Arctic Monkeys’ Brainstorm Music Video AnalysisFollowing the code & conventions of indie rock and Andrew Goodwin’s music video theory

Why did I choose Brianstorm?I particularly found the music video of brainstorm to be interesting both visually and theoretically. The music video itself plays on the typical codes and convention of it’s genre and seems to conform to it at some points or conforms in its on unique way or flat out ignores it. This manipulation of the conventions has in turn created an interesting music video.Again, The video itself plays Andrew Goodwins theory which has become a staple theory that applies to every genre.

The shot starts of with a wide shot of the band. What I liked about this shot is the use of lighting. The room is dimly lit with the light hitting the band from high up front. This creates a silhouette and highlights the smoke within the room.

This set up a grim, mysterious tone which would be fit for a slow, enigmatic song however the song itself is extremely upbeat and fast paced. The visuals and music are distraught. This also positions the viewer to be directly behind the band but not in front, which is strange for a performance shots within the indie rock genre.

Throughout the video the are used to dance in the beat and tempo of the song. The editing between performance shots, visual shots and the dancers were done to match the music. This is called by Andrew Goodwin ‘seeing through sounds’

What interests me about the dancer’s segments is that is it very unconventional for any rock subgenre to have let alone indie rock. This convention is mainly used within pop and hip pop. Yet it has been done adapted to fit within the song by matching the tempo and the beat and be visually disorientating which matches the song.

The use of the random images throughout the video follows Goodwin’s theory that visual and music can create disjuncture which Brainstorm has done. I like these shots because I thought they were strange yet they fitting within such a disorientating video.

Similarly, these were also flashes of imagery that were literal to the lyrics. For instance when “Brian” was sung image 1 was shown, when “Jacuzzi” was sung image 2 was shown and when “thun-der” the two images below were shown. This complies to Goodwins visual theory that the lyrics and visuals can be literal. Interestingly, brainstorm used both disjunctured and literal imagery which is unique.

Performance shots were used constantly throughout the video and shot of the their instruments were shown as well. While this fits within the codes and conventions of indie rock and Goodwin’s genre characteristics. It has done it in a fascinating way. The performance shots were always on the back of the band members which meant their was no inevitable money/beauty shot of Alex Turner. They used weird and interesting angles to shoot these shoots and editing in such a fast paced motion that the viewer has little time to process what they are viewing.