Textual Analysis of music video 1 draft

MEDIA: Textual Analysis of Music Videos 2

Music video - Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars - Uptown funk

Introduction

The music video I have chosen to analyze is by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, they received an MTV music award for best male vide so I thought it would be appropriate to analyze, the song I’ve chosen is Uptown funk. This was released to YouTube in 2015 and since then has racked up a whopping total of 2.4b views, this is a huge number and something not many artists have done. This was produced by Mark Ronson as well as a man named Jeff Bhasker who co-wrote and co-produced it, Bruno Mars did the singing taking up to half a year to complete. The genre of this song is defiantly funk as it has it in the title, it could also be identified as boogie or pop to certain people. some characteristics that stand out to me are would be the wardrobe choice as it makes the music video a period video, the actors look like they’re straight from the 1980s with the vibrant colored jackets with the old styled hats, the props used also stand out to me, a large portion of the video was the use of an old 1985 Lincoln town car stretched limousine which added a whole new 1980s feel to the video.

What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals?

I believe the lyrics as a whole do not tell a story, but if you look at individual lines make sense. From looking at the first verse I can tell that it is all about appearance, looking good and wearing jewelry with expensive branded shoes, the line “got chucks on with saint Laurent” refers to chucks being training shoes and “saint Laurent” being the expensive Yves Saint Laurent brand. Other lines in this verse further my point like the lines “got to kiss myself I’m so pretty”. The visuals shown compliment this as during the verse the main actors are all seen on screen wearing expensive suits and dancing in a way to show it off as well as their jewelry. The way this was filmed was also very interesting as it uses a low angle shot for the majority of the verse so everyone’s outfit can be shown. Later in the song this narrative is shown once again as the lyrics state “if you sexy then flaunt it” this is then matched with the music videos visuals of the main actors again strutting and singing into the camera, again the keep the consistency, these visuals are shot with a low angle to get everyone whole body in the frame.

What is the relationship between music and visuals?

The editing of the video is very well made and you can tell that the editing team worked had to time everything well to make it look smooth. Throughout the song there’s a consistent clap that makes up part of the main beat, this clap was an indicator for when the clip should jump cut to the next and is very effective, however this happened more in the begging than later on for some reason, the clips seemed to last longer near the end changing the pace a little when it got to the end as the outro had a slow fade making the slower paced editing suitable. The outro repeats the same line multiple times “uptown funk you up” and as it progresses it fades out getting quieter and the visuals fade to black.

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

There are close ups of the artist throughout the music video making him the definite focus pull as the record company wants to make him the main attraction so they’ll be able to sell his unique type of image. The way the record company are trying to sell this track is through the special visuals which include the vibrant iconic cloths Bruno Mas is known for wearing, this is an indicator that the song being produced is in the hands of someone that is trusted to make hit songs which Bruno has done many times before. The record company attracted a lot of people with this song, the beat was very infectious and catchy, it may not have been the record company’s aim to attract all audiences but they did. Bruno has had this theme for a lot of his previous songs, making catchy themes with good lyrics, most of his songs have reached over 100 million views on YouTube. This song is not a one off hit song like other artists have had as he has been able to recreate hits over and over again without fail.