2. Music Videos Demonstrate Genre
Characteristics
•
“Naive” by The Kooks falls into the Indie Rock genre. Indie music is often
associated with a lot of instruments playing, many shots of the lead singer and a
specific storyline. Typical locations for Indie music videos are often rural such as
taking place in woods or very urban for example on city streets and subways. Indie
music is usually quite upbeat and conveys a positive, feel good mood.
•
In this music video we can tell that it fits into the indie genre because the locations
is very urban and takes place in a club, although the music is not the usual type
you would find in a club and the location serves as more of a setting to
demonstrate the storyline. The clothing worn by the lead singer is also very
stereotypical of an Indie band. He is wearing a leather jacket over a t-shirt which is
very casual, casual wear being a typical attribute of the indie audience.
3. Relationship Between Lyrics and
Visuals
In the music video, “Naive” by the well known Indie Rock band The Kooks, there is a strong relationship
between lyrics and visuals. While not literal and illustrative, the lyrics mirror the story that is being shown
through the visuals and help the viewer to further understand what is going on. While he sings about a
relationship gone sour, we are seeing the reason for this unfolding on screen. Therefore, this music video
would be called amplified.
At the point in the music video where we hear the lyrics “I may say
it was your fault, cause i know you could have done more”, we see
an amplified shot of the couple sitting together looking in different
directions as though they do not know what to do about their
situation. The girl here is shown to be doing nothing to change the
situation, showing the song’s meaning of blaming the girl for the
breakup because she did nothing to try and stop it.
When the lyrics “such an ugly thing, someone so beautiful, and
every time you’re on his side” comes up, the girl who the singer
seems to be involved with is with another man and is cheating
on him. Through this shot, we can see that “every time you’re
on his side” is referring to the fact that his girlfriend keeps
cheating on him and it is causing their relationship to
deteriorate.
4. Relationship Between Music and
Visuals
•
In this music video, there is not a strong relationship
between music and visuals, as the music video is mostly
showing a storyline and the lyrics are mainly narrating it.
The singer keeps a similar tone throughout the song
although his voice gets louder towards the end of the song
showing his frustration at not having found her by this
point. As well as this, there is a guitar line from 1:46 with
no vocals while the vocalist/main character in the video is
about to find her, the guitar building up and demonstrating
the search for her and creating suspense for him finding
her. As well as this, at 2:03, there is a strong relationship
between the music and visuals where the drumbeat comes
in strongly again just as the main character is knocking hard
on the door of the cubicle where his girlfriend is. We can
also see by the fact the song gets quieter at the very end
that it is demonstrating the fact that the singer has given up
on this girl because he has caught her cheating again.
5. Demands of the Record Label (Need for close-ups of
the artist and motifs of the artist which may recur
across their work)
•
The Kooks are signed to Virgin Records and EMI,
which are two of the biggest record labels out there.
Therefore we can see how The Kooks clearly abide by
the demands of their record label, as we see the lead
singer in almost every shot throughout the music
video, these shots including lots of close-ups. A motif
we see in many of the Kooks’ songs are having lots of
songs that are about girls and heartbreak.
6. Reference to Voyeuristic treatment of and
looking at the female body
•
In this music video, there are quite a lot of references to the female body
and looks of women. In the lyrics we can see the singer refer to the girl he
is singing about as having a “sweet and pretty face” and to being
“someone so beautiful”. In the music video, there are a lot of shots of the
girl’s body and she is seen as very sexualised as the song is about her
being unfaithful and morally loose. While there are no explicitly revealing
shots of the girl, we can see the intent of the artist portraying her as
someone who is very sexual, as she continues to try and kiss other guys in
the club the video is set in.
7. There is Often Intertextual
Reference
•
There do not appear to be any intertextual
references as the music video is primarily
storyline based and so does not include any
links to media or reference anything else.
8. Performance, Narrative or Concept
based?
•
This video is primarily narrative based. We
know this because there are no shots of the
band themselves performing at all, and the
shots throughout the video display an
amplified relationship between lyrics and
visuals, whilst telling a story, the lyrics
narrating what is going on in the video.
