Foo Fighters - Long Road To Ruin
All Time Low - I Feel Like Dancin'
Music Video Essay
The two music videos analysed within this essay are ‘Long Road To Ruin’ by Foo Fighters, which is a narrative video, and it is taken from their 2007 album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and it is directed by Jesse Peretz, who also previously worked with them on other singles including ‘Big Me’, ‘Learn To Fly’, ‘The One’ and ‘Low’. The second video is ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’ by All Time Low, which is a concept/performance video, and the single is from their 2011 album ‘Dirty Work’, and the video was directed by Matt Stawski, who also directed a video from their previous album called ‘Weightless’.
The ‘Long Road To Ruin’ video is a spoof of a typical 1970s hospital based soap opera also called ‘Long Road To Ruin’, however it is mainly based on one man’s life Davey Grolton, who plays Dr Hansom Davidoff – played by Dave Grohl, and it is essentially a show within a show, as it shows his life outside the soap opera too, for example causing fights and turning into a rock star. All the cast play certain characters, using changes on their names for their ‘actors names’ and different names for their soap opera cast names. The video focuses mainly on Davey Grolton, and he is the lead star of the soap opera, however he keeps making mistakes on set, for example causing fights, which upset him, and gets the other actors to dislike him, however he leaves the show to become a rock star playing in a band called the Davey Grolton Band, and in the end falls off a cliff as he is trying to catch up with his co-star on the soap opera, as he loves her. The ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’ video is basically how to make a hit music video, so it shows an actor playing their director, who tells them three main things to incorporate into their music video, product placement, sex and stealing other bands/artists’ ideas. So for this, in the first part of the music video they have Rockstar Energy Drink advertised everywhere, second part they dress like people from the MTV show ‘Jersey Shore’ with loads of women in bikinis and underwear, and in the third part they mock music videos by Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga.
The ‘Long Road To Ruin’ video does not really incorporate star motifs or iconography because they play different characters within the music video, so more focus is put on the characters they are playing, than them themselves, so any iconography or star motifs would therefore take that focus away from the characters and more on the band members, which is not what they wanted. However there is great use of mise en scene within the video, for example to hospital setting, and the actors wearing typical doctors and nurses clothing, but also the setting of the hospital is shown as a set on a TV show set, as it is a show within a show, therefore great use of setting and props to show the basis of the video to the audience. Also when ‘The Davey Grolton Band’ perform, they are all wearing very typical 70s rock star clothing, with big hair, sideburns and bright clothing, and this clothing allows the viewer to see what type of band this is – a 70s rock band. The ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’ video does incorporate iconography as all the band use their own instrument for parts of the video, which some fans may instantly recognise as to belonging to that band, such as bassist Zack Merrick’s half white-half black bass guitar, which fans of the band may instantly recognise. Also the clothing is a key feature to this video, for example, at first they are dressed in their own ‘normal’ clothing, then start wearing clothes with ‘Rockstar’ written on to promote the energy drink, then they wear t shirts with jewels on, around girls with very little clothing on, to sell sex, and then they wear costumes imitating those worn by Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, as this element is also part of the concept of the video.
In the ‘Long Road To Ruin’ video uses special camera effects, for example, within the video, to distinguish the difference between the actors’ lives and the soap opera they are on, when it is the soap opera they use a brown tint on the cameras to make the video feel vintage, however it then turns back to normal colour when it reverts back to the actors’ lives, to distinguish the difference. Also they use swipes in the editing; this also helps the viewer distinguish the difference between what is the hospital soap opera scene, and what is their normal lives’ scene. The ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’ video also uses editing to add effect to the music video, for example they use people moving to make words appear, to show each stage of making a music video, as each thing says ‘Step 1:…’ and also uses light flashes to go into the next shot, so all the video fits in together well. In the video there are a few close ups, and mid shots of each member and the whole band, and this is to try and promote the music and sell the band as they are the main stars of the video, unlike ‘Long Road To Ruin’ which focuses on characters.
In ‘Long Road To Ruin’ the main link between the lyrics and the visuals is there is parts of the video where Dave Grohl, playing Davey Grolton is in a car, on a long road, therefore linking the the lyric and song title ‘Long Road To Ruin’, especially as at the end the dies in a car crash, resembling the ‘Ruin’ part of the song title and lyric. In the ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’ video, when the lyric ‘everybody get kinda awesome’ is sung, then the words appear on the screen with the lead singer, therefore adding a link between the music lyrics and video. Also a few times when they sing ‘I feel like dancin’ tonight’ they are doing a Lady Gaga dance or Katy Perry, therefore adding further music lyric to visuals relationships.
In ‘Long Road To Ruin’ there is some intertextual references, as it is a typical 70s style hospital based soap opera, which is very like a popular soap opera at the time, called ‘General Hospital’, and also the crash scene at the end is very typical of a 1970s soap opera. Another piece of slight intertextual reference is Dave Grohl plays Davy Grolton, who on the soap opera plays Dr Hansom Davidoff, which is similar to Hollywood actor and world-wide well known name, David Hasselhoff. ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’ uses a lot of intertextual references, for example the great use of the ‘Rockstar’ logo in the Product Placement part of the video, and this is because not only is their audience teenagers, the same as the bands, ‘Rockstar’ energy drink is effective because the band is a rock band, and therefore promote the intended image ‘Rockstar’ energy drink want. There is also an intertextual reference to the MTV show ‘Jersey Shore’, with the use of the fake tan, women in underwear and the clothing that they use, and also the ‘director’ of the music video says ‘you’ll look just like the dudes from the Jersey place’ referring to Jersey Shore. The biggest part of intertextual references within the video however is when they imitate videos made by Justin Bieber (Baby), Lady Gaga (Bad Romance) and Katy Perry (California Gurls), and by imitating these videos, or as it says in the video ‘stealing other people’s ideas’ it allows the viewer to instantly recognise the video they are mocking as they are very famous videos, creating an instantly link between the video itself and the viewer as they are familiar to it.
‘Long Road To Ruin’ uses some sexual display – or the representation of ‘looking’ as they have one female star, played by actor Rashinda Jones, who is seen to be very beautiful, and wanted by Dave Grohl’s character Davey Grolton, and also when he is signing things and singing in a mall there are lots of screaming girls, therefore trying to represent him as a very good looking male, however this video does not use as much sexual display as ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’ as in the second part of the video when they try to incorporate sex into their video, there are a lot of women in bikinis, therefore creating a very sexual display, in which they will expect a majority of their male audience to enjoy, creating the representation of looking.
Both ‘Long Road To Ruin’ and ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’ are comedy based music videos, which will instantly capture the audience’s attention as it will make them laugh, which is the intention, however they both do it in very different ways, with ‘Long Road To Ruin’ being a narrative video, which keeps the viewer interested as they are telling the story, which the viewer will want to see the whole story, and ‘I Feel Like Dancin’’ being a concept/performance piece, which keeps the audience’s attention as they will want to see the next part of how they try to show how to make a music video, and incorporating comedy, so that the viewer will want to see all of it, therefore both videos do very well to keep their audiences attention. I feel that both songs are both lyrically and visually very well made, however both videos do not have a lot of links with the lyrics and visuals, however this does not matter, as this then both sells the song and the video differently, which I feel is very effective.
