A Feminist and Post Feminist Reading of Britney Spears

Textual Analysis of Digi Covers and Magazine Adverts

Music Video Analysis(Hybrid)

Radiohead- Just

This video is a Hybrid Music Video; it contains elements of both a conceptual, performance and narrative music video. The music video demonstrates it's genres characteristics; rock, the video follows a typical rock style setup. There is an electric and bass guitar and parts of the drum kit in the background. Thom Yorke also wears a leather jacket which has always been associated with music. There is also a relationship between the lyrics and visuals; the lyrics are highlighted through images. When the people are asking the man why he is lying down, eventually they find out and as a result they lie down as well. It represents the lyrics of the song, as the song is basically highlighting the flaws within human curiosity. They are so desperate to find out and get increasingly out of control, it does not bother them that it's something they may not want to know. The band are out lookers of the event that takes place on the street. There are elements of their performance throughout as it switches back to the band. The tone and atmosphere of the visual reflects that of the music. The song changes tone when it's the guitar solo. It sticks to the concept of human curiosity, he continuously stays lying down. The narrative; will he finally tell them why they're lying down? And again, the fact it keeps switching back to the performance.

Panic! At the Disco- I write sins not tragedies

This video is a Hybrid Music Video; it contains elements of a conceptual, performance and narrative music video. This song takes place over the duration of the wedding. It starts "Oh, well imagine; as I'm pacing the pews in a church corridor," this is the oblivious husband nervous before the wedding begins. He is pacing because he is about to get married not that he is worried his wife is cheating, then the exchanging of words. The husband overhears what is said and almost freaks out, "I write sings not tragedies" links to the wife's infidelity. The concept of this video is the fact that it's like a circus,  his family is actually turning the wedding into a circus because they are catching on to the infidelity. Circus's are generally like families as in they are tight knit even if unrelated which is probably why it was chosen as such, the groom starts off with a split personality (himself and his conscience) so he possibly suspected infidelity pre wedding. The video follows a narrative as it is slowly revealed of the wife's infidelity. There are also elements of performance throughout. This video is quite typical of the punk rock music genre, what the lead singer is wearing reflects the punk look; black hair, eyeliner, obscure clothing. The whole video is rather strange and obscure.

Music Video Analysis (Concept/Interpretive)

Californication- Red Hot Chili Peppers
A song about the deterioration of society, this reflects how the world is becoming very superficial and plastic, this idea is reflected in Red Hot Chili Peppers music video. The key concept for californication is the fact that the whole video looks like a video game; therefore a superficial and fake reality. The band also perform yet it still follows the concept of a video game; for example the setting they are in looks false. The song is about the effect that Hollywood has had on society around the world, we're going through life like a video game. It follows the typical conventions of a conceptual music video as it sticks the video game idea throughout. his video is the best example of intertextuality in music videos i have seen so far. This videos reference refers to video games. The video not only take the animated route of video games but features of a typical video game also appear on screen such as player profiles and statistics. The clips of this video appear as though the audience are controlling it through playing a video game. This video also stands out to me because not only is it animated but there are also shots of the band which would appear in a performance based video. Concept videos usually are combined with one of the other two styles, in this case it follows a narrative and also includes performance.

Mumford and Sons- Hopeless Wanderer
This music video follows quite a comedic concept, throughout the whole video the members of Mumford and Sons are replaced by famous faces; Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman, Will Forte and Ed Helms. This concept makes you almost do a double take, it's something you don't expect. Concept videos are based around a single idea or concept and are usually unusual and obscure, his unusual content is an attraction to many consumers. In this case the famous faces imitating the band. Concept videos usually are combined with one of the other two styles, in this case performance. The video is quite a contrast to the folk style music, the music is quite melancholy, however the music video is quite comical, the famous faces concept will attract a lot of people to listen to the music. A successful concept video will keep the audience entertained and constantly looking at what or who is on the screen, you are constantly watching to see what the actors will do next. A conceptual music video is used by most genre's. You wouldn't expect these actors in folk style clothing and paying musical instruments. Lighting and closed camera angles are used at the beginning of the song, then to reveal their faces, this revelation keeps you hooked. This video is based also on performance. It's set in a typical setting of a folk genre video, in the countryside, however the concept keeps you watching. 

Music Video Analysis (Performance)

Royal Blood- Little Monster.
One element of the video that shows stereotypical and non-stereotypical rock conventions are the characters involved. One group of characters, the crowd, shows typical rock conventions in a range of different ways. For example, the crowd shows aggressive behaviour at the live performance (which is usually linked with rock shows because the music the artists play encourage that behaviour). Some examples of aggressive behaviour featured in the Royal Blood video involve crowd-surfing, shouting, jumping and pushing around. However, the actual appearance of the Royal Blood members go against the stereotypical image of a rock band, which could mislead the public into thinking, they’re something they are not. For example, a stereotypical rock band would be seen with long hair, leather jackets, black clothing, just like Metallica. Whereas the members of Royal Blood have short, stylish hair and stubble, alongside of this, they also follow the current fashion trend e.g. denim and bomber jackets, this itself goes against typical rock conventions. This is a typical performance style music video as it focuses purely on the bands actual performance, it shows them performing to a crowd, the band is playing. The props/ shots etc. are realistic and therefore shows the 'realness of their performance.' A black and white overlay is used throughout to highlight the rock genre, it seems quite dark and violent, yet also exciting. Due to the video being based on pure performance rather than any narrative or conceptual themes, the video is difficult to analyse for any story lines or short events.

Hey Ya- Outkast
 The genre for this song is Hip Hop, it is not a typical video of this genre. It's based on the Beatles performance on the 'Ed Sullivan show', again this highlights its contrast to typical Hip Hop music videos as the Beatles are a well known rock/pop band. It contains band members with contrasting ego's, playing different instruments or singing. Again with Royal Bloods's song Little Monster it focuses on performance, however it also contains a narrative unlike Royal Blood's video which was pure performance. The video pan's to show an actual performance. The band members all are wearing something green, with the lighting and hearts in the background also green. This follows the typical convention of a performance as they all have similar/matching outfits during live performances. All dancing was improvised and therefore highlights the realness of performance.

Music Video Analysis (Narrative)

J Cole- She knows
The video's narrative portrays struggles with infidelity. It’s a pretty straight forward issue, but Cole puts a little twist on that by portraying it from a child's perspective rather than the man who has been cheated on or the woman who has cheated. It also portrays the narrative of a troubled young boy; his struggle's at home have caused him to result to alcohol and drugs, and get in trouble with the police. The lighting throughout the video is quite dull and dark which reflects the mood of the video. Symbolic techniques are used also; for example the boys facial expressions and actions after he see's his mother, it causes him to result to violence. Symbolic technique is a typical convention of a music video to highlight it's meaning. It follows a story line; a young boy steals from his parents to skip school and have fun with his friend, "she knows" is both the title of the song and consistent lyric used throughout the song, again linking to the struggles off infidelity and the effect it has on others. This video follows a linear story line, it has a beginning middle and end. Even though "she knows", nothing is said and everything carries on as if things are normal. The camera movements are at a normal pace which reflects the 'realness' of the video. In the middle of the day the teen is surprised to walk in on his mother and another man at home. That man, of course, happens to be J. Cole. No words are exchanged in the moment and needless to say, dinner was pretty awkward that night. Narrative video's often use a normal pace and simple camera angles to again highlight the realness to the situation, and make it simple to understand. 

Royal Blood- Figure it out
The songs genre is hard rock, post grunge and "garage" rock. The music holds both a closed and open text because as the video progresses, more is shown to the audience. "Figure it out", ironically the plot of the music video. It holds an open narrative as we the girl as a criminal because of the crime she has committed; murder. However the narrative is closed in terms of the audience do not know what she did till the end of the music video, where in fact she is not the only criminal. The two tone colour overlays highlight a transformation of 2 worlds/ perspectives, the 'basic reality' or what everyone see's, and then what the girl sees and whats actually happened. This is typical of a narrative music video, there is a closed meaning behind it. The girl in fact was kidnapped, and therefore we have to figure out why she was missing. There is a use of flashback- where the girl remembers escaping the van, which cuts back to the tension of her real time action. (continuing of action.) This is where the video begins ' to turn the tables' in what the audience see the truth of what happened to the female actor. Continuity editing is also used, it smoothly joins the two visions together to create a confusion of reality which we can believe in even though it doesn't make sense in understanding it, we can visually see there are two sides to the conflict. This is highlighted in the colour overlays; red and blue, calm and angry.