Gotye is a Belgian-Australian multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter. His song "Somebody That I Used To Know" tells a story about clinging to an illusion of a past relationship. The music video features naked drawings of Gotye and his female counterpart that camouflage into the background, representing their fading importance to each other. It explores the internal struggle between accepting reality and clinging to past memories of a person. The video uses the human body and colors to simply but powerfully portray complex emotions from the song about a failed relationship.

1. Gotye- Somebody I use to know Music Video.
Real name Wounter De Backer, he is a multi talented musician, he plays the piano, guitar,
drums and besides from this he is a singer song writer. The genre he falls into is indie rock,
most of his songs are emotional concept driven. Be bases his songs on past emotional
experiences like a loss of a loved one and relationship issues. His type of music is so popular
because it appeals to a wide target audience, female and males aged 17 and over.
This music video starts with a panning shot of the main artist
Gotye naked starting from the feet, white background. The
freehand camera slowly stops at his face, his facial expression
is sad and he seems to be looking down and singing. The
camera to some extent can be argued that it objectifies him in
a sexual way. As he carries on singing he looks into to camera
as if he is trying to show us his pain. As he carries on projecting
his lyrics , drawing and lines slowly appearing in the blank
background behind him, creating a coloured background. As he says the first lines of the
chorus “ but you didn’t have to cut me off” we see the drawing on him, the same texture as
the background, slowly camouflaging him with the background. These actions play well with
the lyrics “now your just somebody that i use to know”, meaning that he is nothing to this
girl, he has disappeared from her life, becoming nothing. He is hurt so bad that he feels like
his invisible, no reason to live. To me, this song is about clinging onto an illusion of the
perfect person, the 'person that you used to know'. After discovering that you had in fact
put them on a pedestal, and that they never were that perfect person, you are still unable to
let them go because your illusions clash with reality and it is a never ending struggle
between accepting who they are- and who you thought they were."You said that you could
let it go. And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know..."It is about
that tiny little fibre in your body that cannot erase the memory of them, and that tiny little
fibre is what causes most of the conflict: your voice
speaks and says that you would never be hung up over
this person, and yet, the entire song is dedicated to
the memory of that person and the damage they have
caused you. so you ARE, after all, hung up on them
and that is the contrast between your voice (voice of
reason) and your heart (with which your true feelings
lie).I think that might be why there is such a huge play
on body parts in the video clip...and how each body
part is coloured differently...it represents all the different thoughts in your mind that are
contradicting each other. The bright colours in this music video might insinuate that not all
relationships are black and white, that there are shades and different things to take into
consideration.

2. Then Gotyes part is done it slowly zooms out into a
two shot of the female Kimbre, and she is naked at
this point and she says her part of this relationship.
Kimbra's whole part in this song starting from "Now
and then I think of all the times you screwed me
over". It takes the idea that the lead singer has been
victimized and completely turns it on its end. After
Kimbra's verse I feel like I can really hear Gotye
becoming more defensive and questioning his side
of the story. He isn't just a victim, he has to defend
his actions which gives the song so much more
depth than if it was just another singer complaining
about how his ex ruined him. The camera also pans this female, Laura Mulveys male gaze
theory can be applied here, in that we view the characters from the perspective of a
heterosexual male, objectifying the women.
This all goes to show how well Gotye can portray this emotional lyrics into visuals as well. By
the use of just the human body and colours he explains his relations throughout the years.
He keeps it very simple but at the same time gives out a complex message that can be
interpretive in many different ways. This song can affect different people in different ways,
this explains his success, the way he reacts out to the audience.