Lightning – The WantedMusic Video Analysis (A recent music video)

By Laura Pound

In the video there are many shots that link with the lyrics, showing a strong relationship between lyrics and visuals. One example is shown above when he sings, ‘Serge of electric’, he moves his hands fast, almost showing the action of what he is saying in the lyrics.

Another example of the relationship between lyrics and visuals is when they sing, ‘when your lips touch mine, its the kiss of life’, these lyrics are said as the couple below go to kiss in the video. The ball of fire in the background also goes off as this happens, starting to show a sign of relationship between music and visual.

Constantly through the video a beam of light is shown in many shots, linking back to the title, ‘Lightning’ which again is a relationship between visuals and lyrics.

In this shot, the singer blows a handful of dust in to the air, as this happens the beat of the music changes, showing there is relationship between music and visuals. As he does this he also kicks the dust allowing the music to change beat again.

In the shot below, as one of the singers throws the firework into the car, as it explodes and creates a ball of light, the rhyme of the music changes and builds up showing a strong relationship between music and visual again.

Overall, when analysing the music video there is a strong relationship between music and visual as each time the beat or rhyme of the song changes, there is a change in visual. Another example out of many is shown above when the chorus starts, the fireworks flash and go off and everyone jumps.

Overall, when analysing the music video there is also a very strong relationship between visual and lyrics, another example of this is shown below of one of the singers saying, ‘head’ and pointing to his head however, I think there is a much stronger relationship between music and visual in this video.

When looking out for close up shots within the music video, the close up is shown when the lyrics, ‘I feel the fear’ is sung, this could be a connotation of the idea of fire being a fear to the audience.

As one of the singers goes to light the firework, there is a close up shot of him doing so, this close up may have been used to allow the audience to almost be informed what is happening.

When this singer says, ‘rush’ there is this close up shot of his face which could have been done so the audience can see his expression as he says it, allowing us as the audience to see his emotions and feelings.

The close up shot of the two bodies touching each others skin allows the audience to see the emotions and feelings of the actors in the music video.

In this shot, the camera is positioned behind ‘The Wanted’, allowing this reference of the notion of looking/voyeurism to allow the audience to feel in the position of which they too are looking in the distance behind the band, making the music video seem more personal to the audience.

This shot in the car is angled in a form of the notion of looking/voyeurism, as the audience may feel that they are in a position in which they feel they shouldn’t be but almost feel as if they are witnessing something that others can’t.

When looking for genre characteristics, I felt that this pop genre band showed it with the typical ‘boy band’ lay out throughout the music video around the lighting poles.

The video is also showing genre characteristics with the flashing lights and the showing of the ideology of having fun within the video which is shown in this print screened shot below of everyone in the video jumping and dancing.

During the music video I tried to look out for any intertextual references shown throughout any elements within the video, however the only references to any media based topics were the band themselves, such as there band name being shown at the beginning of the song and the title of the song being shown in the shot straight after.