Media Blog, analysing my 3 favourite music videos

1. My 3 favourite Music Videos
By Edward Young 13BCU

2. Kodaline – “One Day”
• Kodaline’s ‘One Day’ is shot in a cinematic ratio, making it feel more
dramatic and more engaging. It features a new mix of the song
especially for the video, giving it more appeal for fans. The video
cleverly combines the light and dark. This helps emphasise the
meaning of the song (Finding some form of positivity and happiness
after complete failure and feeling down). The whole video is set
around a big hall and stage that is in a huge mess, confetti all over the
floor along with glass etc. The frontman of the band is wearing all
black, which shows that he is feeling down. He is also the only person
in the video, focusing on him, which symbolises the huge empty
space that you feel lonely in after failure, symbolising the meaning of
the song.

3. Mick Jagger & David Bowie – “Dancing in the
Street”
• The reason why I enjoy this video is because of how hilarious it is, it’s a pretty bad
video all the way through. I like the song but the video is just Mick Jagger and
David Bowie literally dancing in some abandoned streets and buildings, it just
bleeds the laughable aspects of the 80’s. The often dark and badly lit locations
(mainly coming off in a grey colour despite the performers wearing bright
colours) and camera angles make it very dull throughout the song, though Mick
Jagger's ridiculous dancing makes it worth watching, giving it a slightly uplifting
feel to the video due to it being humorous. All of the indoor shots have been lit to
give a horrible muddy yellowy colour which makes the setting very unrealistic.

4. U2 – “With Or Without You”
• Excluding U2’s “Vertigo” that I have claimed as one of my favourite videos earlier in my blog and U2’s
“Beautiful Day” that I have also written about. Admittedly I haven’t seen this video many times, so I never
thought much of it, until I watched it the other day and realised how perfect it is.
• “With Or Without You” is one of U2’s defining hits, and its album “The Joshua Tree” was a breakthrough and
has become a huge importance in music history. The video is very raw and cut down, it doesn’t use any
narrative except when the frontman Bono is singing to the camera throughout the song, the closest we see
to any flashbacks of a storyline is when we see the occasional flashes of a woman, who he is referring to.
This has been done because the director of the video , clearly wanted people to place themselves inside the
song and relate to it more. We see flashes of thorns, trees and a raging sea.
• The video is filmed in both colour and black and white, using the colour (mainly made of navy blue and
blacks, to represent the night and add more emotion, again, keeping it raw) mainly in the shots of the band
performing. When Bono gets up close and personal with the camera and lyrics begin referencing the story
behind the song, we see it turn to black and white as black and white is usually used to ressemble the past.
• All in all it is a beautifully raw video of the band performing, with Bono spilling his heart out, but at the same
time the video keeps it restrained a little (as the song does) until the burst of vocal melisma in one of the
bridges, which is one of the most iconic U2 musical moments. This is when they let out the emotion see the
whole song and video let it all out.