Paramore Textual Analysis'

Paramore – Crushcrushcrush

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei8hPkyJ0bU&ob=av2e

The music video for this song depicts the struggles of being in love. The main character in the story of these lyrics per se, is struggling with a crush, always flirting and making her feelings obvious, whereas the person she has a crush on doesn’t seem to return her feelings. The video itself is set in a desert almost, quiet and dusty and nothing but the band and their instruments, until later on in the video that a few more people begin to appear and trash the set.

Textual Analysis

The song itself consists of a lot of guitar, which is normal for the sound of Paramore, paired with constant vocals and drums. The song sounds quite similar to most of their work.

There are no particular scenes in the video, but there are two overlapping stories, one being more minor than the other. One of these scenes is of the band performing whilst in the middle of the desert. The cuts in this video are quick and sharp, going from person to person in a matter of seconds with the main focus being on the lead singer.

The video is set in a desert and all of the band members are shown in the video. Because of the lighting in the video there are a lot of silhouettes and shadows cast, as it is filmed at either sunrise or sunset (More likely to be sunrise as it is lighter as opposed to darker as it would be if it was filmed at sunset)

There are a lot of low angled shots looking up at the singer and the band members, making them appear taller than they are (Useful for the singer as she is quite short anyway!) There are also a lot of front angled and side shots of the singers face, making her seem like the most important band member. There are also a lot of close up shots of her face.

Paramore – Misery Business

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCyGvGEtOwc&NR=1

This song again deals with typical teenage issues, of love and love in general. The lyrics relate strongly to the video. The lyrics talk about the way that the main person is in love with someone and your typical high school ‘It’ girl comes in and takes him away, but later gets her comeuppance when the main person gets the guy in the end, a typical teenage love story.

Textual Analysis

The song itself is still very similar to their usual style, as it has a lot of guitar and drums, and constant vocals. It is the typical Paramore rock style of music.

The editing is again very similar to the style as the first video (Crushcrushcrush). It’s mostly quite a bright video, as it is set in a school/college with a typical college/school storyline. The video is split into two different storylines, one performance and one story. The performance part goes much faster than the story part does; as the story is more important than just watching them play. The main focus is again the singer as she is considered the main person.

There is much of the same movement as the first video, but it is set in a school/college and a studio. As a typical Paramore video the singer finishes the video frozen in a strange pose.

There are a lot of quick shots in the video that makes sure that all of the action gets seen. The video is of a typical length for a song.


Paramore – Brick By Boring Brick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCyGvGEtOwc&NR=1

The lyrics to this song show the surrealism of the childlike mind. In the video a younger version of the lead singer enters a fantasy world filled with magic and wonder, later to reveal that the world starts to fade away and go back to being the horror that it once was. The child has built up a world of magic because they don’t like their real life, and the real world starts to fade away, but is still there behind all of the magic and fairies.

Textual Analysis

The video’s colour has been changed into a sepia/yellowy gold tone and is set in a fantasy world. A lot of blurring effects have been used so as to simulate a fantasy world and make it more believable. Leave and petals falling have also been added to give the effect of an autumn day, which contrasts with the colors of the video.

No band members are actually shown in the video besides the lead singer. The cast is made up almost entirely of actors, chosen specifically for the roles, as opposed to the roles being created around the band members.

The sound is Paramore’s usual style, but with a slightly bouncier edge to it.