Textual Analysis of Music Video 2

‘No light, no light’ – Florence and the Machine

In this textual analysis I am going to be analysing a song by Florence and the Machine called ‘No light, no light’ which was directed by Arni & Kinski.  This song by Florence and the Machine belongs in the genre of alternative rock/pop, and this can be seen by some of the broad characteristics within the video such as the use of close ups throughout the video. We can see that there are many close ups of her face when the artist is singing and when she is falling from the building. This shows us her emotions and gives the audience the idea that she really believes in what she is singing about. There is also a dark colour palette used which is a typical code and convention of alternative pop/rock music. Most of the video uses low key lighting, especially towards the end when the artist is being lifted up inside the church. It is also very dark when we see the male dancer in the room with the candles. Another typical characteristic of alternative pop that I noticed throughout this video is the way in which the focus is mostly on the artist herself. We see this throughout the video as most of the camera shots are close ups of her singing.

I noticed that there was a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in this video by Florence and the machine. When she sings the words, “What I thought, what I said”, she then touches her head as if to show the audience that she is thinking. I also noticed that when she says “I never knew daylight could be so violent”, the male dancer exaggerates his bold, big dance moves which relates to the lyrics and amplifies what is said. When the artist says the words “no light, no light” I noticed that the lighting of the video gets a lot darker, which relates well to the lyrics of there being ‘no light’. This also relates to video as a whole; as at the beginning of the video, the room with the candles is quite light, with the candles starting off quite bright. By the end of the video I have noticed that the candles have dulled down and some had gone out after the artist had fallen from the building. This gives the audience an idea that everything is getting darker and duller, as if something bad had happened to the artist.

In this video there is a relationship between the music and the visuals. When the tempo of the music speeds up, so do the visuals. This is short shot duration. An example of this is in the chorus, as when the music speeds up so do the visuals, as we can see the male dancer speeds up his dance moves, and the editing is also sped up, for example when the artist is running down what looks like an alley way with bright lights. Lots of short shot duration is used in the chorus in order to be parallel to the music, going from the artist to the dancer. This builds up the suspense of the song.

I noticed that throughout this video by Florence and the Machine there are a lot of close ups of her face, showing her bold motif. By researching into the artist and watching a few of her other videos I discovered that she wears quite plain clothes and very plain make up, and so she conforms to this in the ’No light, no light’ video as it is a motif we have seen before. Her plain but bold motif includes the artist having quite pale skin, usually natural or red lips, little eye make up and her main motif is the colour of her hair. Her motif makes her very different from other alternative pop artists such as Delilah, as she does not stand out in the way that she looks and dresses compared to other artists with their very fashionable and unique choice of clothing.

I do not get the sense that the artist is on sexual display during this video as she is dressed in a long black dress with most of her body either covered up or not on screen. I think this is because Florence and the Machine is not portrayed in the media as having sexual appeal in the same way as other artists, for example Delilah and Rihanna.

‘No light, no light’ by Florence and the Machine is a concept based video. I think that it is a concept based video as it does not follow a narrative and is not performance based. I think that the concept of this video is about the artist expressing her frustration and anger about the state of her very fragile relationship. I get this idea from the way in which the artist shows her emotion when she sings, and from the lyrics in the song. The male dancer in the video also helps portray the anger and frustration by the way in which he dances. He uses very big, strong, bold movements throughout, for example throwing himself onto the floor several times. I think that his dancing in the video represents the artist’s emotions.

By analysing this video and a few others by Florence and the Machine I have noticed that most of her videos are concept based, with ‘No light, no light’ also conforming to this. In conclusion, it is evident that the close up camera work and the dark colour palette helps construct the genre of alternative pop.