I am analysing the Gold Guns and Girls video by Indie Rock band Metric, the video was directed by John O'Mahony. The music video is heavily performance based and often cuts to shots of the band playing their instruments around New York City, the lead singer and the other members of the band appear to be dressed and styled in a very ‘indie’ way wearing tight jeans with messy hair these are typical features are typical of indie rock music videos. There is no connection between the lyrics and the visuals:
‘I remember when we were gambling to win everybody else said better luck next time. I don’t wanna bend let the bad girls bend. I just wanna be your friend, Is it ever gonna be enough?’
The lyrics here are talking about how she just wants to stay friends, and how other people around here can see the relationship will not work, at the end of the verse she says ‘Is it ever gonna be enough?’ meaning she is wondering if a friendship with him will ever be enough. Whilst these lyrics are playing we can see the band racing around trying to find their assigned instruments, so the lyrics here have nothing to do with the visuals.
The lyrics also have intertextual references to 1980 movie Scarface, the lead singer Emily Haines is talking through the eyes of Michelle Pfeiffer ‘I don’t wanna bend let the bad girls bend.’ This could be talking about how Michelle Pfeiffer didn’t want to give up her morals and leave her husband for Tony.
The music and the visuals have a connection, there is heavy drums playing a consistent beat throughout the entire song and the scenes in the music video cut to this beat, the music video also changes pace with the music, the band is seen racing around in pace to the music . There is also a drum solo, the main singer stops singing and the main instrument you can hear is the drums, this is shown through the visual where we see a medium shot of the drummer playing.
Throughout the music video there are close ups and extreme close ups of the leader singer and various other members of the band. As there is no narrative it seems the record company is attempting to sell the track through the song it self and not so much through the music video. The band are shown as strong and independent, throughout the music video they are shown through low angle shots making them seem superior and strong. Also they are running quite fast and aggressively which also gives strong image. Other metric music videos are heavily performance based, always showing the band playing there assigned instruments and they always centre around the lead singer Emily Haines, they never have a heavy narrative the gold guns music video also follows this pattern. There are no particular distinctive motifs or trademarks that can be seen from each video just the general things i have mentioned above. When the camera is focused on the woman, the camera is has a handheld feel also the camera is following the woman as she runs in a POV style, putting the artist on sexual display. Although camerawork implies sexual display costume and dance do not, and there are sloe no references to notion of looking.
This music video has no intertextual references to other music videos by this band or to any separate texts.
This videos is very heavily performance based and slightly concept based, it is not in any way narrative based.
No comments:
Post a Comment