Music Video Textual Analysis
By Georgia McCoy!
The video I am analysing is Kanye West - Good Life ft. T-Pain. It was directed by Jonas & Francois with animation by So-Me. The genre is Rap, RnB, hip-hop and electro hop. The characteristics of RnB and rap usually include sexy woman, money, fast cars, beaches, dance routine and a performance but without the instruments.
Throughout the whole of the video the lyrics have been illustrated with animated pictures coming up linking to the lyrics. E.g. “ popped the trunk, I popped the hood, Ferrari” it then shows an image of Kanye sitting on a Ferrari. “Watch the money pile up” it then shows Kanye singing these lyrics next to a stack of money.
Not only does the video cut to the beat but the animates objects come up to the beat as the artist is singing about them. There aren’t any musical instruments in this video as the main focus in on the singers – Kanye and T-Pain. Also there are not any solo instrumentals as both artists take turns in rapping, which takes up the video. The video definitely changes to the pace of the music. Because as the pace builds up Kanye starts moving faster – e.g. as he is saying ‘ay ay ay’ he moves the picture frame back and forth, from him to T-Pain.
The record company tries to sell this track by making the artists look cool, rebellious and rich. The director is trying to get across that all the contents of this video are considered the best life – ‘the good life’. E.g. fast cars, sexy woman, money, beach parties etc. All videos of Kanye West always feature him acting cool and dancing with woman. I know this as I have compared ‘good life’ and ‘gold digger’. Gold Digger features even more semi-naked woman looking provocative whilst Kanye and Jamie Fox rap and dance around.
I don’t really think that Kanye or T-pain is used in a sexual display. I think that it is more the woman that is shown in sexual display, as she is in a very tight, fitting swimsuit type dress, which is very revealing. The camera takes close up shots of the woman, waist up-wards because she is in a low cut, short dress. The woman also dances next to Kanye, which can be seen to be sexual. There are lots of different shots including, far out ones, full body, and close up. Also he uses various references to ‘looking’ as he holds up a picture frame with him in it, he is pictured onto a TV and he sings straight into the camera with eye contact. These features may have been chosen as they are interesting to look at and appeal to the audience.
This music video is very similar to his others as most of his videos contain sexy woman and Kanye ‘dancing’. In part of the video it features a reference to Michael Jackson, because in the lights behind Kanye there is a silhouette of Michael doing his signature dance moves. There is a slight bit of advertising as Kanye holds up his album cover, which is a bear wearing shutter shades. It also makes brief reference to the film Godzilla, as there is building with a dinosaur and a gorilla standing next to them. Another film it mentions is ‘Snakes on a plane’ as it says ‘she said I never seen snakes on a plane’. Lastly, there is a lot of famous places mentioned in the song e.g. L.A., Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York and Chicago. To make Kanye look laidback and rebellious he is reading a rude, ‘censored’ magazine whilst his girlfriend walks up to him. His reaction is “she got the goods, and she got that a** I got to look, sorry” whilst the letters ‘WTF???’ come up alongside his annoyed girlfriend. All these references are used to make Kanye and T-pain look good, cool, rich and rebellious, which appeals to the target audience.
This music video isn’t really narrative based, as it hasn’t got a story within the lyrics. The music video is a lot more performance based as a lot of work has been put in to get the graphics and animations looking good whilst Kanye, and T-pain dance around. This is a concept based video as it has animated words in highlighting the lyrics aswell as the artists singing to it.
This purpose of this video is to make T-Pain and Kanye look cool, rebellious and rich whilst they rap to the song. The video goes with the lyrics and the title as it is portraying the ‘good life’, as it features fast cars, sexy woman, tropical places and lots of cash. The target audience is teenagers to adults who like rap music/ music by Kanye West. I think this is a really good music video as it is interesting to watch and it for fills its purpose.
