Music video analysis

Katy Perry‘Wide Awake’ music video analysis

Target audience ‘Wide Awake’ music video is targeted at a

young female audience, this is obvious with the use of pink and purple in the opening shots, which are gender steotypical colours. Also towards the end of the music video, Katy Perry is walking through a maze of colourful flowers, to match the location she is wearing a pale pink dress with flowers hanging down. A young female audience would enjoy watching this as it almost looks like the video is recreating a film like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ with a dog made out of grass, and her running through the maze.

This music video is POP. This is very clear through the use of different colours throughout the music video. At the beginning Katy Perry is lying down in pink fluff, and has a purple wig and heart headband in her hair, she is also wearing pink lipstick and purple eye shadow. The pink and purple colour scheme immediately makes it evident that the genre of this music video is POP, this is because of the bright, girly, fun and uplifting colours. Even though the video then turns quite dark and mysterious, the use of her blue wig relates it back to the genre. And finally towards the end of the video, she is surrounded by pink flowers and a prince on a horse which makes the ending of the video seem like a fairy tale.

Genre

Katy Perry’s Image throughout the music video

Katy Perry’s star image is developed in this music video to make her look like a strong women, as she has the courage and strength to build herself up from a heartbreak and show the man on the horse he didn’t win, she did this by punching him. As her target audience is a young female group, I think she is giving women a good lesson, to know that women do not need men in their life, so if you do go through a heartbreak life is easy and you are strong. She connects with the audience a lot through the music video, as she stares at the camera. This gives the impression that she is staring at you as if she is singing to you and no-one else.

Inter-textual References

Before Katy Perry starts singing ‘Wide Awake’, she is being filmed lying down singing ‘California Girls’, which is one of her previous songs which had been released before ‘Wide Awake’. Also throughout the music video she carries on referencing other songs in her ‘Teenage Dream’ album and one song from her ‘Confection’ album ‘Part of Me’. These inter-textual references shows how important her songs and different creations are to her, and that each of her feelings which has been illustrated through the different songs which her target audience could empathise with her are all shown in ‘Wide Awake’. As the song is about a heartbreak however she manages to gain courage and strength.

Ed Sheeran

‘The A-Team’ music video analysis

The audience for ‘A-Team’ music video is targeted at young generation, between the ages of approximately 15 -25 years of age, this is similar to the singers age. The song is about drugs and this is a topic that young people are familiar with: some people experiment, have witnessed the effects drugs can cause on people or just know about drugs because of studying the effects at school and being warned about taking drugs from loved ones . The music video appeals to both genders, even though it is only a female in the video, it is about drugs which both genders know about.

Target Audience

Genre

‘The A-Team’ is a indie folk/soul song. The instruments used are: guitar, piano and of course vocals. These instruments create the song to sound soft making you sympathise with the woman who turns to drugs and prostitution to make money.

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How do visuals and music work together?

The video does illustrate the music. This is shown as the lyrics ‘she’s in the class a-team’ refers to the woman taking drugs. In a video interview Ed Sheeran explains these lyrics. "A drug like crack, cocaine and heroin is called a 'Class A drug'. Instead of making it clear and just saying what the problem was, I'd say, 'She's in the 'Class A' team.' It was kind of my way of covering up (a person's addiction), I guess, making it a bit more subtle.”

Sam Smith

I’m Not the Only One music video analysis

Target Audience

I think ‘I’m Not the Only One’ is targeted at a wide range of people. Even though the music video shows an adulterous husband being unfaithful, whilst his loving wife is at home not being able to cope with the fact her husband is ‘cheating’ on her. Sam Smith’s music is so beautiful and authentic that it hasn’t got a specific target audience, both men and women at any age would listen and watch this music video.

Genre

‘I’m not the only one’ genre is a mix of pop and soul. The music video makes it clear that the genre is soul through the emotion, not only is the woman crying, but the colour scheme is quite dull showing that both the husband and wife put on an act even though they are both unhappy. Sam Smith is standing singing into a microphone wearing a suit, as he sings he uses hand gestures to emphasise what he is singing showing even though he isn’t apart of the marriage he still feels the effect.

Gender Roles Throughout the music video the husband and wife’s different

gender roles are very clear, and are the same as what they would be during the 1950s, as women would stay at home whilst husbands go out to work. Their clothes also represent stereotypical gender roles, the man is in a suit and the woman looks very elegant even though she is just in their house and occasionally goes out.

How do visuals and music work together? The music video illustrates the story being told in the song. As an

audience we can tell from the beginning and the end that the marriage is fake as they both out on an act that they are happy and they love each other even though the husband is being unfaithful. The music video shows that the wife knows her husband is lying about where he is going when he leaves their house. The wife breaks into tears with her mascara running down her face, she then drives to a local shop to buy a bottle of white wine believing that she can drown away her sorrows. However, it doesn’t work as she cries again when she gets home. “For months on end I've had my doubts, denying every tear..” as these lyrics her sung the woman wipes the tears that fall down her face.

Taylor Swift

‘Wildest Dreams’ music video analysis

Target audience ‘Wildest Dreams’ would have a

young female target audience. This is obvious by watching the music video as it highlights the romance between Taylor Swift and the man she is with, not only does it show the conflict between them, it shows the happy memories for example: when they are kissing in the rain. Throughout the video the colour scheme is very bright and colourful. This would attract girls to watch it, also because stereotypically girls like to dress up and look pretty and Taylor focus’ on her appearance through her lyrics and visuals.

Genre The music video of ‘Wildest Dreams’ has a genre of POP. This is

extremely clear through the use of bright colours throughout: the clothes, makeup, and even scenery are all colourful and stand out against each other. It is also evident at the beginning of the video, as it shows that a film is being filmed which takes on a very old ‘Hollywood feel’ taking on the glitz and glamour of the golden days of Hollywood.

Controversy Not only the music video but the director Joseph Kahn have

been accused of promoting colonialism because it is set in Africa and does not features any Black people.

The director denies the accusations by saying: ‘This is not a video about colonialism but a love story on the

set of a period film crew in Africa, 1950. i rarely cut to to crew faces outside of the director as the vast majority of screen time is Taylor and Scott.’

How do visuals and music work together? This music video illustrates the music video. It shows clearly

the type of relationship the two characters have. “Say you remember me, standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset..” as these lyrics are sung the man has his arms wrapped around Taylor Swift as they watch the sunset. Visuals are music work well together as it helps you to understand the song and the feelings the singer has.