Music Video Analysis

In this post I will analyse 'Tonight Alive's' music video for their song 'Breakdown' featuring Benji Madden from a band called 'Good Charlotte'.

Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
Tonight Alive are a well known Australian pop-punk band, whilst Good Charlotte are an American rock band. These two genres are similar in sound and style.

These introductory shots reinforce the bands genre as their clothing is typical of pop-punk/rock fans. Furthermore skateboarding and carrying around the guitar case in the shots above also shows the bands genre as these are both commonly associated with the pop-punk genre and even the band itself which helps to create the bands image that ultimately reflects their music. This unison of image and sound helps the band and record label attract fans and to make a profit.

At this point in the video Benji Madden from Good Charlotte is introduced and fans of his band will be attracted to this video because of his vocal parts in the song, which may lead them to listening to Tonight Alive later on.

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals

In this shot Jenna is waving her hands in a 'goodbye' fashion, this is coupled with the lyrics 'if you left'. This obvious connection between the lyrics and visuals help to amplify the message Jenna is trying to portray in her lyrics.

This links to the shot above as Jenna continues to sing 'if you left, id be alright' followed by the universal hand gesture for 'ok'

There is a relationship between music and visuals

This shot shows a link between the music and visuals as its showing Whakio (the guitar player) as he is playing guitar which he plays in the song.

The  demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work ( a visual style) 

This shot is a close up of Jenna with many more similar this that follow to allow the audience to really gain an understanding of the bands clothing style choices etc...

There is frequently reference to notion of looking

In this close up of Jenna and Benji there is an obvious reference to the notion of looking as they are looking into each others eyes as they sing the lyrics of the song. This helps to connect the two singers together as well as their individual music they've created.

There is often intertextual reference

This shot of the video showing the crowd and the band performing along side Benji is similar to Good Charlotte's previously existing video for their song 'Girls & Boys' where they also use a crowd shot at various points throughout as shown below.