Pop rock as a genre is defined by the Oxford Press as an "upbeat variety of rock music". Artists that use this genre inlcude: Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne, Pink, Maroon 5 and even in some instances James Blunt. We therefore looked at these artists work.
KELLY CLARKSON
NEVER AGAIN
Some key thoughts on the video:
- Narrative is interlinked with performance. Both of which are shown extremely seperatly with the colours of the performance part of the video shown with a thouroughly white, bright, contrived look. The narrative meanwhile is kept extremely dark, even the clothes are kept in black or mundane colours.
- In the video Kelly Clarkson is shown to be singing throughout the entire time she is involved in the video. Lots of closeups are used in the video to fit in with this.
- Other instruments and muscians are shown in the video which is different to most just pop videos where it is simply the big singing artist that is shown. (Something that appears in Katy Perry videos).
- The people that appear during the video are all of early adult age (mid twenties). This fits in with the age of Kelly Clarkson, even though most of her fans are teenage girls.
- All men and women that appear in the video are good looking and fit in with the idea of the male gaze and female gaze theory.
- The transisions between shots is clear cut.
- Starts with seemingly random shots of dripping water:
- Underwater/ low angled shots are used:
- These water shots at the beginning all add to the narrative idea of the man strangerling the woman. This is then all backed up by the images of Kelly Clarkson and co wearing white seemingly dead (white = angles).
- Their are no direct links between the lyrics and things actually happening in the narrative but it does flow in the sense that the shots jump from one to the other in time with the music (shown most obviously when it comes to the chorus).
- Comedic in the sense that their is irony with the dressing up like someone from the 1950s (perfect housewife), plus when the man is going crazy and you cant see the "dead woman".
- There our several locations used in the video:
- Comedic in the sense that their is irony with the dressing up like someone from the 1950s (perfect housewife), plus when the man is going crazy and you cant see the "dead woman".
- There our several locations used in the video:
AVRIL LAVIGNE
WISH YOU WERE HERE
- This video is quite different to that of Kelly Clarkson in the sense that it shows just Avril Lavigne without narrative. Instead it is basically a performance piece.
- The focus is very much on Avril Lavigne and not at all on any other musicians that helped her make the song which are shown in the video we looked at for Kelly Clarkson.
- Lavigne is also singing continulously throughout the song, their is of course no break for narrative shots.
- Some of the "dance" movements that Lavigne does are fitting with th the song. For example she says that "your everywhere" and ellaborates on this by basically swinging her arm round.
- After a while in the video the images of Lavigne are interlane:
- The film almost build up from wide shots used almost introductericly showing the room and Avril Lavigne. Then mid shots are itroduced. Then closeups which focus on her singing:
- Strangely enough this video does also contain water but I feel that is more coincidence and want of a different texture when it comes to filming instead of a pop rock video convention.
- There is only one obvious location used throughout this video.
- In only showing a female figure in the video it is focusing on the male gaze theory.
MAROON 5
WONT GO HOME WITHOUT YOU
- There is a main linear narrative with some flashback images aswell. I think the clever thing about this video is that the linear flashbacks are shown in black and white. The choice to do this is symbolic in the sense that it is practically a intertextual reference to films of the pre colour age, people therefore innitially see black and white and infer that it is from the past without any further explaination:
- The different shots are seemingly edited together extremely quickly. The longest chunks of shots meanwhile follow the lead singer, this includes when he is singing with his band and then when he is walking along the street. These quick edits fit with the beat of the music and this is something seen in both Kelly Clarksons video and Avril Lavignes video.
- The main narrative then follows the main character (the singer - Adam Levine) as he make his way through several streets and then he ends up in a resturant, then he gets chucked out of the resturant and then he comes back in.
- Several locations are again used but less than in Kelly Clarksons video and more than in Avril Lavignes video. Locations include:
- I looked specifically at the different shots involved in the video looking at what portions of the video are primary narrative, flashback, performance and single performance:
- Like in both the previous videos the singer is shown to be singing for the entire video.
- Water again appears in the video but again this is coincidence.
- Male and female gaze theory are again included in this video with the use of both good looking men and women .
PINK
SO WHAT!
We looked briefly at Pink and her work especially this video:
- It includes again almost random shots of pink singing to her "boyfriend" something reminiscennt of the videos by Kelly Clarkson where she does exactally the same thing.
- This video also includes shots of performance like the other videos.
- Pink uses a lot of comedy in this video which goes with the more pop- ie angle of work that she does.
- This whole video is full of over exagerated imagery, several different events such as Pinks hair setting on fire being edited together.
- The edits are again clear and edited together so that they fit in with the beat of the music which is extremely fast.
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