THE BLACK KEYS MUSIC VIDEO

ANALYSIS.

Alex Inkster

Concept/Narrative

The narrative of this song is about loving someone when they are young and they don’t know what they are doing, they aren’t prepared but they when they are older, they are more mature but they still love the same person and they would do anything to get them.

Genre characteristics

This music video contains elements of many rock elements such as a guitar solo as well as the style of the video, and the narrative of the video. This shows that this song would be classed as rock due to the instruments as well as the narrative of the song as it is about love which is usually used within this genre of music.

Relationship between lyrics and visuals

There is a scene in the video where the lyrics are talking about falling in love with a girl, and in the video the boy is talking to the girl at the playground indicating that he is falling in love with her. There is also another link between the lyrics and the visuals as there is a scene where the lyrics at “I was young” and there is a shot of the two boys fighting. There is also a change in the lyrics when we see the older woman, as they say “living just to keep going, going just to be sane” which shows the change in maturity.

Relationship between music and visuals

There is a link between the music and the video for example during the video the scenes that are focusing on the children are more upbeat but when it is focused on the adult it is more slower which might have been done to shows the change from childhood to adulthood.

Are there close ups of the artists and star image motifs?

In this music video there are some close ups of the artists when they aren’t playing an instrument as well as when they are playing an instrument. I couldn’t fin any star image motifs in the video though, however the only thing that could be considered Is the type of clothing that they are wearing as one is wearing a leather jacket and the other is wearing a shirt which could be seen as the tar motif.

Is there reference to the notion of looking?

In the music video there are some notions to looking for example there is several shots of a woman being portrayed in a particular way. This shot shows a woman being portrayed as a flirtatious person, which is iconic to most rock music videos and lyrics within a song.

Are the examples of intertextual references?

I couldn't’t find any intertextual references within the music video however you could say that the narrative of the music video could be generic of a love story as both the artists are trying to get the girl near the end of the video, and this is usual in some love stories.

Is the video category illustration, amplification or contradicting? How much of each?

I think that this music video goes into the illustration category as this song is based about finding love and being loved, and this video has a lot of references to this theme. For example both the two boys and the two artists are trying to get love form someone. And this shows that there are scenes that are illustrated from the lyrics, this shows that the music video is linked towards the song.