Tuesday 1 November 2011

Textual Analysis of a Music Video

I found a band called Alice in Videoland who are electro/punk/rock and have a female lead singer, similar to our music video genre and style, so I chose to look at one of their music videos using Goodwin's textual analysis theory. The video is nearly all performance based, with the part concept of falling buildings and floating clouds in the background making it more interesting, asides from the obvious stylistic feature of being animated.

Alice in Videoland - She's a Machine





Genre Characteristics
Although the video is quite unconventional in that it is entirely animated, there are still rock-genre signifiers. There are several close-ups of the band's instruments and amps, showing off their musical skills (although it is not actually them, the conventions remain the same as that of a normal video).


We also see a wider shot of the (animated) band themselves performing with their instruments in quite a conventionally set-up way, like we would find in many rock videos. As well as the guitarist and drummer, we also see a keyboard player with synths, pointing to the more electro-element the band have.


The clothing and styling of the cartoon band also heavily suggests rock, with their wristbands, converse-style shoes, leather jacket, and long, messy hair.


I also noticed the retro-style microphone shown in the video, very similar to the one we have in mind for our music video.


Relationship between lyrics & visuals
The video fits the feel of the song which is about a doomed relationship and the sense of disaster waiting for happen. There are lots of references to the song's lyrics throughout the video as lyrics are shown on-screen and the song name is shown on the keyboard.





There are also lyrics like 'She's not yours to keep, she don't belong with you' which suggests the subject of a strong, independent woman, working with the band image of being female-fronted. This is reflected in the video as the tough-looking frontwoman dominates the footage over the other male band members. This could be seen as quite empowering for woman, as the woman they are singing about obviously doesn't need a man to 'keep' her, a theme we are trying to display in our own music video.


Relationship between music &visuals
The cuts in the video often correspond with drum beats or changes in the music. At the more electro parts of the chorus, there is a cut on every synth sound so there are lots of flashing images reminiscent of being at a party or club dancing to this song. There is also a shaking effect put on the whole video so the screen seems to vibrate in time to the low bass guitar sounds, fitting the trembling and falling buildings in the background. The cartoon band and singer obviously play their instruments in time to the music so it is a fairly accurate representation of an actual performance the band might give. As the song continuously gains momentum, the cuts in the video get more frantic and there are more flashing images as the song seems to get louder and more urgent.


By the end the video is simply a series of flashing images, much like strobe lights or even some kind of hypnotic subliminal message, keeping the viewer transfixed to the screen before the climax of the song where it all calms down again for one slow shot of the band at the end so we are left with their image.


Are there close-ups of the artist and star image motifs?
Even though the video is an animation, there are still lots of CUs of the animated lead singer and other band members, and even beauty shots of her as we would expect in a normal video.


As this is not the band's debut video, they are able to use this cartoon version of themselves to carry on their branding, as their fans will already know what they look like from previous videos and will recognise these cartoons as representative of the actual members.


If we compare the cartoon version to the real band, they look very similar and it is clear that the animations were styled based on the actual clothing of the band, so fans will definitely recognise them and the video adds to their image and identity as it keeps with their style. They are also dressed mainly in black and white and photographed in front of a red and white background, suggesting that the colouring of the video is intentional and perhaps a running theme for the band, especially as the lead singer sometimes has red streaks in her hair.


Are there references to the notion of looking?
The lead singer is drawn wearing quite casual, not particularly feminine clothing, but her shorts are very short and there are still close-ups of her body. for example a tilt up her legs to her waist, showing how music videos can manage to have a sexualised, voyeuristic feel even when animated. One youtube comment says, 'she even looks hot as a cartoon', so the idea obviously works.










Are there intertextual references?
The anime-cartoon style of the video is obviously a huge intertextual reference as the band themselves probably like anime, or their fans do, or both, otherwise they would not have gone for such a video. Anime has a huge fanbase worldwide and not many music videos are made in this way, making it quite unique.


The background of falling and exploding buildings may be referencing popular disaster movies like The Day After Tomorrow, giving it an end-of-the-world feel.

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