Post 8: Analyzed music videos in our genre

Charlotte's Research


In this post i am going to analyze a music video form indie/alternative/pop artist Paloma Faith, and her song Upside Down. The music style is very 1950's and 60's along with the mise en scene of the video set. Her dress sense is very much late 1960's with high waisted skirts, pin up style makeup and hair and a intertextual reference to that era with a Marilyn Monroe style beauty mark.





Her wardrobe choice may be styled on the late 1960's, with the shapes and way the clothes sit on the body, however, some of the items such as the shoulder shrug will have been designed in a way so they resemble the era, but is also a distinguishing feature and would hopefully be an 'iconic' item of clothing the artist wore.

Her hair hairpeice is also very 1960's retro chic but again, this is an over exaggerated item of clothing and again its purpose would have probably been first of all becuase it is part of the style and seccondly, its fucntion would have been to make the whole outfit seem complete.
Her other outfits in the music video also follow this style of dress.






If we look at her backing dancers, we notice that they make use of the clicking sound in the track and they dance to the beat of this and also motion a click with their fingers. her dancers also follow conventions of the indie style, but not as much as Paloma Faith herself does. although for indie/ pop/ alternative styles it is more common for girls o wear shorts and a band t shirt or a large print dress. It is interesting as this typical indie style came from the 1940's 50's and 60's style of dress and has evolved, so her wardrobe choices for this music video may not initially seem as though they are the indie style, but when looking past, we can see that her style is more indie than some other indie artists.




Her dancers also fit the indie style, however it is only loosely. although they look as though they are dressed in plain white shirts and pants, the shirts have a slightly visible check pattern on them, as stated in in post 7, check and flannel shirts are a common feature of the indie style.






Also, the link between the lyrics in relation to the genre of the music tells us that key features of indie style sing about being different. "I think i  like, living upside down" are lyrics from the main verse and are quite typically indie, singing about being different and 'going against the grain'




Richards Research:

In this post i am going to analyze a music video from the indie/pop genre. The artist i have chosen to do is Ed-Sheeran with the song 'You need me. I don't need you'. His music is from the more modern take to this date. His dress sense is a casual wear, something that is every day clothing.

These are some screen shots from Ed Sheerans video- You need me, I don't need you. When watching the video, the audience become aware that Ed Sheeran him self is not in the video. We have some other person, who isn't named, doing what i interpreted to be as sign language throughout the whole song. This is because he wants his music to reach a wider audience, so by making the video suitable for deaf people as well as those who can hear. Every now and then on a certain word e.g chair a picture of a chair come on the screen (as shown above) also on "selling cd's from my rucksack" a picture of a rucksack comes on the screen (again this is shown above) what is strange about this video is that Ed Sheeran him self in not in the video apart right at the end at 3.39seconds we see him as he sings the last line of the song "i don't need you" then leaves again on 3.42seconds at the end of the song. We would normally expect the artist to be in his/her/their music video but i think that Ed Sheeran wants his fans to concentrate more on his voice more than what they see on the screen as he isn't paid for what people see, he is being paid for his music ability, and also that this is quite and indie thing for music videos as indie artists want to be recognised for their voice not what they look like as they are more interested in the actual production of the music instead of the material things that come with being famous e.g money.