Post 4A: Analysis of music videos

ED SHEERAN - A TEAM

The first music video i have chosen to analyse is "The A Team" by Ed Sheeran. I will be analysing this video by using Goodwin's theory for narrative, along with comments on media language, representation and ideology.

There is relationship between the visuals and lyrics in this video in many parts but an example of this tis when Ed sings "Angels can fly" at the same time there is an image of the young girl in the sky. Another example of this is when he sings "Crumbling like pastry" it shows a shot of the young girl breaking down and crying, linking back to the lyrics. There is also relationship between the music and visuals as at every new line of the song the images on the screen change to something new, also as the pace of the music is at a medium speed, the editing matches to this speed all the way through.

According to Goodwins theory, he states that certain music genres may have their own style and iconography. However, Ed Sheeran's music is labelled as many genres including folk rock, hip hop, grime and acoustic. For this video i believe the genre that applys most is acoustic, as he is using an acoustic guitar and singing throughout. The styles and iconography associated with this genre would be a simple video paced at a normal speed, with acoustic music and vocals, this adheres to the style and i would agree with Goodwins theory.

Another part of Goodwins theory states that there should be lots of close ups of the main artist or band, however there are nto in this video as Ed only appears in the video once to talk to the girl and is gone again very soon after he appears. Even though music videos aim to promote an artist i do not believe Ed only appearing once is a bad idea as it is almost a trademark style of his not to appear in his videos and so the viewer would be used to this by now. Also the slight glimpse of him in the video would help viewers recognise him if they were new to his music.

Goodwin's theory suggests that there will be voyerism in a music video. In this video we see the young girl breaking down in her emotional state and selling her body so that she can pay for drugs. Also when she is getting dressed up to go out and sell her self there are close up shots of her chest area. This allows us to experience a life that is normally closed away from us.

Even though this story is made up by the director, there are almost intertextual references to charity adverts which can show that this is a serious situation that does go on in real life and promote awareness.

NEW ORDER - BLUE MONDAY
The second video i have chosen to analyse is "Blue Monday" by New Order. I chose this video because it has a very unconventional and unusual video, made in the 1980's.

There are not many cases in this video where the lyrics match up to the visuals but one of the few examples of this is when they sing "I see a ship in the harbour" and we see a handwritten message saying i see and a toy ship on a table immediately afterwards.
The relationship between the music and the visuals is very usual, the music is fast paced and so the editing matches and is cut to the same speed as the music.

This song is labelled in the genres of New Wave and Alternative, this is an immediate clue that the video was going to be more unconventional than some of the more mainstream videos of the 80s. Therefore the style and iconography is not anything specific, just anything out of the ordinary that will not make much sense or link to the song very clearly for example the main focus of this video is a weimaraner breed of dog doing balancing acts, which is not what the lyrics are about at all.

The band appear in the video quite a few times but there are not too many close ups of the lead singer as Goodwins theory suggests. In reference to the vouyerism part of Goodwins theory, we do see the band contributing in different activities through out the video, which we would not usually experience.
Because this video is so strange and unusual, i cannot think of any intertextuality throughout the video that has been used.

MGMT - ELECTRIC FEEL

The final video i have decided to analyse is "Electric Feel" by MGMT.

This video is of an alternative and electronic genre and so the iconography and genre style is that the instruments are played in the video and the band are present throughout, also there is alot of CGI which is usual for the electronic genre.

We see the band and their friends having a party in a forest with many compyuter generated fantasy characters, this links with vouyerism because we would not be able to experience a scene like this with the band if it wasnt for this video.

There is again not much of a relationship between the visuals and the lyrics because the genre is alternative, but one example of the lyrics and visuals linking together is when they sing "This is what the world is for, making electricity". When that lyric is sung, we see a computer generated glowing planet earth fall from the sky which is then cut open and we see a pixilated liquid which is supposed to be electicity. Because the music is medium paced, the editing matches up with this and changes at the same speed throughout the video.

I cannot seem to see many intertextual references within the video because it is so alternative but there are many CGI characters involved in the video which some could think relate to other animation or fantasy films.