'Perfect Strangers' - Music video analysis

This is Deep Purple's song 'Perfect Strangers'

The music video interestingly enough is not a performance based song or few scenes with performance elements in, as opposed to other Hard rock music videos. Since the song is a steady beat with no fast tempo involved, the transitions and editing goes with the song with no flashy shots. There are however, effects utilized during a part where band members with close up shots on their faces have a graphical effect. This is used to emphasise their facial expressions on how they are enjoying what they are doing during their band rehearsal/recording an album.

These are the lyrics to the song:

Can you remember remember my name
As I flow through your life
A thousand oceans I have flown
And cold spirits of ice
All my life
I am the echo of your past

I am returning the echo of a point in time
Distant faces shine
A thousan warriors I have known
And laughing as the spirits appear
All your life
Shadows of another day

And if you hear me talking on the wind
You've got to understand
We must remain
Perfect Strangers

I know I must remain inside this silent
well of sorrow

A strand of silver hanging through the sky
Touching more than you see
The voice of ages in your mind
Is aching with the dead of the night
Precious life (your tears are lost in falling rain)

And if you hear me talking on the wind
You've got to understand
We must remain
Perfect Strangers

This lyrics appears to tells the story of the people whos friends parted ways and they have a reunion. The first moments they had in the situation could be described as meeting up with strangers as though they never met. After some time together they now feel the emotion of being together for a long time, aka 'Perfect Strangers'.

Among their influences as a band, they label bands such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones which in turn are bands that help grew to shape the hard rock genre.The album, 'Perfect Strangers' is very simple;

1) Deep Purple title. Simple white and small font.

2) Perfect Strangers album name. The use of rule of thirds used as audience naturally look to bottom right, although a red colour considered to be dark colour in contrast to colours like blue and white.

3)Symbol of album. Holds the most attention of the cover itself in a bright blue mettalic colour with the shine that stands out against the black background.

4) A black background, keeps the user attention on the symbol as black usually signifies emptiness.

As compared to other albums with more abstract art, this really stands out against albums that are abstract, as the design is simple, which catches the attention of audience since they expect something more of the design compared to other albums.

The back cover is similar;

1)Track listing in white. Nothing fancy to emphasise the simplistic design.

2)Picture of the members with high contrast in blue. Same colour as the logo.

3)Deep Purple on the side.

4)Perfect Strangers both the band title and album name are in their respective colour in relation to the front cover.

5) Record label using rule of thirds.

'Paradise City' - Music video analysis

Paradise city is a song by Hard rock band Guns n’ roses.

Half of the music video was filmed at Giants Stadium in New Jersey while Guns N' Roses were on tour with Aerosmith, midway through the video, they are seen boarding the Concorde jet so they could make an appearance in England, and return as quickly as possible back to the USA to continue touring with one of their major influences. The concert in England is the Monsters of Rock event at Donington Park. The reason for this is because of some deaths that took place while Guns N' Roses were performing. As a result, they thought the footage taken at the concert would be good music video footage and a proper show of respect to those who died at the concert.

In the music video, about 4 minutes into the video, Axl Rose is seen sporting a World War II Nazi officer cap and a stage pass which appears to bear the SS eagle. Axl opens the pass, shows off the SS eagle, closes it again and gives a meaningful look to the camera. Most of the video was shot in black-and-white. The video angle is generally shot at eye level, generally the audience perspective, and the beginning of the music video has long shots for emphasise on the stage performance and size of the gig. When the downbeat kicks in and everyone rocks out, shots showing the band members are maintained throughout, typically using jump-cuts with short length between each transition to emphasise the tempo of the rhythm so something alot such as a big performance and the energy of the gig is happening in one go. Most notably, the music video is over 6 minutes, longer than generally around 3 minutes.

Van Halen Discography

This is a collage of the album cover of Van Halen’s discography. Some of them have images of the band members. This is not a display of singles of the band, which is different. Some of the covers show members of their band, each with their respective instruments and others with a more abstract art; the top middle 'Diver down' is just the most simple album cover. This possibly is a reference to the art work done on the guitar, with a similar colour scheme. The bottom right may raise concerns to the content with the image but its one of the better known albums of Van Halen discography. The colour ranges from bright to dark, wiht band shots having black and white along with a contrasting background to go with the picture.

Typically, they label bands especially other hard rock groups, as Deep Purple, AC/DC, and Aerosmith. Other older blues-rock artists, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck influences can be heard through their songs, especially the technically demanding guitar solos. It seems that bands are influenced by other similar artists of the same genre.

Hard Rock

Hard rock is a genre of rock music which is heard as loud and aggressive rock and not to be confused with heavy metal. Guitars are the most dominant instrument in this genre, often with the usage of distortion with big rhythms and usually accompanied a guitar solo.

In the mid 1960s, rock and roll evolved to the point where louder amps, heavy guitar riffs took over the scene. The 1970s era has developed hard rock into one of the most popular music, with bands such as Aerosmith, Van Halen, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and AC/DC. The music reached its commercial break during the 1980s as Guns n’ roses, Def Leppard and Bon Jovi further increasing its success. Hard rock is usually known for its emphasise on masculinity, as men usually consumed the product in a way that looking at the audience you would usually see white, working class men.

'Jump' - Music video analysis

Van Halen

Hard rock / Glam Metal

‘Jump’ is Van Halen first single from the album 1984. The concept for this music video is just based on a rock concert with no real story behind the video. This song is probably one of the most known songs from the Van Halen discography known for its pop-synth based melody line driving the song along. Interestingly enough, this song also hides the fact that despite the success of this song, Van Halen is better known for producing music in the Hard Rock/Metal genre.

The concept for this music video is just based on a rock concert with no real story behind the video. This music video focuses on the playing style of the genre of the band in which the technical side of the music is emphasised by camera shot close ups onto the band members instrument playing.

These are the lyrics for the song:

I get up, and nothing gets me down.

I like to jump, and then go round and round

And I know, just how it feels.

You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real

Oh can't you see me standing here,

I'm getting ready for a soccer scene I ain't the worst that you've seen.

Oh can't you see what I mean?

Might as well jump. Jump!

Might as well jump.

Go ahead, jump. Jump!

Go ahead, jump.

Hey you! Who said that?

Baby how you been?

You say you don't know, you won't know

until you begin.

Well can't you see me standing here,

I'm getting ready for a soccer scene

I ain't the worst that you've seen.

Oh can't you see what I mean?

Might as well jump. Jump!

Go ahead, jump.

Might as well jump. Jump!

Go ahead, jump. Jump!

Lyric wise actually has no relation to the video whatsoever; the song is based on when a person attempts suicide by jumping of a building. This makes a rather depressing theme but is taken away from the cheesy pop melody of the song, along with the music video having no references to suicide.