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.