I am going to analyse a music video by an artist who is similar in style/genre to our artist.
Florence and the machine is a British indie/art rock/neofolk band, the band is fronted by female singer Florence Leontine Mary Welch. They released their debut album “Lungs” in July 2009 in the UK. I will be analyzing the video for their song “Drumming song.” I am analysing this music video because the style of the music video and the stars eccentricity is what we hope t include in our music video.
The video mainly fits into the performance genre because it mainly focuses on the artist singing the song and dancing to the beat of the drums. Generally Florence and the machine are known for their exuberant experimental videos however this video falls into the performance genre. The video would mainly be aimed at a young audience aged 16-24, would be mainly aimed at the male and female audience.
The artist has developed her own star iconography throughout her video’s she wears wacky costumes and make-up which emphasises her peculiarity. She is known for her scary/gothic performances and this is what the audience expect when they watch her videos.
I believe the video follows a number of typical codes and conventions:
• Use of close-ups/extreme close-ups of the main artist which helps the audience focus on the main artist and emphasise the stars image
• The camera movement accompanies the movement of the artist as she dances/parades around the halls of the church/monastery
• The rhythm/music drives the editing of the song
• The beating of the drums amplifies the title of the song “drumming song” and symbolises how she feels when she meets the person she is in love with
Intertextuality is when artists use something with which the audience is familiar with to create nostalgia and associations with. In this video Florence and the machine reference Edgar Allen Poe’s famous gothic horror story “A tell-tale heart.” She uses drumming noises in the video to emphasise the noises she hears in her head whenever she is around someone she loves just like how Edgar Allen Poe described how the main character in the story could hear the thudding/pumping noise of his heart due to his guilt of murdering someone.
There is a use of voyeurism in the video as the main singer Florence and the dancers wear costumes which do not leave much to the imagination, this can be linked to the theory of “male gaze” where women are seen as objects of allure and sexual desire. On the other hand the singer/dancers are performing in a church/monastery which contradicts the lyrics and costumes.
To conclude I believe this video is simple but effective, the use of rhythm and performance drive the video along creating an artistic, colourful moving image text. The video represents the artist and would imprint in the audiences mind therefore people would want to watch this video over and over again which means that the video delivers on its main purpose to “create a music video which will be repeatedly watched.”
By Muhammad Patel
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