in Denver Eminem looks disapproved when Stan hugs him which makes him out to be disloyal to his fans, also, the part in the video when Eminem is dragged away by his security guards

As an audience we see that Eminem did not voluntarily leave, he was forced to by his security so we see that Stans allegations are unreasonable.

A lot of videos by Eminem are based around a story and are not performance based, his video to 'When I'm Gone' is similar in the way that it tells a sullen story about how Eminem does not want to be a bad father to his children. However, in this video the main character of the video is actually Eminem where as in 'Stan' another person is the main character.

This video has very few sexualised displays, however there are some notions of looking, doors and windows are used throughout the video. The beginnig of the film starts with the camera looking at then going through the window to the house, this suggests that the recipents of the house arent meant to know that they are being filmed which adds to the secrecy of Stan's obsession with Eminem, this idea is later reinforced by the fact that Stan's own girlfriend is shocked by Stan's secret obsession when she finds the room that he has dedicated to pictures of Eminem

Another feature of looking that has been used is when Stan looks in a full length mirror, reflecting back in the mirror is not a reflection of Stan, but an image of Eminem looking back at him. This creates an element of confusion in the audience because it is as though Stan wants to BE Eminem, perhaps he is jealous of his which is why he is so obsessed with him? This is also an example of the music video images contradicting the lyrics because it is being suggested that Stan does want to be Eminem but the lyrics suggest that he wants to be WITH Eminem.


There is one main intertextual reference in this video, the shot of Eminem performing on stage shows the performance side of the stars image, the video makes it obvious that he makes eye contact with Stan which creates a connection with the two characters and the facial expressions show how relevant the eye contact was to each character. Stan's facial expression shows that he feels as though a connection was made between the two because of the eye contact where as Eminem simply saw it as accidental.

This music video is narrative-based. The basis of the video is that it tells a very private story, there are many aspects of the video that are actually very dark and disturbed, this is shown through the potrayal of Stan's basement that he has obviously dedicated to his obsession of Eminem. The video actually puts across a very severe message, it shows the audience the burden that some fans put on celebrities, one the audience sees the end of the video they see the guilt that Eminem must feel.

In conclusion, this video contains many links between the lyrics and the video, this is because it is a narrative-based video and tells a story based around the lyrics. It has few - but not as many as a performance based video - links between the music and video. Eminem isnt featured constantly throughout the video, the main protagonist is Stan.

Iconic Music Videos

Music videos on the whole will always be seen all over the world as the one of the most efficient and enjoyable ways of listening to your favourite songs. With different ways of viewing these videos - like through entire channels on the television devoted to showing them to the public or through the worldwide sensation that is youtube - more and more artists are becoming legendary not only because of there great music, but because of the videos that they produce. 

A perfect example of how a single man can have the world transfixed on the television for the entirety of a song would be the video to Michael Jacksons 'Thriller'.

Produced in 1984 with now 117,931,644 Youtube views this is undoubtedly one of the worlds most iconic music videos. The famous dance that is featured in the video when Jackson is dancing in the street with the zombies has been comically featured in several films such as '13 going on 30.'

The fact that the actual 'Thriller' song doesnt even start until 4 minutes into the video shows how the video is meant to be seen as a story rather than just an ordinary music video.

Thriller is considered an iconic music video due to the fact that it was directed by John Landis, Landis is a famous film director who has directed films such as 'American Werewolf in London' and 'Blues Brothers 2000,' Jackson and Landis collaborated and wrote the screenplay for the 'Thriller' video together. The fact that the video was directed by a well known film director shows the importance of the video; can it technically be called a music video? Or should it be referred to as a short film

Secondly, the video is seen as iconic because of the visually dynamic mise en scene that is used. The costumes of the walking dead as well as the outfit that Jackson is wearing - which is so well known that it is even used as a choice for fancy dress - are brilliantly thought out and designed. The contacts that Jackson is wearing in the conclusion to the film tie the entire thing together

Not only did Jackson and Landis collaborate for the 'Thriller' video but they also collaborated for Jacksons video to 'Black or White', an 11 minute video that was a lot less well received when compared to the 'Thriller' video with a mediocre 5,443,613 views. Both of these music videos display Jackson as a 'triple threat,' they both show his amazing talents in dancing, singing and acting. It is for this reason that Landis directed the video, in order to guide Jackson in the acting part of the video. The video to 'Black or White' actually featured child star, Macaulay Culkin, the close friendship that he and Jackson formed was later an infamous source of debate in the allegations against Jackson that he had sexually abused children.

Landis and Jackson had formed a strong friendship after filming the 'Thriller' video, which would explain why Landis happily returned to direct the 'Black and White' video despite the fact that he had not actually been paid for his contributions to 'Thriller' due to the amount of money that Jackson owed Sony. Here is the link to an interesting interview with Jackson and Landis together, it interestingly shows the relationship that the pair had, and also shows how Jackson's transition into a wolf was done http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PyRtAUny7M



The second video that I am going to talk about crosses the fine line between genre's and produces a collaboration of rock and roll and hip hop. Almost a decade after Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way' was released, Run-DMC sampled the famous jagged guitar lick and got in touch with Aerosmith. In 1986, a mixed-genre music video was born and now has over 7,242,464 hits on youtube. 

The basis of the video is simplistic yet comical. Aerosmith are seen to be having a band practice to the dismay of their next door neighbors - the boys of Run-DMC - in retalliation, the Run-DMC boys adjust the song adding rap and scratching records to create the hip hop sound along side the rock and roll guitar lick. 

Run-DMC as a band are the most influential hip hop band that has existed in the music industry, they were the first rap artists to have been nominated for grammy's as well as the first band of the genre to have their music video's featured on MTV, they practically opened the door for the rap genre of music to evolve. If you look at the various rap artists that exist today it is hard to think that the first rap video was only shown on television 30 years ago.

As time has gone on, music videos have become less about creating a story for the chosen song, and more about trying to portray and wide-spread an artists reputation. Women like Beyonce and Nikki Minaj try to attract the male gaze and focus on looking glamourous rather than telling a story in their videos. In the modern day music industry music video's have become a much more serious institution. Artists can no longer mock themselves through the medium of music video's, they feel as though they must conform to what the public expects them to be - which is perfect. However, there are still musicians that happily mock themselves in their music video's, for example, the Foo Fighters 'Learn to Fly' video openly ridicules themselves as a band and provides a comical video for their fans to watch.

An example of how a very simplistic music video can still be seen as iconic is Beyonce's 'Single Ladies' video. It is merely 3 women wearing black leotards yet still looking very glamourous performing a dance routine. The black clothing contrasts with the white background and makes the video look very professional. Produced in 2008 it now has over 190,563,195 youtube hits. 

This video is also an example of the fact that no matter how iconic a video may be, it can still sometimes become the source of ridicule. Similarly to The Verve's 'Bittersweet Symphony' being mocked and parodied by 'fat les', this video was part of a skit on Saturday Night Live where Justin Timberlake attempted the dance of the video. 

Recent artists have produced videos that in years to come will be seen as iconic. The very comical video that has been released by the Black Keys ('Lonely Boy') already has 17,846,780 youtube hits since its recent release in October 2011. This up and coming band is seen by many as funny and they produce excellent music. This video has had an excellent reception from fans of the band and the dance is even recited at concerts when the song is performed.

The massively famous video to 'Here it Goes Again' by OK Go, has sparked spoof adverts and has gained over 14 million views on youtube. The simple yet effective video is comical and well thought out.

This elaborate dance was choreographed by Trish Sie and the video was directed by the band along with Sie, this video won a Grammy in 2007 for Best Short Form Music Video. The simplicity of this video is what makes it iconic, aside from the cost of the treadmills, is it obvious that loads of cash wasnt splashed out on the video to make it amazing, it is simply the band, the treadmills and a well thought out dance routine.

Finally, I am going to end this post with literally the most iconic music video of all time. Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody.' After the amazing success that this video achieved, other record labels started regularly producing and releasing promitional videos, this means that this video was ultimately the first ever music video which created a domino effect for all following music videos to follow.  It is said that this music video launched the MTV age, it was orginally created so that the band could avoid miming on Top of the Pops, because they had already been seen miming to such a complex song. The video starts with an image of the band singing which then is covered by a faded picture of the late Freddie Mercury, the majority of the visual effects in this video arent actually achieved through editing, but were done when filming instead. The honeycomb illusion was done by using a shaped lense...

This famous picture of the band was actually their favourite image that was ever taken of them. It is widely recodnised which also shows how influential and iconic the video actually was.