Hey, Soul Sister' is the most successful release from the Contemporary Rock band called Train. It is best known as 'The Nature Song' because of the focus upon paintings within the music video. The band has a different approach their style which was once pop-rock genre and is now more indie-pop, and their unique video. This change has enabled the band to become more prominent in an era where contemporary and quirky are becoming the norm; this would explain why this particular song is their most commercial single and their highest charting song to date. The video for 'Hey, Soul Sister', directed by Matthew Stawski who has shown the generic conventions of a music video adhering to Andrew Goodwin’s Music Video Theory.
The relationship between lyrics and visuals is hard to understand because there is no more of a link than the lyrics literally floating around the screen. The amplification relationship is evident, all though the narrative does not directly convey the lyrics it continues with the theme of love. There is a romance theme with a simple boy meets girl storyline though the lyrics don’t directly state this typical love story, they do enforce an idea of a man being completely captivated by a female, and the visuals do amplify this.
There is an immediate relationship between the music and the visuals, which is consistent throughout the whole of the video. The first cut of the beat is with the walking of the woman and the beating of the drum, however this synchronization quickly changes and the movement of both characters and words follow the rhythm of the ukulele. This helps to keep the mood of the song light and happy, enabling it to show the sweetness of love. However, synchronization is lost when the clips of the band playing is shown, having them move at a faster more natural pace is significant in setting them out from the rest of the video, to ensure they are promoted.
Unlike most of Train's other music videos, where the main focus used to be that of the lead singer and the narrative (like there latest song ‘Drive By’), this particular video promotes the whole band even though there are many close-ups of the lead singer. By promoting the band in this way it helps to create a bond of closeness between the band members, continuing with the love theme and also portraying them to the viewers as real. The repeated individual shots of the band is mainly close-ups and medium close-ups, along with medium shots of the whole band are expected conventions of the video as the whole intention of a music video is to promote the artist and the music.
In this video there is an aspect that does not adhere to the stereotypical convey of women where they are objectified as sexual articles, this video does not refer to 'the notion of looking'. Though the male looks like he has power by dressing in black, against a woman who shows weakness dressed in white, it is in fact the woman who exerts dominance throughout the video. This is done with the use of extreme close-ups on different sections of her body at different times in the video, mainly on her face to show a smirk expression which has the effect of making the female seem powerful and threatening. The shots of the male are usually medium close-ups which help the audience to witness the information he is delivering, that being paintings of the emotions he feels for this woman. This enables him to look weaker as he is being portrayed as the most in love. Mid-shots are used also which make him look smaller, and therefore inferior. However, these images are contradicted by the woman following the words, which can be analysed as the male having controlling power over the female.
With all that has been stated so far, it is clear to see that 'Hey, Soul Sister' is a contemporary music video that, though mainly sticks to generic conventions of promotion, challenges other aspects of music video conventions. However, the unique writing of lyrics being placed throughout the video which has intertextual references to Paramores 'Hallelujah' and Charlotte Sometimes's 'How I Could Just Kill A Man' which both came before 'Hey, Soul Sister' and therefore influenced by them.
This music video is primarily a performance video, with cuts of lip-synching and music playing by the band, however there are snippets of narrative throughout. Despite this though, the narrative has no more depth to the story line than a boy meeting a girl and the falling in love. Simple narrative however is a generic convention of a music video.
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