Analysis of three Indie/rock music videos

In this assignment I will be analysing three Indie rock music videos to identify key conventions and the iconography of videos in this genre, this will give me a better understanding and help me when creating my own Indie music video that I have chosen.

The songs I have chosen are:

Foals – Inhaler

Kings of Leon - Supersoaker

Oasis – Wonderwall

Foals - InhalerInhaler by Foals is a very upbeat song, however has a vocally more aggressive sound in the chorus to emphasize the meaning to the song.

The songs is about conflict and singer being smothered to the point of not being able to breath hence the title ‘Inhaler’, he needs an inhaler to breath or in other words space from everything ‘I can’t get enough space’.

The song starts off with a group of people laying on the floor with exaggerated shots of them breathing heavily, this gives the audience the idea of what the songs theme is.

In these scenes there are a lot of graffiti walls and skate boarding and bike riding in skate parks which is common conventions of modern Indie/rock videos, this identifies to the audience this is a Indie song.

This is a shot of the band playing in the bowl of the skate park which again represents skateboarding which is a convention of Indie/rock, however, they have chosen this location to play in because it also connects to the song as they are in the centre of the bowl which emphasizes needing breathing space instead of being closed in.

Throughout the song there are scenes of a woman getting a tattoo of lungs on her chest, again this emphasizes needing to be able to breathe. After this, the woman then begins heavily breathing.

The song has a fast paced beat, therefore the editing style is quite fast to keep up with the rhythm. There are some fast paced shots of all the locations in the video to quickly establish the settings/narratives and the style of the video, which is modern Indie/rock that has no other common conventions of this style such as black and white or old fashioned colour.

A lot of mid shots are used of the band members when playing their instruments to show live performance which is a common convention in rock videos.

The bands appearance meets the convention of Indie clothing, as they are wearing skinny trousers and jean jackets which doesn’t attract much attention like other bands and is more casual.

Kings of Leon - Supersoaker

The song ‘Supersoaker’ is a love story that seems to be set in the 1950s/60s.

The song opens with a lyric from the song ‘Sentimental girls’ to connote to the audience the narrative and theme to the song being a love interest/story.

In the picture, they have used vintage looking glasses that were common in the 50s to immediately show the visual style of the video

For the visual style, a mixture of pop-art screenprinting and hand tinting has been used to re-create the 50s rock and roll scene. Another Indie/rock song Wonderwall by Oasis have also used hand tinting.

Hand tinting

Pop-art screen printing

The style the band has also re-introduced old fashioned Americana which refers to the vintage milkshake bars and all the hairstyles and make up the female characters have used which is a lot like Marilyn Monroes style. The band have used many different effects in this video to make it clear the vintage style is what they’re looking for by using black and white, Pop-art screen printing and sepia.

A lot of mid shots are used of the band members to identify their instruments and faces when playing live performance, this is common in rock videos.

Although they have a vintage idea for the video they stay remain in common Indie clothing such as jean jackets, short sleeve t-shirts and skinny trousers. So they don’t allow their music videos to change their representation of being an Indie/rock band, they want to keep the identity of being a conventional rock band.

Oasis - Wonderwall

The song “Wonderwall" refers to "the person you constantly find yourself thinking about".

This song is about the feelings a person gets when they experience the initial stages of love and infatuation. It describes the volleying between euphoria and agony that a crush can make you feel.

The song starts off a vinyl record being selected and played, with the colour being in black and white this immediately tells the audience this video will be represented with a 60s old fashioned look. This is common in a lot of Indie/rock music videos.

In the next shot there is the singer sitting on a stool playing the guitar. The shot looks as if it had been filmed by an old fashioned movie projector, this effect again emphasizes the vintage style the band is trying to achieve.

The bands clothing style meets the common convention of Indie/rock music videos because of their jeans, shirts and jackets.

Like “Supersoaker” the band have used the idea of hand tinting to create the vintage effect and make certain things stand out, this effect is used through out the video. This also shows this can be a common convention of Indie/rock music videos to add this effect.

Hand tinting

In conclusion, a lot of Indie/rock music videos are similar when it comes to their conventions like style and effects.

All three videos from my analysis show they all wear similar clothing being jean jackets, skinny trousers and shirts.

Two out of the three music videos show a similar visual style being old fashioned and vintage by using black and white colouring and hand tinting effects.

All bands within the Indie/rock genre keep to their common conventions and styles to represent to the audience the style of their music, this is known as iconography.