Matt's music video analysis

Music Video Analysis

By Matt Howes

Gorrilaz - Stylo

• This music video is one of my favourites as it uses fantastic cinematography.

• This first shot instantly establishes a relationship between the visuals and the music, we see a road passing underneath the camera which amplifies the beat very well.

Gorrilaz - Stylo• This shot shows “Stylo” on the grill,

we immediately establish that this car belongs to the Gorrilaz as the song is named Stylo.

• This continues to create a relationship between the music and the visuals along with the first shot.

• This shot shows a police radio which appears to be signalling Mos Def’s message to the policeman, again enforcing the relationship between music and visuals, but not necessarily the lyrics.

• The lyrics appear to contradict the music video as they are not very relevant to the performance or cinematography, but the lyrics seem to be more about politics.

Gorrilaz - Stylo• This shot shows the Gorrilaz

driving “Stylo” in a desert like location, establishing that they dislike urban life, which identifies with the lyrics, amplifying the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. Including the third shot, the relationship between the visuals and the lyrics does not seem to contradict or amplify the music video.

• Also in this shot we instantly know that these CGI characters are the Gorillaz, because of their star image, they are known to be the only band to use “Avatars” in their music videos, and live.

Gorrilaz - Stylo• This shot shows Noodle

shooting a police car, this gives the music video a Mad Max feeling to it, mainly because of the car chase an setting of the music video.

• This shot shows Bruce Willis chasing the Gorillaz, again giving the Music video an intertextual reference to films, as he is a famous star. It also enforce the fact that the Gorrilaz are famous too.

Gorrilaz - Stylo• In this music video it is unclear who

are the protagonists and the bad guys. Although we immediately sympathise with the Gorrilaz as they are shown more than any other character, even though they shoot the police officer off the road and are driving a black car.

• We believe this because neither the Gorrilaz or Bruce Willis’ character are driving typical good guy cars, both cars (being Chevrolets) are similar and evil looking, the colours black and red are often associated with danger and evil. After this textual analysis, I believe that the Gorrilaz are the lesser of two evils, as the camera tracks them most of the time.

Gorrilaz - Stylo• In this shot the editing

starts to speed up, giving a sense of tension, this is a common convention of action films, again giving an intertextual reference to the film Mad Max.

• In this shot the editing starts to speed up, giving a sense of tension, this is a common convention of action films, again giving an intertextual reference to the film Mad Max.

Gorrilaz - Stylo• Finally, in this shot we see

the policeman on the floor crawling towards his donuts. This is very voyeuristic of American policeman who are portrayed as such in the media. Another characteristic identified by Andrew Goodwin. The police officer is often seen as being in trouble, like when he is shot off the road by the Gorrilaz.

Chemical Brothers – The Salmon Dance

• This music video is also one of my favourites because of its use of CGI to tell the story.

• This first shot starts to establish the story, the CGI tells us that this will be an uncommon music video, which could be associated with The Chemical Brothers, initialising their star iconography.

Chemical Brothers – The Salmon Dance

• Again in this shot we can see Chemical Brother’s iconology of “being strange”, mostly by doing a music video about fish.

• The relationship between the music and the visuals in shown very well in this shot as the puffer fish is basically the beat of the song.

Chemical Brothers – The Salmon Dance

• This shot shows the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals amplifying the music video.

• The song being aptly named “The Salmon Dance” clearly has a fish dancing to the music, enforcing my previous paragraph.

Chemical Brothers – The Salmon Dance

• Again voyeurism is used in this music video, the lyrics appear to be about a salmon, but they could also be about drug trips, this shot shows a teenager watching the fish as if he was on drugs.

• Instantly we feel that drugs are often associated with teenagers, again another media stereotype.

The Hoosiers - Choices• This music video is also one

of my favourites because of its comedic story. This shot shows the lead singer of the Hoosiers doing an ad, this starts to show a story to the music video.

• This shot also shows the story starting, but it also shows a film structure, comedy is also used which is a major concept of their videos, such as “Goodbye Mr. A”. This establishes an iconography for them.

• In the first shot we see close ups of the lead singer which may have been demanded by the record company to add to the star image.

The Hoosiers - Choices• These shots both show a link

between the lyrics and the visuals, in the first shot the lyrics are “I’m a victim, of this day and age.” This amplifies the fact that they are running away from their owners. In the second shot he sings “I surrender to the wind I will let the wind decide.” Also amplifying the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.

• Also, these shots both show a connection between the music and the visuals as the beat goes very well with the performance.

The Hoosiers - Choices• Again in this shot there is

a strong relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The lead singers sings “Stop giving me choices,” and it becomes clear that he must choose a side.

• It is also very film-like in the sense that there is a story and the special effects like the wind.

The Hoosiers - Choices• In this music video, although

more subtle than the other two, we see voyeurism of the Chinese society.

• In the second screenshot we saw the evil guy laughing about owning the Hoosiers. This could indicate that the Chinese community are starting to take over everything, which could be a Blade Runner reference.

• Again this is enforced by these two screenshots.