I chose to analyse Green Day’s American Idiot video directed by Samuel Bayer. The song was released on August 31, 2004 and went straight to no.1 in the UK Charts and US Billboard Rock Charts.
Green Day are an American punk rock band that were formed in 1987 by lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, Billie and Mike Dirnt (bassist) started the band off and soon added drummer Tré Cool. The band are well known for classic punk-rock songs such as American Idiot, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Wake Me Up When September Ends and Basket Case. Having sold over 75 million records worldwide, Green Day are one of the best selling bands to ever form. In addition to this, the band have also won several awards, some being Grammys for Best Alternative Album, 2 Best Rock Albums and a Record of the Year.
The video was filmed in what seems to be an empty warehouse, as well as this, behind the band is a large, America flag. Instead of the typical red and blue colours of the American flag, they have changed the colours to green. The director has specifically done this as the flag relates to the song AMERICAN Idiot but the green colours relate to the bands name, GREEN Day.
In addition to this, there has also been a fight for attention in the video with the use of the colours. The colours green and red are on opposite ends of the colour wheel, which means if they are together in a photo for example, the attention will vary between the two, as if they ‘clash’ with one another.
Almost 3 quarters of the way through the video, when the bridges begins, the green paint off the flag behind them as well as paint from behind the speakers, starts to overrun the video and spill everywhere. The green paint again relates to the bands name but the overflowing of the paint in the video is there to increase the excitement.
The whole video is performance and carries no story. However, in some sections of the video towards the end, there are flashing shots of the band members covered in green paint and moving their head in strange ways. This could potentially be seen as conceptual as it’s not usually seen in other music videos, especially by Green Day as most of their videos involve a narrative.
During the video, only 3 characters are revealed, these characters being the band members: Billie-Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool. This is a stereotypical for a rock/punk band as most of those genre-type videos only involve the band members. However, this particular video contrasts with other Green Day videos due to the fact that Green Day usually involve some sort of narrative or, at the very least, other characters. For example, their ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’ video has a narrative, with flashbacks and at least 2 other characters than the band. As well as this, the song doesn’t actually start until at least 1 minute into the video. The video is more or less, a short film itself.
This is why the American Idiot video is so diverse to its other videos. However, I do believe that because the lyrics are “don’t wanna be an American idiot” which could suggest that this video has purposely been made without a narrative or other characters because the band is, for once, following the stereotypical rock/punk conventions of only including the band members.
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