The idea of an illustrated song has been present in our cultural narrative since the 1920s. Since, then we’ve borne witness to Freddie Mercury donning a leather mini skirt, Kate Bush dancing her way through the smoke of Wuthering Heights, Madonna showing us how to Vogue and Michael showing us how to fight for our lives in Thriller. Music videos have always had the potential to expose another dimension of the songs that we tuck away in our brain pockets like treasure. Until now though these have been few and far between, but that’s changing.
Over the last decade, the music video has begun to serve a new purpose, an artistic one. It’s no longer primarily an advertisement of an artist – it can be an advertisement of their vision, their concerns, and their culture. Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’ was a phenomenon that encouraged body positivity, Lana Del Rey’s ‘Tropico’ made the music video into a short film, and more recently Lorde’s collaboration with Disclosure on ‘Magnets’ displayed the bond of sisterhood over romance. Ethicality and art are the frontrunners in the music video game and if you read on you’ll see a few examples of why…
Every Other Freckle // Alt-J
Alt-J have produced some incredible music videos to accompany the songs they’ve released and one which beautifully illustrates how a song can be given more meaning is; “Every Other Freckle”. Rather than releasing one music video, two very similar videos were created which appear to be identical apart from the main actor in the video; one features a man and the other a woman. The song is about lust and love, and this clever method of showing the audience how both genders are stereotypically seen as attractive in different ways is very effective.
The camera shots are one of the main things which help to tell this story. The shots are as similar as possible, however when you watch the two videos side by side you can begin to see the slight differences. The shots of the man’s body show him to be very powerful – muscles rippling and body tensed with tough facial expressions. The woman, however, is represented as a soft and elegant character. She is seen with her hair flowing around her face and looking over her shoulder, looking vulnerable and searching for someone to protect her. This could be to suggest that men sexualise women while women romanticise men.
Interestingly, even though the shots used in the two videos are the same, the female video is age restricted. This highlights that even though the videos are basically the same someone feels that the girl video is somehow more explicit. It’s also interesting to see how the girl video currently has 8 million views while the male one has 2 million views.
Symbolism is something else which is used in the video to help to tell the story of the song. The use of apples and a snake and the idea that the man and the woman could be Adam and Eve reinforces the themes of lust and temptation which the song focuses on. The video also uses lots of footage of nature: single celled organisms, volcanic eruptions and a caveman, which hint at the scientific understanding of how our world has developed and evolved rather than how the Bible suggests. These two ideas edited together add so much depth and story, and spark a debate within the narrative of the video.
The videos for this song give the track an additional layer of meaning. Alt-J consistently release beautiful and cinematic videos which reveal lots to fans about what inspires them to produce magical music.
Words by Lizzie Wood