Music Video Research - Analysis of 3 videos

THE PRETENDER - FOO FIGHTERS

 

The music video ‘The Pretender’ by Foo Fighters shows several features of Andrew Goodwin’s music video theory.  The video opens with the singer and main guitarist walking into an empty hanger and picking up their instrument and wrapping their hand sharing connotations with a prep like a boxer does before a fight, Grohl too looks like he's preparing for a fight, as the theme suggests it fits in with this idea of political unrest, the hanger is all white except one red wall and appears as a stripped back stage for the band, this is to bring focus on the band but also on the emotion behind the lyrics and video, as he starts singing the rest of the band join him, as the drums kick off we get fast jump cuts and close up of the band with the footage cutting to the beat of the drums and stabs on guitars, showing this star iconography and amplification of the lyrics that Goodwin suggested are seen in music videos. As we see them playing the instruments and also singing along, promoting this amplification we also see that Dave Grohl is wearing his guitar low down on his body and is in a sort of power stance this is a demonstration of genre characteristics, guitarists like Robert Trujillo from Metallica are known for their wide stance and low hung guitar, its a common association with rock music to see the main vocalist and guitar player to be in that stance. For a good 30 seconds or so we get this content stream of cuts ands close ups of the band; this is heavily enforced by the record label. It creates a persona for the band and helps them create specific motives that set them apart from other bands in the same genre as them. Low angel shots of Grohl and his guitar at the beginning make him look tall and powerful signifying he is the most important member of the band as he is the one people always associate Foo Fighters with.

Although the video is composed of mainly performance a stable feature of most music videos in the genre, linking together lyrics and visuals forms aspects of a narrative. “I’m what’s right, I’m the enemy” is showing disobedience towards society seen about a minute in with the start of the riot squad walking in in a full suit whilst we get shot reverse shot and cuts between the band and the riot team. with the band wearing white and the riot squad wearing black we get this idea of binary opposition,  with this in mind the riot squad is placed further away from the camera than Grohl is when looking towards them making the audience side with Grohl in this confrontation. we see towards the end of the video that a line has been crossed that was holding everything together has finally snapped and that he has given up being ignorant towards the police and has deiced to make a stand, illustrated and amplified by the lyrics ''never Surender'' and also seen by the fact that the police literally cross over a black line in the floor in slo motion as the music itself slows down,
Goodwin also states there is a relationship between the music and visuals. The very first sounds are the lights coming on after this the music starts. also towards the end of the video the red wall behind them explodes and showers the room in a red liquid. The red liquid could be seen to represent the sheer passion and anger behind the song, but also the climax of the video. Visual editing can be seen to match that of the tempo close ups of the instruments being played in sync with the music shows the audience that the band can play. This can also be applied to the lip-syncing which amplifies the lyrics.
the camera also darts about frantically throughout the video amplifying the fast paced nature of the genre and the music being played

In relation to Carol Vernallis however when describing her theory particularly the narrative aspect, suggests that the video is a visual response to the narrative yet may not be complete sparring disjointed or disconnected much like the video above, where we have no idea the narrative behind the video yet there is something driving the story on.

in an interview Dave Grohl said himself the the video is massively open to interpretation and by looking what both analysts  say cwe can see how it isn't clear on the meaning behind the video, but as Grohl himself said it was to make people aware of a political unrest at the time of writing.

PUNK ROCK 101 - BOWLING FOR SOUP  

Following on using Andrew Goodwin’s Theory, the video opens with a shot of an airplane hanger, with the text punk rock boot camp, playing to the name if the song punk rock 101this is the only bit we can see what Goodwin said about the relationship between the music and lyrics as it doesn’t show much of what the singer is saying and instead throws a montage of different clips of a rock-like boot camp which doesn’t relate to the lyrics at all besides the Punk Rock 101 aspect of this song which is about teaching people how to be generically into the rock scene. cutting again we see a bus arrive and a close up of someone with spiked hair, already showing this punk rock look, that the band have and so many other bands of this genre had back in 2009 when the sing and video was released. we get content cuts following the fast paced beat of the song and genre, the video then cuts to a performance of the band, giving us closeups of the lead singer and the guitarists, as they are icons of the band, Goodwin referred to the star image a as a very vital aspect of a music video, they making the music video look more appealing to the audiences and bring a unique style to the video,  they usually have the singer, if not the guitarist appearing in the spotlight for the majority of the performance and they are known for their guitarist to be an icon. we cut back to the narrative and see more of this boot camp, cutting back to the band and then back again, in the next bit they are all dressed in the same white top and pants, both men and women, alluding to the idea that we are all the same and that punk rock is universal. the video cuts between the narrative and performance in the fast paced style showing this video of thought through beat, when you listen to the song you can imagine, lots of cuts and fast paced camera action or character movement. the song and lyrics then slow down while the lead singer performs with a mosh pit behind him, showing this idea of intertextual references to the genre of punk rock and the bands in this genre such as Bon Jovi as he quotes the words ''like tommy and gina they're living on a prayer’. both people mentioned in the song Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi as well as the mise en scene showing very typical rock clothing and actions. This video also shows a clear genre characteristic of rock videos by having this very rebellious clothing and hold a similar stage-like performance to most rock bands generally out there but in a comedic way. The comedic mode of dress comes from the band itself as they are known to be funny and upbeat as are most bands in this genre that like to have fun with their videos and performances, one main one that comes to mind is blink 182's all the small things, the video is a mashup of different parody scenes. having fun and being up beat, as the genre dictates. there is a relationship between the music and visuals which is evident from the video due to the fact this video slows down and speeds up a lot with what we see on the screen is the same as what we are hearing and flows very well with pacing and transitions. seeing the band perform amplifys the lyrics and the sound, as we are getting content closeups seeing them lip-sync and play. The video doesn't really have much of a meaning like the lyrics, my interpretation is that its just a parody of bootcamps like in full metal jacket but its having fun and messing about teaching punk rock behaviours like reeling, instead of teaching people conformity.
This video also fits in with what Carol Vernallis was saying about camera movement and framing, she states that establishing shots are one of the key camera features of a music video and are used frequently throughout a music video as well as close up shots. The style of framing of the video again is quite distinctive to the video and also the camera may move in time with the lyrics. Extreme shots also known as master shots are also very common, all seen throughout the video. as well that she also talks about editing saying that a clear convention of music editing is that the video may disrupt or break the conventions of continuity editing. The editing may also be bought to the foreground, become visible and not hidden apposed to the invisible style of continuity editing, this is evident by the constant jump cuts and extreme changes in pace.
however unlike what she said about the video being a visual response to the narrative of the lyrics, they didn't do that, they did it with the name of the song instead.

ROCKSTAR - NICKLEBACK

the video opens with a boy lip-syncing the lyrics cutting to a man a woman and an older woman each time on the beat, agin cutting to more people like a police officer and a model, the video is a montage of clips of people lip-syncing, from famous people to the everyday person, while hearing the lyrics we all wanna be rockstars this narrative/performance style video tells the story of different people and how anybody can be anything if they put their minds to it. having everyone sing along shows this universal idea that the band is trying to get across, not only doing that its also both amplifys and illustrates the lyrics. there is no performance from the band at all yet by using some famous people like gene Simmons, chuck Liddell billy gibbons, kid rock and the crew form American chopper. It eludes to Goodwin's theory of star iconography instead of it being the band its famous people from film and tv that everyone knows, by using this montage of clips all cut to the beat and the lyrics it gives the video a more unique look which overall makes it more interesting than other videos. Furthermore there is a strong use of voyeurism as every character is looking straight into the camera, at the audience, making the audience feel more involved. 

there isn't a lot of interpretation to this video, and there isn't much going on with the video however if you look at what Carol Vernallis says when describing her theory particularly the narrative aspect, suggests that the video is a visual response to the narrative. Therefore whatever is happening onscreen reflects the choice of lyrics that the artist is singing and that although the video may have a theme or narrative, it is probably displayed in a montage style, rather than in one clear focus. she also goes on to talk about a clear convention of music editing is that the video may disrupt or break the conventions of continuity editing. The editing may also be bought to the foreground, become visible and not hidden apposed to the invisible style of continuity editing. Meaning the video will have a style of editing running throughout that is distinctive to that video. The whole video with its use of this montage of clips is evidence of her theory more than what Goodwin suggests.
looking at the video itself there are moments where we get lustration of the lyrics within the Performance for instance with ''playboy mansion'' we get plaboy models, ''be great like Elvis'' it cuts to an Elvis impersonator, and even with the mention of rockstar we get a shot of Gene Simmons surrounded by a wall of records and awards, shot at a low angle showing his rock god status, the video makes use of the juxtaposition between having and wanting this life, and showing connotations of this life, with kids in a music studio, security guards, models and bikers. it uses Goodwin's idea of Voyerism too using models film stars and celebrities to make you watch the video and selling this aspiration life that the band has, but by not having the band in the video it helps sell this idea of a universal want for fame and the idea that you can be and have what you want in life.