'She's So Lovely' textual analysis

Here, I will be analysing the music video 'She's so lovely' by Scouting For Girls. The founding memebers of the band, Roy Stride, Greg Churchouse and Peter Ellard have known each other since childhood, with two of the members having met at Cub Scouts. Scouting For Girls produce music of the Indie Pop and Rock genre. This music video was written by the lead vocalist, Roy Stride and produced by Andy Green in 2007. "I write a lot about falling in love and breaking up. I don't know who said it but someone said the best songs are about the first five minutes and the last five minutes of a relationship, with I agree with" This music video fits into the general Indie Rock genre as the video shows a 'do it yourself' attitude, with the artists getting involved, both displaying a performance and narrative based video.

Firstly, when looking at the relationship between the lyrics and visuals, these are seen to both Illustrate and Contradict. For example, 'I love the way she bits her lip' is perfectly illustrated within the video. At this point, the paraded female is seen to be in a close -up shot, biting her lip whilst giving direct address to the audience. Other lyrics may also be illustrated, but to a more subtle extent, 'I don't know how we'll make it through this'. Here the music video presents the lead vocalist approach a bar. Alcohol is something usually associated with drowning sowers and therefore, subtly interlinks with the lyrics. However, the visuals also contradict the lyrics. This is commonly seen when the video switches to being performance based, showing the band playing rather than narrating a storyline. The lyrics further represent the Indie Rock genre, as emotions are explored, those of which appeal to a large audience.

In opposition to this, I feel that the relationship between the music and visuals is fairly inconsistent. Having cut straight into the beat after 3 seconds, the first transition happens in the time signature of four:four. Although after this, the transitions don't follow the pre-meditated time signature, neither do follow any recognisable pattern.

Personally, I feel that the message behind this music video is quite straight forward. The music video is set in a bowling alley, where the lead singer, Roy Stride is trying to attract the attention of a pretty girl. However, the girl already has a boyfriend, so Roy Stride sets out to get the attention of the young lady. This is seen to be successful at the end of the music video, when the shoes of the pair are seen to be walking away together with the females costume matching that of the males. This therefore, applies to a wide audience, as falling in love can happen to someone in any age division whether adolescent, middle-aged or elderly. Other audiences may also include those whom listen to bands such as; Bastille, The Kooks and Noah and the Whale, as these all gather under the same genre of Indie Pop.
When looking at the artist throughout the video, Roy Stride may be classed as the 'weak link'. His character plays the role of the underdog, whom is second best to the pretty ladies' boyfriend. I feel these characteristics allow the audience to connect with the artist to a greater extent, as this appeals as a mutual concept to the audience. This therefore clashes with some music videos in the same genre such as Bastille, 'Of The Night' where the main character is seen communicating with the deceased. This is shows impossibitily, creating a sense of fantasy amongst the audience.
Furthermore, when looking at previous music videos by Scouting for girls, these are seen to use both the performance and narrative concepts within 'She's So Lovely'. For example, the song 'Love How it Hurts' projects a music video, entirely narrative-based. This encorporates a storyline very similar to my above analysis however, this is shown with a progression over time. In opposition 'Heartbeat' shows a primarily performance-based video, aside from the lyrical line 'I skip a heartbeat' wherein, a repetitive narrative in shown. Hence, music videos by Scouting For Girls are fairly consistant in both their meaning and lyric to visual representation.

Within the music video there is a distinguishable notion of looking. This is shown with both the action of pointing and the gazing of the men upon the female character. This represents the female as the centre of action, symbolising her tenderly as a sex object. This may be apprarent in the lyrics 'She's pretty, a fitty'. However, this highly contrasts the sexual display of women in music videos such as 'Hard Out Here' by Lily Allen, where women are shown in an irrespectical and undescent nature.

Like my contextual analysis on the music video, 'Sunshine' by Matisyahu, there are minimal or even no intertextual references with other music vidoes. Although, there are nill within this music video, the song was used in the popular TV series, 'Ugly Betty' on Channel 4. This could therefore be used as a promotion device to those whom watch the TV series.

Penultimately, when considering the production of 'She's So Lovely' the video is evenly shared between being a Narrative and Performanced-based video. This means that the video follows a storyline, but also witnesses sections of the band playing. The video could also be said to encompass small areas of concept, as the lyrics and visuals dont always compliment one another. For example the lyrics of the first chorus, ' I don't know, I don't know, I don't know' show the visuals of Roy Stride bowling therefore, creating no immediate connection between the two.

To conclude my textul analysis of 'She's So Lovely' by Scouting For Girls, Indie Pop charcateristics are witnessed throughout the video, as the video has a strong 'do it yourself attitude', with the lead singer taking a key role in the narrative sequence. Furthermore, the video plays to a large audience as Roy Stride describes, "When people listen to your music, they have to be able to connect with it and feel what you're singing about and that's why people like us, because we're normal blokes who sing about things everyone can understand". Like previous videos, the band don't focus heavily on promoting their videos however, their tracks do feature on other media platforms such as TV, 'Ugly Betty' and within the Dutch movie 'Loft'.