Music Video Analysis #1

Modest Mouse – World at Large

 

I have chosen this as it is considered the title track of one of the albums I analysed (Good News for People who Love Bad News by Modest Mouse).

The video is fairly unconventional as it does not contain any of the band, this could be because they want to keep the music, the video and themselves separate. This could tie in with the bands well publicised ‘passion’ for their music and therefore they view all three as separate entities and art forms. This is further emphasised by the use of a separate title to the music track (World at Large) which has the music video named ‘Stiff Animal Fantasy’.

The video itself is also unconventional as it has an unprofessional tone about it, using what appears to be a cheap camera and stuffed animals. This shows again that the music is much more important as the band has spent far more money on the music than it has on the video.

The music ties into the video somewhat as the lyrics ‘If I float on baby’ are used repeatedly and this somewhat links with the way the animals move (Stop motion therefore appearing to ‘float’ along the ground) and the way the scenery moves in a jerky fashion. The video also distances itself away from the music in the way in which there is no ‘story’ that links with the music but instead another story going on shown by way of captions.