Comparison of Music Videos

I am going to analyse and compare these 3 music video to looks at the intertextuality and how they use different conventions and ideas from one another.
The Verve - Bittersweet symphony

The Verve ~ Bittersweet Symphony

Scarlet's Songs | MySpace Music Videos

This video became a classic from the use of its simple shots, simple ideas and simple attitude that comes across. They have used this convention because they want to get at their target audience. The band want to show off what their attitude towards life is and this music video gets the point across perfectly. Richard Ashcroft is just walking down one long road and he is not moving for anyone. The shots are so blunt as well as the mis en scene and costumes. This is showing where the band used to live, how they grew up and what is really going on in life now. At the end of the video the rest of the band joins Richard Ashcroft but he moves out of the way for them. This is telling the audience that the only people he has time for is his band mates.

Massive Attack - Unfinished sympathy


This song also became very famous because of its video. The Verve used ideas and conventions from this music video. Again, like The Verve, it is a snapshot of life in an urban, run down environment to show the target audience what life has been like for the artist. The setting is the most important aspect in this video because the audience can relate to it and again, shows the attitude towards life, although The Verve took it one step further. Also, the camera angles and shots are much like The Verve where they are simple just rotating around the main singer and focusing on mis en scene.

Fat Les - Vindaloo


This music video has clear intertextual references to The Verve. It has deliberately included the main character and made him to look like Richard Ashcroft, as well as the whole style of the video. It has a man walking down a long road with him barging into people but random, funny people. It is a bit of a joke and taking the mick out of The Verve. But this video is only apparent and became famous because of the conventions used to the other 2 famous music videos. However, in this video, I feel they have used more camera shots and angles to just show the humorous side of the song and video.