The document analyzes 5 music videos directed by Jonas Åkerlund, providing details on each: 1) Duran Duran's "Girl Panic!" features the band members portrayed by famous supermodels at the Savoy hotel to depict the song's meaning through glamour. 2) U2's "Beautiful Day" shows Bono acting as a fictional version walking alone on a road until finding joy and the band performing at an airport, symbolizing overcoming darkness. 3) The Rolling Stones' "Doom and Gloom" cuts between the band rehearsing for their anniversary and a gothic woman experiencing nightmares about doom, reflecting the song's lyrics. 4)

1. Analyse 5 Music Videos by
Jonas Åkerlund.
Edward Young 13BCU

2. Duran Duran – ‘Girl Panic!’
• Duran Duran's ‘Girl Panic!’ is a very unusual video. It is a nine minute long video
of narrative through a fake ‘making of’ video. All the members of Duran Duran
are portrayed as and played by women, all famous supermodels (Naomi Campbell
(as lead singer Simon Le Bon), Helena Christensen (Roger Taylor), Eva Herzigova
(Nick Rhodes), Cindy Crawford (John Taylor) and Yasmin Le Bon) who have been
given the pop star ego of Duran Duran.
• The video is shot at the Savoy hotel in London to give it this sense of glamour. I
think they have used supermodels to portray themselves to show off this lifestyle
that they have without using themselves and looking very full of themselves and
help make it seem more like a fictional video. This whole feeling of glamour was
used to portray the songs meaning which is the effect that girls have on the
members of the band.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSMbOuNBV0s

3. U2 – ‘Beautiful Day’
• Throughout this video there is a lot of light and white. The very opening of the video just a very fast forwarded
weather change, showing the dark and dull clouds leaving and bringing out a glimpse of sunlight and blue sky. This
works well throughout the video as the music is very pleasant and in a major key, making it a feel-good song.
• As well as the clouds moving away to reveal blue sky and sunlight, we see the lead singer of the band, Bono, acting
as a fictional version of himself walking down a road that is very quiet (symbolising the feeling of solitude when you
feel that you have lost it all), occasionally chasing after cars, trying to hitchhike, wearing glamourous clothes of his
look in the past of his rock star career so far, looking very worn out and rundown. He’s throwing what little money
he has left around etc. This symbolises that his career has hit rock bottom. As the video progresses we see him
walking around an airport enjoying himself e.g. When he feels the kindness in woman when he eats her apple and
she lets him take it from her and they both smile. This all symbolises the songs meaning about loosing everything
and yet still finding joy in what little you have left, the constant white light helps to establish that more.
• At points through the video, we also see all of the band together, carrying their instruments around the airport and
performing in two different places, one of which is a stage (which is used through most of the video), and the other
is on the airport runway with planes flying over the top of them and the band full of energy (particularly Bono as
he’s been telling you the story throughout the video, so the audience will be more drawn towards him), symboling
the spirit, joy, and energy of the song rising as the song comes to its final chorus, middle 8th and outro. During the
final part of the outro we see the fictional version of Bono running down the runway alone, running towards the
light, the runway symbolising the long road to happiness in the darkest of times, the fact that he’s alone expresses
the point of loosing everything and feeling alone, yet he’s running towards the light, and on the way we see
another plane take off and he jumps in the air with joy, his spirit in the air.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co6WMzDOh1o

4. The Rolling Stones – ‘Doom and Gloom’
• This song was released on a greatest hits album to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band. So throughout
the video we see the band rehearsing for their 50th anniversary tour, most of the shots being in black and
white to represent the milestone and how they’ve been around for a while. The video also kicks off with a
woman sleeping underneath a big lit up rolling stones logo (promoting the band). The other half of the video
is all about the woman who Mick Jagger is supposedly singing to, a woman who only sees the dark and
depressing side to everything and is having nightmares throughout the video. The song’s meaning is about
the frontman Mick Jagger “always hearing doom and gloom from a girl, so lets go out and party!”.
• So the video constantly shows quick shots of things that are being televised on the news, all the dark parts
of life like war, nuke strikes, death, murder, plane crashes etc. The woman is shown to look very down and
stood in a dark space all the time, giving her a gothic edge. She is dressed in scrappy clothes that are dirty
and worn out.
• The locations are also cleverly used to show places where nobody would like to be e.g. Under a bridge on a
motorway, in a really horribly cheap, dull-lit, and messy apartment etc.
• The high tempo of the song is portrayed well throughout the video, often doing very quick shots between
different scenes that Mick Jagger is singing about. The shots also often switch on the timing of the tempo or
chord change.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DWiB7ZuLvI&safe=active

5. Robbie Williams – ‘Come Undone’
• This video interestingly uses very dynamic colours, whilst the main character in
the video (Robbie Williams) is seen wearing black in his performance scenes,
these scenes represent the way he feels inside about the lifestyle he lives. This
whole video seems to have a theme of melancholy to it until the end of the video
where he seems to be enjoying himself much more.
• The video goes through “The Morning After” of living in a lifestyle like his, having
parties all night in his expensive home, drinking all day, having sex with gorgeous
strangers etc. and shows the darker side to it and why he feels compelled against
it. The dynamic colours show how full of life they are and how much they want
you to love them, however Robbie is shown to be in a bad mood against them.
• As the video comes to a close, we see a very uncanny merge between the good
and bad of his memories that evening, but show to be mainly good, the colours
are all bright and attractive to the eye, showing that deep down he really does
love his lifestyle, despite his regrets.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D35vfQ7eZg

6. Coldplay – ‘Magic’
• This music video has been chosen to be played in the form of a silent movie, opening with an interesting title
sequence, shot entirely in black and white, and using the occasional subtitle for speech in the middle of the
screen after you’ve seen the characters open their mouths. I think that this is an interesting approach as it is
very rarely shown in music videos. It keeps the video simple, but the story is shown to be about a
complicated relationship. The black and white resembles the contrast of dark and light in the story, for
example, there are shots of the woman's face (who Coldplay's frontman Chris Martin has fallen in love with)
where she's standing on stage next to her assistant (Chris Martin) and although she’s putting on a smile, we
see an over-the-shoulder shot of Chris looking at her bruised arm, showing that she is being abused by her
husband. The colour in this shot focuses on keeping it dark, the highlighted parts of the shot are in a greyish
colour so that we can see its significant to the characters story whilst showing us that it’s a dark part of her
life. Another example is when we see Chris looking at her, she usually is shown to have a very light face, this
shows that she is important, innocent, and pure through his eyes.
• The background tends to be darker in most scenes as it is not important at all, and because they try to focus
only on the characters throughout the video.
• I also enjoy how they’ve combined the story and performance, not using performance very often, only in the
parts when its important, like when Chris has learnt to fly and the woman falls in love with him.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtb11P1FWnc&safe=active