analysis of one republic

1. Detailed analysis of music videos
Andrew Goodwin - 7 key ideas to identify
1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. Stage performances in metal videos,dance routines for
boy/girl bands)
2. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals (Either illustrative,amplifying or contradicting)
3. There is a relationship between the music and the visuals (Either illustrative,amplifying or contradicting)
4. The demands ofthe record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may
develop motifs which recur across their work (e.g. A visual style)
5. There are frequentreferences to the notion of looking (screens within screens,telescopes, etc) and particularly
voyeuristic (sexual) treatmentof the female body
6. There is often intertextual references (to films,TV programmes,other music videos,etc)
7. Whether the video is primarily performance-based,narrative-based or concept-based and howelementof
each is used in it
Artist: One republic Song title: Good Life
Concept/narrative: the narrative of this song is about the themes of optimism and contentment.
Features Observations Examples
Genre
characteristics
From observing the music
video I think that this song
would be categorised in
pop rock due to the soft
tone of the song along
with the whistling as well
as the instruments that
are used within the song
such as drums, guitar,
keyboard e.c.t. This is
also because of the
narrative of the song as it
is iconic towards other
soft rock songs.

2. Relationship
between lyrics
and visuals
The relationship between
the lyrics and the visuals
is an overall happy mood,
which is the tone of the
song. It contains the band
walking through a field
having a good time as
well as other people in
various locations such as
a fairground. There is
also a part where the
song says “we have so
much to feel good about”
and there is a shot of a
woman who is smiling.
Relationship
between
music and
visuals
The relationship between
the music and the visuals
is very strong as the
instruments aren’t too
loud to make the song
feel aggressive and this
goes along with the
visuals as there are no
dark and depressing
visuals through the music
video, they are all light
and they contain groups
of people which make it
look like they are having a
good time.
Are there
close ups of
the artists and
star image
motifs?
There are a lot of close
ups of the main singer
during this video, as well
as the other band
members. There are
some motifs that are used
in this video, one of which
for example is that they
are all wearing formal
wear making them look
very professional and this
is done throughout most
of their videos. Another
example is that most of
their songs don’t contain
electrical instruments
apart from the keyboard,
this means that most of
their music sound light
heartened.

3. Is there
reference to
the notion of
looking?
There are no notions of
looking within this music
video, this could be
because of the genre of
the song as this would be
classed as pop rock so It
might not contain notions
of looking within that
genre.
Are the
examples of
intertextual
references?
I couldn’t find any
intertextual references
within the music video at
all.
Is the video
category
illustration,
amplification
or
contradicting?
How much of
each?
I would say that this song
would be an amplification
of the lyrics. This is
because there are some
point within the music
video that could show that
the band or the people
involved are having a
good time which could be
symbolic of the title and
the lyrics.