MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSES A2 MEDIA STUDIES
DUA LIPA – NEW RULES Dua Lipa is an English singer and songwriter. She was born in London in 1995 and her musical career began at just 16. Since then, she has released a debut studio album called “Dua Lipa” and the song “New Rules” amongst many others have become a huge success. That song became Dua Lipa’s first number one song in the UK. She has won many awards such as “Best British Solo Artist” or “Next Breakthrough” and is becoming more and more popular. The song “New Rules” is of the tropical house, electropop and EDM genre. Electropop is a subgenre of electronic music and it places more emphasis on harder sounds. In this instance the song “New Rules” places importance on drums. The music video was directed by Henry Scholfield who also previously shot the music video for “Lost in Your Light”. Together, they wanted to represent togetherness and empowerment that women can give one another. The premiere took place on YouTube on July the 7th 2017. When it comes to critical reception, this song and music video was regarded as a “breakup anthem” by Anjali Raguraman and it was regarded as a “female-empowerment anthem” by Melinda Newman from the Billboard magazine. The filming for “New Rules” took place in Miami Beach and the concept of the video required 8 back up dancers. More than 200 women auditioned for the video but only 8 were selected. The choreograph Teresa Barcelo created a dance routine for the girls to follow the narrative of togetherness. At the start of the video, there is a few seconds of a pause before the music starts playing. This could be a technique in order to show the surroundings where the video is taking place. At 0:05 the camera starts to pan across to ‘The Confidante’ hotel, owned by Hyatt. The combination of visuals of the hotel would have been used as a marketing tool to create popularity. This collaboration meant that Hyatt broadcasted behind the scene videos onto his social media channels, further widening the audience span for the video. This is because Hyatt has a different target audience than Dua Lipa.
The cut at 0:10 is to a group of flamingos. While they look aesthetically pleasing they are also a classic symbol of Miami. This idea could be taken even further. As flamingos live in large groups, they are very social and therefore could be a good representative of female friendship. This idea is enticed throughout this video, for example at 3:38. This creates a contrast between the friendship from the girls and the companion of the Flamingos.
Then the music starts with Dua Lipa lying on the bed whilst lip-syncing. We can see this through a close up to medium close up shot. Andrew Goodwin’s theory could be applied here, that close up shots of the artist should be considered in music videos. The background in this shot is set in a hotel room. She’s lying on the bed thinking about giving her ex boyfriend a second chance whilst she’s surrounded by a group of friends. As the song progresses Dua Lipa gets up and goes into the bathroom. The symbolic heart that she draws onto a steamed up mirror is then wiped by her friend. This could symbolise the end of their relationship and a start to change.
Every couple of sentences the women found in the scene join in to lip-sync with her. For example, this happens during the lyrics of “Out of my mind, out of my mind” or “Too many times, too many times”. This again could have an underlying meaning of unity. When it comes to mis-en-scene and specifically clothing, the girls are wearing bright colours. This is a typical convention of the electronic or dance genre as this works well with the upbeat style of music. Another typical convention is the fact that the main artist is usually placed in the middle of the group to make them more visible. This is apparent in this music video creating an almost marketing strategy for the video.
The choreography seems very inventive. It seems as though they have taken something linguistic or conceptual and made it into reality through the body or the construction of how to place people to the beat. At the start, the choreography represents Dua Lipa moving through the hotel room not wanting to leave and always going back to the phone. However, there is a break through during the pool scene. At various parts of the song we see the visuals and the lyrics matching. The choreography seems to develop and intensify during the chorus when Dua Lipa is walking down the corridor. Here the dancers are wearing very simplistic clothes that we would usually associate with lounging around at home. Small details like this give the music video a more relatable touch. This is important in this video, as Dua Lipa wanted this song to represent and empower females. The aesthetic of the music video is very pleasing to the eye, especially in the scene with colourful dressing gowns. This colour combination works well with the genre because electronic or dance music is stereotypically associated with colour. The lead up to the pool scene is presented through the change in Dua Lipa’s personality and body composure. For example, she becomes more confident and her dancing intensifies. This is shown through various shot types such as close up, medium close ups and even pans following her behind. The pool scene cuts on action from the hotel room where Dua Lipa is caught opening the curtain. This scene is evidently more colourful and the girls are more dressed up. It is apparent that the clothes that they are wearing are aimed at the male gaze however I believe
that Dua Lipa wanted to show the diversity and the choice that women have to wear what they want.
At 2:22 the camera moves vertically underneath the pool water. When the camera moves the symbolic group of flamingos is present. This imagery can be seen upside down. This breaks away from the typical way that music videos are presented to the audience, giving it that quirky attribute.
Another factor which made this music video more quirky was the fact that some of the pool scene was filmed on plexiglass. The choreography had to be adjusted to suit this idea and overall it looked very fun and inventive. After 2:40 the footage is reversed and so is the clip back to the chorus. This technique gave this music video a cinematic yet circular finish. Yet this time Dua Lipa is guiding her girl friend through this ‘journey’.
Although Dua Lipa is the main protagonist of this narrative, it is clear that all of the girls are involved in this story. This is mainly represented through the choreography and by the way they are positioned. For example, the girls are always placed in a group.
TAYLOR SWIFT – BAD BLOOD Taylor Swift published “Bad Blood” on the 17th of May 2015. This song was not only used as an opening soundtrack for the Billboard Music Awards but also achieved 20 million views in the first 24 hours, stealing the most viewed video from the artist Nicki Minaj and her song “Anaconda”. Taylor heightened the excitement and anticipation for this music video by uploading various images of characters that would perform in it. Some of the A-list celebrities which we could see were; Cara Delevingne, Cindy Crawford, Gigi Hadid, Selena Gomez, Karlie Kloss, Zendaya Coleman, Jessica Alba, Ellie Goulding, Hayley Williams etc.
These women are not only friends of Taylor and are a part of her ‘squad’ but they are also influential and inspiring to our generation. Many of them are very successful whilst using their fame to help with charitable projects. For example, Cara Delevingne is a model, an actress and since recently, an author. She is very well-known for walking down catwalks for Chanel, starring in movies such as “Anna Karenina” or “Paper Towns” and publishing the novel “mirror, mirror” just at the age of 25. At the same time, she helps out with charity work. An example of this would be flying out to Uganda and supporting female refugees for the “Girl Up” campaign.
By including strong and independent women that break away from many normalised stereotypes, Taylor and her team have developed an empowering platform almost instantly. This contrasts with her previous music videos and songs such as “Love Story”. Previously, Taylor was associated more so with the genre of country music. On the other hand in “Bad Blood” Taylor has developed a different persona to tell the story. This combined with action codes and enigma codes created a further feeling of excitement for the audience as they did not know what to expect. This is because here they had full control over the flow of information. “Bad Blood” started with the character of Arsyn (Selena Gomez) and Catastrophe (Taylor Swift) fighting men to prevent the evil. However, as Catastrophe turned around Arsyn pushed her out of the window. Because of further research that I have done, it is clear to me that this scene was considered to resemble Taylor Swift’s and Katy Perry’s friendship that at the time ended. These two artists had an argument and Taylor thought that Katy tried to sabotage her entire world tour by stealing her back-up dancers.
According to Katie Wales “genre is an intertextual concept”. Music video’s often include intertextuality by adding things to develop meaning to their work and appeal to their audience. The music video started with a reference to the fight scene in “Kill Bill” and it followed through with slow motion which was firstly introduced in the “Matrix” movies. When Catastrophe is lying on the car the typography has similarities of the one found on the cover of the movie “Sin City”. Another example of referential involvement with a different movie would be when the rapper Kendrick Lamar is introduced and Catastrophe is wearing white under the medical scanner which can be found in “fifth element”. His remix on the song revolves around a betrayal and the power that Taylor Swift will have after she trains with all these amazing and strong female figures. An example of this lyrics would be “you forget, you forgive but you never let it go” which could suggest her growth as a human being and a wellknown personality. Interestingly, throughout this music video although these well-known figures are portrayed as strong and this is emphasised through the mis-en-scene since many things still represent femininity. One example of this would be when Arsyn blows make up powder over Catastrophe so she cannot see. Another example of this would be the fact that most of these characters are wearing attractive or to some, ‘sexy’ clothes. This could suggest that whilst
Taylor Swift is portraying herself and females in a strong and empowering way, their femininity is used to attract the male gaze and that audience. Through the colour scheme of black and white seen in this music video, there is always contrast of some kind between characters or scenes. As Claude Levi-Strauss explained, this would create binary oppositions. Depending on the scenes this could either be good vs. bad or hero vs. villain.
At 2:21 Knockout and Catastrophe can be found in a ring fight. This scene resembles a fight scene from “fight club”, it is interesting to see that whilst usually men fight men or are the main characters of movies, in this music video women are portrayed as strong and able to do this themselves breaking away from gender stereotypes. Other symbols which can be found to be breaking away from those stereotypes are when Catastrophe and other characters and driving motorcycles or smoking cigars.
Lastly, there is a fire scene in which a group of girls is walking away from a fire. Although to some this could appear as a cliché or a classic of action movies, this scene could be interpreted more metaphorically. Here, Catastrophe is leading an army of some of the most influential women in our modern world today. This could also be an interpretation of her
ending ‘battle’ with Katy Perry, showing that their argument did not bring Taylor Down but her weakest moments shaped her into becoming the best and a better version of herself.
Fire scenes are used on a frequent basis. For example, this can be found in the movie “Sucker Punch” or in the well-known and empowering music video from Beyonce “Run the World (Girls)”.
FLUME – NEVER BE LIKE YOU FT. KAI Flume is an Australian producer, musician and a DJ. His real name is Harley Edward Streten and he has been active since 2004. He has produced a lot of music himself whilst remixing and collaborating with artists such as Disclosure or Lorde. He has released two albums one being “Flume” 2013 and his newest addition called “Skin” 2016, the main genres associated with his music are electronic, future bass or experimental. His second album called “Skin” won the best dance/electronic album at the 2017 Grammy Awards. Although the album premiered through a simple Facebook live stream it managed to achieve number one on the Australian Albums Chart. The song “Never Be Like You” not only debuted number ten on the Aria Singles Chart but later peaked at number one, making it Flume’s first song to go to first place. The music video for “Never Be Like You” comes under the headings of “narrative” and at parts “concept” when regarded to Joan Lynch’s music video classification. The majority of the video follows a narrative story however some parts are composed of abstract shots. This shot combination ties well with the music. This is because the base of the song is quite futuristic and at times includes bass elements however this is smoothed out by the vocalist’s voice. This creates a duality which is also expressed in the lyrics as well.
When it comes to lyrics, the Toronto-based singer and songwriter explained in a recent interview for genius.com that the song details intimate moments from her life and especially feelings of self-contemplation and regret. For example, she went on to say that “Never Be Like You” is about being trapped in the moment and not thinking rationally. This could explain the fragmented storyline. These abstract emotions are captured by fragmented short edits. For example, for each scene almost a different emotion is shown. These edits seem almost blurred and as if they’re going round in circles creating a well-rounded feel. The repetition of these scenes and emotions implies the in-depth emotion that Kai must have had when writing the song. Here we could apply Andrew Goodwin’s theory of conventions in regards to the fact that there is a fair relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. Whilst researching into the genre of electronic music I have realised that many music videos, including this one follow similar patterns in style. For example, the pace and editing are
generally slower but are combined with mismatched jump cuts which in the long run create what we can call experimental art. From 3:20 onwards the shots become extended and what can be found in the room is multiplied and blurred (warp effect). This technique is something that I would like to use in my own music video as pattern-making seems to be a running theme for Flume. On various occasions, Flume has used patterns as covers of his singles instead of creating music videos. This again is an edgy and fun convention of the futuristic electronic style.
Throughout this music video there is a variety of shots used. For example, at the start there are close up shots of the girls face or hand. This is used to emphasise the point on what the song is about, almost as if the background mis-en-scene does not matter. Similarly, the electronic genre and indie are similar in the fact that they use basic places for the music videos. Because the concept of this music video is quite basic it is easy to follow, adding more importance on the lyrics and the electronic instruments used in the background. As extended research into the artist I came along the song “Say It” featuring Tove Lo.
According to Joan Lynch’s theory, this music video would be categorised as a concept video due to the lack of visible narrative story or performance. This is different to “Never Let Go” however, there is a running pattern of Flume not performing in his music videos and there is no performance. Instead very occasionally Flume uploads videos to Youtube, from his concerts or gigs. This removes the ‘organic’ and ‘raw’ feeling we get from performances. This also goes against Andrew Goodwin’s theory that close-ups of the artist should be considered. This convention is manipulated by the fact that because the electronic genre is so
abstract and breaks away from traditional music there is more importance placed on the music itself and representing a story, theme or emotion rather than ‘selling’ the image of the artist.
Whilst performance music videos create movement, here this has been replaced with the movement of the camera. In many instances the camera pans across or switches from various shot types. This created a dimensional and relaxing feeling. The song itself is about a breakup of a relationship that was constantly repeated and we get this from the same image shown throughout nearly 4 minutes.