Music video analysis

Music Video Analysis

Brooke Patrick

The video is in black and white and connotes a sense of remembering and nostalgia. This links with the lyrics of the song when it mentions breaking apart, and end of, a relationship. However it does not address the lyrical narrative of the break-up directly making it more expressionistic. The colour scheme also nicely relates to the idea of indie genre as generally bands like to keep their video simplistic so the black and white portrays this.

The music video also relates to Andrew Goodwin's conventions, as the song starts it immediately cuts to a shot of the lead singer walking down a hallway, this is an example of the record label's demands for close ups of the artist and also follows the idea that the lead singer of a band often gets the most screen time in music video's due to the fact that they're the ones singing. By following this convention the audience become also become aware of who the band are making them more recognisable.

Changing of the Seasons

The shot in the hotel room is edited to be very blurred suggesting a drunken haze as the people in the room are drinking. The bassist is lying on the floor with his bass guitar next to a woman, and the photographers are taking pictures of the women posing in a reserved but slightly sexual manner which relates to Andrew Goodwin's convention of the male gaze in that the women are posing in suggestive, sexual manor despite the fact that they are moderately clothed. The entire atmosphere of this setting relates to this sort of famous lifestyle stereotype with the band members simply lounging around while the press buzz around them.

The sequence of shots to follow then fit with the beat of the song as it then cuts to a shot of the bottle flying across the room and the press staring at it with shocked expressions on their faces but in slow motion. This fits with the song because it slows down the moment and falls into an electronic repetition of the last word of the previous verse as the bottle fly's across the shot. This again is another convention that Goodwin talks about in which his theory states that within music videos there is often a link to the visuals and the music of the song to emphasise beats or meanings, in this case it emphasises the idea of time slowing down

Changing of the Seasons

One of the main conventions of Indie rock Music videos is having the band playing in the video, this can be seen in this video. This shows the audience that the band are able to play their instruments and gives a sense of realism to the video, being able to play skilfully is one of the key things to indie rock musicians so more often than not there is always a section whereby the band are playing in the music video.

This also correlates back to Majorie Ferguson’s idea of Male representation in which it was founded that Males tend to be represented as always doing or being something within the media to enhance and highlight their masculinity compared to woman who are there to just be looked at. In this case the band are playing instruments and also being somewhat comical throughout.

Changing of the Seasons