Music Video 1 Analysis Foo Fighters – Dear Rosemary. The Foo Fighters are a rock band that have been in existence for 15 years onwards now, and within that time have produced countless amounts of quality music videos of different styles. The video for the song called Dear Rosemary is what I am going to be analysing, and is a narrative video. Butch Vig played a main role in the production of the video and song for Dear Rosemary, but also for the whole of the album – Wasting Light. He is a well known producer in the music industry having also worked with Nirvana (another Dave Grohl band!) The video starts off with a close up to introduce the main character, a fairly young girl (intended to be Rosemary). For a few seconds after there is a fast cutting rate which cuts at every beat showing photos of ‘Rosemary’ and her boyfriend enjoying themselves, looking happy, which is a common feature in Rock videos to have photos cut away at each beat. However almost immediately after this stage in the song/video the actual lyrics begin, and Rosemary is singing along to some of these lyrics and is now alone, not with her boyfriend/partner, and is angered, and shortly after starts crying showing the direct link between the lyrics and the video. There are about 10 fast snap shots of Rosemary in tears, but looking as if she is in pain/agony and the lyrics go ‘Rosemary you’re part of me…’ which gives a brief overview of the couples relationship. These shots change every beat (as there was lots of really quick beats at the beginning of the video. The video is dark and shady in a home predominantly, with the characters wearing dark clothes, both have dark hair, and are both upset throughout which is typical of a rock video to have dark, angry/upsetting videos which portray stress and emotion oftenly. At the end of the video it appears Rosemary attempts to drown herself in the bath, however it looks as if her boyfriend rescues her just in time and she survives. Interestingly at the end of the video there is a letter addressed to David, which I presume is a letter Dave Grohl received in real life from his partner which sparked the idea for the song. This shows there is good, clever use of props in the video. The video didn’t include any referencing or intertextuality because it’s a narrative video, therefore was just acting out the storyline/meaning of the song.

Music Video 2 Analysis Foo Fighters – The Pretender. The Foo Fighters’ The Pretender song is a perfect example of a band performing their song ‘live’ in the video, with a little bit of a twist to it. The video is directed by Sam Brown, who aimed to make it look as if the Foo Fighters are causing trouble in public for example as they are angered by the politics, therefore the police/riot squad have been sent in to go and stop the situation. The studio firstly starts of with just Dave Grohl in a large warehouse like black and white room, along with Dave Grohl wearing black and white, with his tattoos on show – typical rock genre convention colours/appearance. As the video goes on it seems the more people come onto the scene and the more crazy the warehouse gets. As soon as they appear the song starts with a bang and the band start jumping up and down, playing their instruments wildly, screaming with extreme facial expressions and waving their long hair all over the place which is typical of a large, heavy rock band performing live – This is what the audience expect from a Rock band and portrays the passion in the song/video. There are masses of close ups (Andrew Goodwin’s theory) of Dave Grohl and the other band members doing all of this so the audience can access the band. Towards the end of the video a riot squad turn up with shields in the warehouse and at the end of one of the choruses and almost at the beginning of the next the riot squad run through the warehouse, and immediately it starts raining and the colour changes from black and white to this red, heavy rain absolutely flooding the warehouse, of which the red can only have connotations to danger, which is linked in to the riot squad being there. Red is a conventional colour for the rock genre. There is no intertextuality or referencing in this song/video, however the purpose of the video is expressing his anger over political views. In my opinion a video like this is perfect for such a heavy, angry song as it allows the audience and fans to witness the anger in the singer and the band playing the instruments as opposed to having a spoof video which would divert the attention away from the lyrics/meaning of the song.

Music Video 3 Analysis Foo Fighters – Learn To Fly. The Foo Fighters – Learn To Fly is an example of a comedy, humoristic, spoof video which features a long time very famous actor – Jack Black. The video was directed by Jesse Peretz and in 2000 won a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video. The video is set on a plane and yet again is completely different from the previous two Foo Fighters videos that I have analysed, giving me a range of various video genres, this one being a spoof/comedy. In Learn to Fly, Dave Grohl plays numerous characters within the video, such as a really fat woman, a normal man feeling awkward with the ‘weird’ people around him, a plane assistant etc. At a few points in the video there were cuts to the Foo Fighters actually performing the song, but only for a few seconds maximum, giving the video a wider range of shots in the video. There are some motived cuts in the video for example where the song lyrics go ‘looking for a sign of life’ and Dave Grohl playing as the ‘normal’ man stares at the good looking lady leaning over him, which portrays the male gaze that is a common occurance in the Rock music genre which is seen as quite manly, therefore songs/videos often has references to women. The song has no defined/definite meaning, however my interpretation is that the song is quite emotional/personal, however the video completely contradicts that, in a sense that the video is supposed to be, and is funny. At points the lyrics are serious, emotional and personal and are acted out in a comedic fashion, such as when the lyrics go: ‘Think I’m done losing patience’ and Dave Grohl dressed up as a school girl loses her patience and tries leaving her seat on the plane. This is a visual interpretation of the lyrics which is aptly used throughout the video. Further evidence this is a comedic video, which is completely different to the other videos I have analysed, is that there is a massive contradictory to the Rock genre convention, as there is variety of colour used in this Rock video, compared to most Rock videos which stick to the genre convention colours of Red, White, Black and Yellow predominantly.