Textual analysis of a music video

In order for me to identify the conventions of a music video, I studied the music video for 'Empire state of Mind' By Jay-z and Alicia Keys, which appears on Jay-z's latest album, titled 'The Blueprint 3'. I felt that this was a good place to start and would give me a clear idea of what is expected. This understanding will help me create a realistic video. I have split this analysis in to seven sections so that I ensure that I analyse each section fully.


Genre characteristics:

This music video is set in the urban and built up area of New York City. This setting and the atmosphere created by this reflects and compliments the style and genre of the music. The large and famous buildings in New York City are dominantly shown throughout the video using a low angle shot, making them appear powerful and supreme in the video.





Relationship between lyrics and visuals:

Throughout the song, Jay-Z is singing about various places in the city, the people and places that have changed his life. Throughout the video, the audience is shown the places and people he is mentioning in the lyrics. This creates a strong relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.


Relationship between the music and the editng:

Throughout the video, images appear of different places in New york, viewed as still images. These images appear on a drum beat, showing that the pace of the music is driving the pace of the editing. Below is a image that I particually liked from the beginning of the video. As three beats are heard in the song, three images appear on the screen. However, instead of the previous image disappearing, the images are overlayed on top of each other. I think that this is an effective way of presenting the content to the audience.





Close ups:

This music video is dominated by close ups of both artists as they sing the lyrics of the song. The close ups encourage audience involvement and make the video and narrative appear more personal. With videos like this where the words are being sung, a high level of close ups are helpful.


Notion of Looking:

There is not really a clear notion of looking in this video as it is mainly perfomance based. However, it can be suggested that we are looking in to the singers life as he shows and tells us about the places he is fond of in New York.


Intertextual refrences:

In this song and video, Jay-Z tells the audience a story of his past life, the people that he met, the people that helped him and the places that inspired this. The audience is shown this through numerious still shots. Eventhough there is no movement in these shots they soon build a story. The still images are represented as memories in the form of photos.


Performance, narrative or concept based?:

This music video is definately performance based as throughout the video Jay-Z is singing/performaning the song and Alicia Keys is shown playing the piano. Towards the end of the video, both artist join to perform the song on a set of red stairs (shown below).