The music video of "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus has very illustrative visuals. The singer is telling a story of him having a crush on a girl at school but she doesn't know who he is. In each verse the visuals represent very accurately what is being sung. Whilst the visuals during the chorus don't illustrate the visuals exactly, there are people dancing around the band that is playing. This has a correlation to the beat of the song as it is very rock and roll like and the people in the background are dancing in an appropriate way to the beat. In one of the last verses the visuals are even more illustrative of the lyrics as the girl that the singer is in love with is speaking the words that are being sung. The correlation between the visuals and lyrics is very obvious and very illustrative. There is a very clear correlation.
The music video of "Sk8er Boy" by Avril Lavigne has much more disjunctive lyrics. The singer is telling a story of how a boy wanted to be with a girl, but the girl turned him down even through she wanted to be with him as well. The singer later says that the boy becomes a famous rock star and that the boy is now with the singer. The visuals have little to no correlation with the lyrics as the visuals show a large group of older teenagers/young adults travelling towards a place in the middle of the street where the singer and her band set up speakers so that they can play music to the fans coming to watch. At the end the police come and start arresting people who are watching the band. Apart from a possible metaphorical correlation between the police arresting people and the lyrics, the visuals have nothing obvious to do with the lyrics. This is a big contrast to the music video of "Teenage Dirtbag"
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ReplyDelete1. Excellent understanding shown. You clearly explain the way in which the visuals of TD illustrate the lyrics. Perhaps add more examples to be really convincing (the object of his adoration wears Keds, the rival drives an Iroc. When the singer sings " It's prom night and I am lonely / Lo and behold; she's walking over to me", we see this enacted
and so on.
2. I agree that most of the visuals in Sk8er Boi focus on AV's performance, but you could draw attention to the Boi himself and his relationship with the singer (videoing her, paying attention to her)