Analyzing Music Videos (2)

Roy Shuker - understanding popular music (1994)

1. The mood of the video. (Happy, fun, dark, depressing)

2. The narrative structure (Story)

3. The degree of realism or fantasy of the settings in the video. (Set in the real' world or a made up world)

4. Themes of the video (Love, Romance, Sex, Growing up, Political message)

5. The importance of performance ( of the artist)

6. Degree of sexuality in the video.

7. The video as a 'star' text (Creating the artist image How is the video creating a representation of the artist)

8. The Music (How it relates to what we hear and what we see)

Arcade Fire - Ready to Start.

In this video which is one of Arcade Fire's hit songs called Ready to Start. The video is set at a gig and because the song is very upbeat the mood is also very happy and joyful although there is no colour in the video, it is just black and white. You have shots of the crowd who are obviously enjoying the music by their actions.

There doesn't seem to be any narrative to the video. Apart from they are having a live performance playing to a crowd of people. The video has a big essence of realism as this rock band does plenty of tours and live shows and so this music video might not have been to hard to make.

There isn't a very specific theme to the video. Seeing that it is just a live performance that has been edited the band may be trying to pursued people to come and see more of their live shows. The main aspect of this video is to sell the artist as the majority of the camera time is either on the band members or the crowd. This may show that the artist is trying to tell their fans that they are a important part of their band as well.

There is a small aspect of sexuality in the video as the longer they are playing for the hotter and sweatier they are getting which does give off a very sexual image.

The music video has shown the band members as very in tune with their fans as they have put their fans into the video. It also makes the band look powerful with their high position on the stage.

Finally, there is no relationship between what we are hearing and what we are seeing. Apart from one aspect of the song lyrics where the band is 'Ready to Start' and we assume that they are ready to start playing their gig or even to start making music in general.