Goodwin’s Six Points Analysis of Californiacation & By The Way

Elliott & Kieran

Genre CharacterizationThe Genre for Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s Californiacation is Rock, this is portrayed in the video by not

being serious with it’s message, and referencing things that appeal to a younger audience, like video games.

Unlike mainstream pop, there’s no dance routine and it keeps focus on the band playing the music. The narrative in the video is about the four band members traveling towards California, this is different from many other rock videos because they normally just display the band playing.

Visual & LyricsThere’s some parts in the video that follow along with the lyrics, but not all of the video is like

this. For example, the lyric “A teenage bride with a baby inside” the video displays one of the band members having a short encounter with a pregnant teen, as seen below on the left.

At another point later in the video, the lyric “Space may be the final frontier But it’s made in a Hollywood basement” is sung whilst one of the band members travel through a basement where a space scene is being filmed. You can see this above on the right.

Visuals & MusicThe song changes pace when the lead singer jumps onto a dragon fly and fly away. This music

calms when he’s flying, and it stays calm until jumps off. As you can see below.

When the song reaches the chorus, the location changes into the actual band playing instruments, and singing towards the Camera, and cuts on the beat of the music.

IntertextualityThe entire video references multiple video games, for example, the screenshot below on the left

shows the video referencing the game SSX Snowboarding, and on the right you can see the video referencing Da Vinci’s concept helicopter.

In the lyrics there are also references, such as the lyric “Singing songs from Station to Station”, which was an album David Bowie, another reference would be when they sing “Space may be the final frontier”, which is a reference to Start Trek.

Selling the ArtistAll four band members are wearing the same costume throughout the video, which is shirtless

and black trousers. This is consistent throughout both live scenes and CGI scenes.The Camera also keeps the band member in the centre of the shot, and follow them.The video sells the band’s image of easy going, playing games and being anti-conformist.

VoyeurismThroughout the video, most of the singing is directed at the camera, so it doesn’t portray many

attributes of Voyeurism.The only voyeurism shown in the video is by objectifying the band with there topless costume.

By The Way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnfyjwChuNU

Genre CharacterizationCompared to Californiacation they’re similar in the way that the video doesn’t tell a serious story,

and have bits in the video where you can see the actual band playing the music. The action in the video was fast and exciting, which is typical to Rock because the music itself is fast paced as well.

The video’s narrative has elements of comedy, which isn’t common in other genres, such as mainstream pop.

Visuals and Lyrics

The songs lyrics don’t relate to the video, other than the fact that the Taxi driver mouths the lyrics when he’s driving, and there are some scenes where you can see the band playing.

Visuals and Music

In the video, there’s a lot of cuts on the beat, which is what happened in Californiacation. Also, the video’s pace and edit speeds changes with the pace of the story. For example, when the Taxi reverses into a dark tunnel, the music slows down and less instruments are playing.

Selling the Artist

Like in Californiacation, the costumes the ban wears when you can see them playing is shirtless with black trouser. This seems to be their style, and their brand. Throughout the video the artists are central in the framing, and this is combined with close ups to sell the artist closer.