I will be analysing ‘Chasing Pavements’ by Adele. It was directed by Mathew Cullen of production company Motion Theory and earned a 2008 MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best Choreography. The genre is soul or blues but could be classified as pop. Soul singers use a variety of tones from gentle and smooth, to raspy and harsh, in order to properly convey this range of emotions which is exactly what Adele does in her songs and so the music would suggest it is from the soul genre. This comes from Roland Barthes’ theory of the ‘grain of voice’ which is a trademark sound that immediately sets the artist apart from other singers. However it shows many codes and conventions from pop music videos.
This video holds a lot of evidence from Goodwin’s music video analysis. He suggests that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics that run through the music video. The codes and conventions of a pop music video are that there is usually a sex appeal of the main artists. This video does not do that, however it focuses on other conventions such as no performance and only have one location. There is always a clear narrative. Adele does not always have a clear narrative in her videos. You sometimes have to think deeper into what iconic images represent.
Goodwin also says that there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals, illustrative, amplifying or contradicting. I believe that in this case, the lyrics are illustrated through the visuals of the video at some points. For example when she is leaves the car where her partner is representing her leaving the relationship. We also see her walking on her own which shows how she is lonely. I think the narrative of the video represents her relationship. The couple in the car crash come to life. The camera angle changes as an aerial view which suggests the song is moving towards the chorus or bridge. The couple re-enact their relationship of how they met. They seem happy at first but then they have problems which they resolve. In spite of all the dancing and happiness at that point in the video, the bodies are lying there motionless on the pavement when they are wheeled away in different directions. This represents Adele’s relationship of her and her partner moving away from each other. The setting is at a car crash which suggests that the song is going to be sad before we even hear it.
As well as the lyrics, there is a relationship between music and visuals, illustrative, amplifying or contradicting. It helps the audience to identify the pop genre of the video as is just the artist singing with no performance, just Adele and the narrative helping us to relate to the song. However, the artist is in one outfit, with the same hair and makeup is common in the Soul genre. Her style is old fashioned and unique and shows the meaning of her lyrics and songs in a deeper manner than the stereotypical pop videos where the narrative is based on the sex appeal of the characters in the video. The use of slow shots and dull natural light can embellish the real meaning of the song. This is by creating a sense of gloom and dreariness when the lyrics are portraying sadness. We also get this sad feeling by hearing the tone of music which gives us a generally sad feeling or mood as we listen to it.
Goodwin suggests that the demands of the record label will include the need for a lot of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work creating a visual style for that artist. We see this as she is mostly shot from her upper torso and face using close ups. Her voice in the song has a very powerful quality throughout which we see in all her music videos. This sort of represents her character in a way as trying to be a strong and powerful and independent woman. This contradicts her videos as they are sad. It represents the star through use of iconography; her style appears very elegant and mature with clean cut hair and makeup going into an old fashioned look. She is a role model to younger girls as a strong and successful artist. The lighting places a crucial part in this music video. It highlights the emotion of the song and the style of the artist, so she stands out from the background. This is her visual motif of black and white videos. We see this in all her videos and they are all emotional and about love, where the black and white shows connotations of no hope.
There is frequently a notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body according to Goodwin. This occurs in the video as there is several extreme close ups of the artist showing emotion when not signing and she frequently makes eye contact with the camera. This makes the audience feel like they are involved in how the artist is feeling and so will feel closer to her creating a rapport between the audience and the artist. Adele is a good example of how star image is created. The inspiration to this video is found to be by an incident Adele had with a former boyfriend. One morning, after finding out he had cheated on her, she went to the bar he was at and punched him in the face. After being thrown out, Adele walked down the street alone and thought to herself, "What is it you're chasing? You're chasing an empty pavement.” And from then she wrote this song. This shows how her songs actually have a personal meaning which is unique these days to artists as they follow what the record label want but Adele is unique and I don’t think there is an artist out there who is quite like her.
I think there is intersexual reference to Amy Winehouse who had a lot of videos similar to Adele’s. Her videos were usually black and which and were usually about love and cheating. Her genre was soul and blues as well.
The music video is narrative-based. It tells a clear story and makes you think about its deeper meaning. There are elements with are concept-based. However, narrative in songs is never really complete. The story can be fragmented. They only suggest its meaning leaving the viewer with the desire to watch it again and again to catch what they missed out.
I think this video is a good example to show an example of Goodwin’s theory in a music video. Every part of the song and its video helps us to understand it and by looking at Goodwin’s theory we understand why images are being shown and the reasons behind everything.
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