2. Who to look at?
My group’s chosen song is Zombie, which is
obviously performed by a full band with a female
singer. I’ve been looking at British bands from the
90s who consist of a similar set up, mostly with
female singers. The mood in some videos may be
different, but the genre of music is the same. The
main conventions of the genre are distorted electric
guitars and a rhythmic bassline, and I have found
songs that feature this.
3. Radiohead – Anyone Can Play Guitar
• This song, from the band’s lesser known first
album: Pablo Honey (1993) is different from their
later work as it leans more on the basic five piece
band sound, and does not feature the electronic
samples that Radiohead adopted later in the
decade. I think the distorted guitars, especially
the sustained chords in the intro are reminiscent
of the beginning of Zombie.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di2d7-rsdUI
4. Genre Characteristics
The video is a performance with a small amount of concept. It clearly exhibits genre characteristics
through the use of the long shot depicting the band playing in a dried up swimming pool. It is
typical of videos of this genre to feature a performance element as there is an entire band for the
audience to see, in a video for just a singer it is likely there would be more to occupy the time, ie;
dancing or narrative. Like many videos of the same genre Anyone Can Play Guitar is not clean cut,
in the sense that it is full of footage that is sped up, slowed down, footage that appears up-side-
down on the screen, all put together in a fast edit that throws the viewer about and gives the
performance a live and active feel, this and the concept in the video make it more interesting to
watch than just a performance. The mise en scene in the video is characteristic of the genre, the
band is not particularly dressed up, they appear in baggy flannel shirts and jeans, a typical look in
the early 1990s. The sets glamorous either, one being the bottom of a swimming pool and another
a worn looking room with a chandelier. The idea of an empty swimming pool as a performance
area has recurred in the genre and can be seen in a lot of music videos.
5. Demands Of The Record Label
It is unclear in this video if the record label had many
demands, with this type of music and especially in the age the
industry was entering into the record labels didn’t have as
much power over a band as they did a solo artist. The video
does feature many close up’s of Thom Yorke, the frontman
and face of the band. I also noticed an especially prominent
sticker on a guitar advertising the album the song appears on.
6. Relationship Between Lyrics And
Visuals
• There are not many obvious links between the lyrics and the visuals in this
video, there are more subtle references to the intended meaning of the
song in the form of intertextual reference. With no narrative there is only
the occasional shot depicting lyrical meaning.
• When Yorke sings: “Grow my hair” the edit shows us two shots of him
holding his hair, one while performing, the other in the room with the
chandelier.
• Seconds later when Jim Morrison is mentioned for the first time (the
subject of the song) we are shown a revolving dummy with Jim Morrison’s
face on it. The dummy is underwater, tying the shot together with the
swimming pool/submerged motif.
• Lastly, throughout the video we see a lizard with “King” written on it, it is
either crawling around on it’s own or being held by the band. The song is
about Jim Morrison appearing on stage before the existence of The Doors
after being requested to pretend to play guitar in the place of an ex-
bandmember, thus the name: Anyone Can Play Guitar. “Lizard King was a
nickname for Jim Morrison.
8. Relationship Between Music And
Visuals
• There is no especially significant relationship between the music and the
visuals in this video.
• The video is edited so that when Thom Yorke sings the first line we are
shown an extreme close up of his mouth and lips moving and the same for
Johnny Greenwood (Guitarist) making the distorted noises at the
beginning.
9. Motif Of Looking/Voyeurism
There is nothing in this video to imply the
notion of looking, the band are the only
people that appear in this video.
There is no voyeuristic treatment of the
female body in the video, not that it is
common within the genre.
10. Intertexual Reference
• You could say the concept element of this video is the intertextual
reference to Jim Morrison. Throughout the video we see frontman, Thom
Yorke wearing a leather coat and sunglasses, a visual reference to
Morrison. And most significantly, the opening shot, a medium close up of
Yorke spreading his arms in a baggy shirt in front of the pool wall.
Projected onto the wall are images of fire. Perhaps linking to the lyric: “If
London burns”. This shot is a direct intertexual reference to The Door’s
music video for L.A. Woman.
11.
12. Sleeper - Inbetweener
• This song greatly differs in mood and subject
to Zombie however the band consists of the
same set up and I consider it to be of the
same, if not a very similar genre. Being a
British band from the same era, I can assume
the video for Inbetweener would strike some
generic similarities to a video for Zombie.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y63UIj48
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13. Generic Characteristics
• This video shares many of the generic characteristics the Radiohead video
possesses, the long shots showing the whole band, close up’s of
instruments being played, however, the lead vocalist in Sleeper seems to
be more prominent in the video than Thom Yorke was in the Radiohead
one. I think around 70% of the video for Inbetweener consists of close up’s
and medium close up’s of the singer. This may be significant in that a
female singer appears more often than a male one, although the two
bands dynamics and commercial images differ and perhaps the singer of
Sleeper is a more recognisible “face” of the band than Thom Yorke is for
Radiohead. In the case of Radiohead, Johnny Greenwood and his guitar
style are almost/if not as representative of the band as a whole, and so
this may make it less necessary to feature Thom Yorke as much in music
videos.
• The video also contains the same kind of seemingly random shots that
appears in Anyone Can Play Guitar and many video’s from the same genre.
• The video is mostly performance with a small amount of concept. This is
common within videos of this genre.
14. Demands Of The Record Label
• I think the record label may have demanded
many shots of the lead singer as she seems to
be the crux of the band, as I mentioned in the
slide before. Other than that I do not see
many signs of the demands of the record
label.
15. Relationship Between lyrics And
Visuals
• This video is very interesting in terms of lyrics and visuals, the setting and
theme of the video: the supermarket/shopping almost contradicts the
meaning of the song. It also, in a way, amplifies it by giving it new symbolic
meaning, taken from the first line: “Shopping for kicks…” the director set
the video in a supermarket. This took the euphemism and spun it on its
head, taking it literally, the meaning remains the same, and is expressed
via the deconstructed simile. It is a nice, PG spin on a song about brief
“romantic” relationships.
16. Relationship Between Music And
Visuals
• There is no extremely significant relationship between music
and visuals, the is the standard cutting to a close up of a guitar
during an interesting riff or solo or a drum kit during a drum
roll but other than that the visuals do not work with the music
in any unique way.
• It is important to show instruments being played in this genre
as it is an entire band being presented or sold and not just a
singer.
17. Motif Of Looking/Voyeurism
• Again, with this genre of music voyeurism is
not common in music videos, the female
singer is on screen more than anything else
but in no particularly outlandish sexual way.
• There are no references to looking or
voyeurism.
18. Intertexual Reference
• Like in the Radiohead video, you could say the
concept is the intertexual reference to
Supermarket Sweep, with Dale Winton, who
appears in the video, furthering the theme of
the supermarket and shopping as a metaphor
for sleeping around.
