Beastie Boys are an American hip hop group from New York City and the song is from their album 'Ill Communication'. The video is directed by Academy Award-nominated director Spike Jonze.
The video is entirely concept based; it does not feature performance of the song and has no real narrative. Whilst the video does not emphasise the lyrics in any way, or pay much attention to them, the pacing and editing matches the mood of the song. The video has been cut to the beat; an example of this comes 50 seconds into the video when one of the band members is seen kicking a door in as the lyric “Can’t Stand It!” is sung and 3 minutes in when the footage of the car has been timed directly to the sound of a drum beat.
The video has been filmed as an homage to 1970s crime drama television series like Hawaii Five-0, The Streets of San Francisco, and Starsky and Hutch, the video is presented as the opening credits of a fictional 1970s-style police show called Sabotage, with the band members appearing as the show characters. In the video we see that band member is introduced as a fictional actor, and the names of the characters of the show. The video features many of the various clichés of 70s cop dramas, specifically their opening credits. In the video we see the band members driving around in a 1970s American cop car, and have been made to look like stereotypical 70s cops. In the video the band members are wearing are wearing fake moustaches and wigs to make them look the part, and are dressed like detectives. Like the TV shows openings the video is parodying, there are many shots of the city landscape as well as many shots of people running. These various action shots have been created to create the illusion of a long running show with many episodes. The video parodies many of the well known clichés of 1970s police shows, including characters sliding over the bonnet (hood) of the car, cars crashing into cardboard boxes and cops rolling into a dramatic pose and also good cop/ bad cop interrogation.
The mood o the video is light hearted, despite the aggressiveness of the song. This approach has been taken as it follows the Beastie Boys image of a fun band and it also follows the groups tradition of humorous and entertaining music videos.
‘Love?’ by Strapping Young Lad
The music video I am analysing is the video for the song ‘Love?’ by Strapping Young Lad.
Strapping Young Lad was a Canadian extreme metal band and the song was the sole single from their album ‘Alien’ and its video was directed by Joe Lynch.
The video features many characteristics common in music videos of metal songs. It shows the whole band playing together and features many close-ups of each member’s instruments and their playing. The visuals have no relation to the lyrics of the song. The song itself is about human relationships, its key lyric is “a paradox of needling” as it mainly focuses on how the feelings of sex, reproduction and love contradict one another. But when this lyric is sung the camera is focusing on the drummer. At no point are the themes of the lyrics illustrated or amplified. The video is cut to beat. During the verses, as the front man Devin Townsend sings the camera is zoomed in on him and between lines the camera will cut the rest of the band. When the singer emphasises a word (most commonly ‘love’), the camera will make a dramatic move including zooming in, zooming out or shaking. Due to the fast pace of the song, many quick cuts are used.
Guitarist Jed Simon produced the video for this song because he believed it had "the most commercial potential". Unlike previous videos, ‘Love?’ features a stronger concept and more focus on its charismatic front man Devin Townsend. At the beginning of the video the band’s logo, which features on the cover of the album ‘Alien’, is visible in the background as glows red.
The video is largely performance based, but owes much to its concept. The video is a tribute to the cult horror film Evil Dead 2. The opening shot is the song title but is in the style of the opening title of the film. This is followed by a POV shot of something moving through a forest, something that featured in the film. The video is set in a cabin in the woods like in the film, and features various references to the film including the inclusion of various ICONS such as the tape recorder, the hanging chainsaw, the stuffed moose head, the mirror and the clock hands that spin at a very fast rate. The concept is taken further towards the end of the video when we see the band members being possessed in a fashion similar to what featured in the film.
'Freak on a Leash' by Korn
Korn is an American Nu-metal band and the song ‘Freak on a Leash’ is the second single from their album ‘Follow the Leader.’
The video features many characteristics common in music videos of metal songs. It shows the whole band playing together and features many close-ups of each member’s instruments and their playing. Like many other Nu-metal videos, the band is moving to the music with stomping and head banging. The visuals have no relation to the song concept. According to group’s frontman Jonathan Davis, the song itself is against the music industry. At no point are the themes of the lyrics illustrated or amplified. The video is not cut to the beat, and uses many log shots without cutting.
The video begins with an animated segment. In this segment we see a group of children, sneaking out of their homes and trespassing on a site on a cliff to play hopscotch. A security guard working on the site realises that they are there and goes to stop them. A blonde girl in a red dress draws a hopscotch grid on the cliff and begins to play, the security runs to stop her and accidentally trips. His gun accidentally goes off and the bullet is seen going towards her head. This animated segment is based entirely on the album cover of 'Follow the Leader' which shows the girl playing hopscotch. This is a good way to promote the album as it makes the album more recognisible to Korn fans.
The bullet exits through a bedroom wall, revealing that the animated segment is a poster. The sequences that follow show the bullet continuing to fly, unstoppably, ignoring friction and other forces to stop it — destroying everything it tears through. I passes through many different locations but yet does not hit or kill anyone, in many cases narrowly missing people. Meanwile we see the band playing in an unkown location. They are playing in a lage black through, with various white lights
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