Girls - The 1975 (Music Video Analysis)

  I chose to analyse The 1975’s Girls video, as the video is one of my favourites. The 1975 are an English indie-rock band from Manchester, UK. The 4 members of the band consist of Matty Healy (vocals, guitar), Adam Hann (guitar), George Daniels (drums) and Ross MacDonald (bass). The band have released 4 EP’s as well as self-titled debut album which reached number one in charts just days after the release, each release was recorded and mixed by Dirty Hit Records. The bands first single from the album, Chocolate, reached 19th on the UK Charts and came 2nd on the UK Indie charts. This single first introduced to them to the world and increased the popularity and fan base for the band. Girls was their 3rd release from the album, which also came with a video in the style of performance and narrative.

  The video was filmed in studio with a variety of different settings e.g. plain white background with instruments/audio elements, a back garden setting and more. The first frame of the video shows the motif that the band has carried along with them – the monochrome theme. This frame shows the band aligned in a stereotypical manner e.g. singer in the middle, drummer behind, guitarist and bassist to the opposite sides of the singer. This is so most of the attention is placed upon the singer, the ‘star image’ of the band that makes the video easily recognisable. However, as the first frame is only showing the bands theme, the rest of the video challenges it with bright and vivid colours which could suggest that the video isn’t being taken as serious as other videos the band have produced, such as Chocolate which is entirely filmed in black and white.

  On the other hand, I believe the video also has a narrative/story. The video is, stereotypically speaking, a pop video with the bright colours, fast cuts and objects within the video. However, the band does not categorise themselves as pop but more as indie-rock even though they are seen by many as pop artists.  This suggests to me, that the video is getting across this message by mocking the stereotypical image of what is ‘pop’.  In addition to this, I believe that the video and song are parodies of other pop videos/songs.

The style of the video is mainly performance as it features instruments such as guitars, bass, drums, amps and the bands main logo, the “rectangle” which is on all the bands releases.

  The band is shown in black clothing, which again, relates to their monochrome theme. Other than the band, there are 4 other characters that are shown, these being four young, attractive females. These are portrayed as the ‘female version’ of the band and are shown in very little clothing (more or less their underwear). The fact that they have been shown with a lack of clothing sexualises the girls and shows them as a ‘sex object’ to the viewers. However, the band ironically shows no interest in them, which challenges the views of males within the media. For example, in the Robin Thicke Blurred Lines video, there are many women surrounding him with little clothing and he constantly has his arms around them as well as the inappropriate lyrics of the song being sung to the girls.

  Most iconography that categorises the band as indie-rock is the instruments and sound of the band. The instruments represent the rock genre as guitars and drums are stereotypically linked with rock whereas the actual sounds of the band as well as the meaningful lyrics are what make the band indie. This therefore creates a hybrid genre, which is associated with them. However, because the video has purposely created for pop, showing the instruments in the video allows the band to still be portrayed as rock, which keeps their image.

  In addition to this, another iconic element for the band that is shown in the video is the monochrome theme. Many videos, photos and clothing the band is seen in, are all usually in black and white. There is no particular reason why they have given themselves this theme, but it could be connected with the indie genre as other bands such as The Neighbourhood (also an indie band) follow this black and white theme.

  As I previously spoke about the video mocking the pop genre, the diegetic sound in the video at the start confirms this. For example, the lead singer Matty Healy stated at the start “we’re not a pop band, it feels like a really pop video, the whole scenario is just not what we’re about”. This itself suggests that they are purposely creating a pop video to mock the ideas and views on what is featured in the pop genre.

  The lighting used in the video is artificial and is very high key, which allows the audience to see the artists properly in comparison to their previous videos. For example, the video to Chocolate is mainly based inside a car and has very low-key lighting, which makes it hard to focus on the characters features.