Analysis of real music videos

Avril Lavigne- when your gone



The first video I have analysed is by the artist Avril Lavigne, it’s called ‘When Your Gone’. The genre of this music video is ‘pop-rock’. There are many characteristics for the ‘pop rock’ genre such as guitars, drums and a narrative is used with a limited amount of performance. In this video we see the artist playing a piano which is an instrument; however it is not something that you would normally associate with the ‘rock’ genre which always uses guitars and drums and therefore it could be said that she is challenging the conventions. This video also doesn’t really have a dark and aggressive tone to it, but it does convey emotions.
There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals which is shown throughout the entire video. There are many examples of this relationship for example when she says ‘when you’re gone’ we can see the man leaving for war. Also when she says ‘my own’ we see a girl by herself looking sad. We see sad emotions when the artist says ‘cry’ and we see the girl leaving when Avril Lavigne says ‘gone’. All of these are examples of relationship between the lyrics and visuals. One of the clearest examples is when the lyrics say ‘i miss you’ and we actually see the man saying it or when the text message says ‘i miss you’. This therefore shows that the video was trying to convey the message very clearly in the video.
The relationship between the music and the visuals are also very noticeable. The video does not cut to the beat but it does follow the pace of the music. When the pace of the music is slow the video is in slow motion and as the music gets faster we see more cuts and action / movement. The drums are used to add to the effect when the house is being destroyed and the buildings are falling. This symbolised the noise that this activity usually makes. In this music video solo instrumental parts are illustrated, for example the piano is shown when we can just hear the piano playing.
The eye makeup on the artist makes her look a little gothic but not too much that it doesn’t go with the song this is used to attract both a rock genre audience as well as those who listen to pop. Her video make us feel sympathetic towards her by showing us her sad, emotional and crying. The image of the artist in this video is very different from her other video since she doesn’t look like a rebel anymore, she looks more vulnerable and innocent in this video. The artist playing the piano is a motif which has been previously used by this artist to show that she has more talent than just singing.
The notion of looking was used a couple of times. First of all they used the typical ‘looking at the star’ voyeurism that is often used in pop videos. This is used when the camera is following the star as she sings and it makes the audience watch her more closely. The boy and the girl are put on display for the audience as we watch them talk and cuddle up. This is done to add to the emotional effect that we get when they are split up by their mum. This effect was also used again as they showed the news on the tv and when we see the text message on the phone.



Evanesence- bring me



Another video that i have analysed is from a rock genre which includes some rap by Evanesence called ‘Bring me to life’. The characteristics of the ‘rock’ music genre is that there are usually many instruments seen throughout the video since it is mainly performance based. They also have a dark feel them. This music video follows the characteristics of this genre since almost all of the video is performance based; however there is a narrative which is intertwined with the actual performance. The dark tone of the music video is generated from the first scene where you can see the building being overshadowed by almost black clouds.

Some parts of the lyrics match visuals showing that there is a relationship between the two. An example of this is when the main artist, Amy Lee, says my spirit sleeping somewhere cold. We see the artist sleeping in her bed and it looks like she is having a nightmare. There is also a link between the lyrics ‘save me’ and the visuals. This is shown by the fact that she is climbing up the building towards the rapper so that he can save her. When Amy Lee says ‘only you’ she is looking directly at one of the men. This is another example of the relationship between the lyrics and visuals, however most of the lyrics are not illustrated though the visuals.

In the first part of the music video the camera moves slow to match the pace of the music, this shows the link between the music and the visuals. When the music becomes more up tempo we start to see more cuts and short scenes to match the song. The video does not cut to the beat but the video does change pace to keep with music, this can be seen from 35 seconds into the video.

At the beginning of the video there is a lot of close up shots of the artist Amy Lee. The more we progress into the video the less close up shots we see. We start to see more aerial shots of her while she is on the building and shots of her with the band in it as well. This could be because the record company don’t want the video to just be focused on her but the whole band as a whole. There are quite a few shots of the rapper, who is playing with the band in a room. Since this is the first video from the group there is no previous video to compare it to but the band have kept this same dark, gothic feel in the other music videos.

In this video the artist is not on display sexually, she is covered up and isn’t dancing. Her costume is very basic, it just a simply nightwear item. Amy Lee said that this song is related to something that happened in real life, something that someone said to her one day. Eventhough there is no intertextual references it is related to the star.

Looking at the characteristics of this video it is clear to see that they have followed the conventions of the ‘rock’ genre and havent included any 'rap' and 'hiphop' conventions.