This assignment involves writing a short essay that analyzes a music video from before 1998, exploring its significance and the messages it conveys through sound and visuals. Students must provide background information about the song and artist, perform a detailed analysis of key moments in the video, and consider the cultural context of its release compared to today. The essay must adhere to specific formatting and length requirements, highlighting the historical nature of interpretation.

1. For this assignment you will be writing a short essay that breaks
down and interprets a music video. The YouTube era has
witnessed a resurgence of creative, unusual, or otherwise
outlandish music videos, but these forms of media have always
featured inspired ways for conveying messages in short form.
By mixing sound and visuals, these media are able to signify
multiple things at once. In this assignment you engage with the
power that these media forms can have for communicating ideas
while speculating on how different audiences may interpret
those ideas.
You must choose a music video that premiered before 1998.
Provide some background for the video by briefly noting:
the song, artist, album, year, and director of the video.
A few sentences on what the song is about.
A short history on the release of the video: Was it the artist’s
debut, or was it a comeback? Is it a widely known song or one
that only fans would recognize? Did the video spark any
controversy?
Then, write a
close textual analysis
of the music video. Choose two or three moments that you
think are most significant and focus your analysis on those.
Describe the signs present and explain what you think they
mean, and why. Could they be interpreted in more than one way,
or in ways other than the creators intended? Do they make

2. intertextual references and, if so, to which other media?
Consider also how the song’s lyrics and/or music may
contradict or enhance the images.
Finally, consider the
cultural context
in which the video first appeared, including the popularity of
its genre, the social themes it addresses, and/or whether there
were significant historical events at the time related to the
video’s theme.
Given these considerations, what would the images in the video
connote to audiences at the time? What do these same images
connote to you now? Has something changed, and if so, how can
we explain this? In this section, you are making an argument
about the work of interpretation as historically specific. Make
sure you ground this argument in facts about the social,
cultural, or political context of the time of release and contrast
these to those of today.
Formatting and length requirements:
○ Double-spaced
○ 12-point font
○ Minimum
1,000 words
. Max 1,500 words.
○ MLA format