Music Video Analysis for Foo Fighters- The Pretender

The beginning of this music video contains a high angle establishing shot of Dave Grohl walking over to the microphone stand and picking up his guitar (possibly because he is the main image of the band therefore get's an individual entrance).It is also note worthy that the lights come on in time with the music.

Opening

This is then followed by shots of him that hide his face for the first line. On the second line we see a zooming medium close up of him singing the words, "keep you in the dark," while looking towards the darker side of the room as if he is sing to someone. This is when the other band members come in to the room and pick up their instruments.

First Verse

The next verse then begins with the drummer hitting his drum as soon as the drums come in to the music. Now that the music has sped up the cuts come more often with shorter shots- mostly panning, zooming or close ups. Thought beats are now used a lot when the guitars strums.

First Chorus At the pre-chorus line, a riot police member walks out of the darkness; this indicates a new part of the song (the chorus).This man then walks over to and stands on a black line as the band play more and more aggressively.

After a complete mix of shots with different angles and movements, close-ups continuously switch between the officer and the lead singer. This is probably to show comparison between the band and authority; this fits into the genre of rock completely because it is often stereotyped and criticised for being against authority and law.

Second Verse

This verse is a lot like the first with lots of fast moving shots a quick cuts to fit the music speed. A huge range of shots are used including panning, zooming, close-ups, medium and long shots mainly focusing on the band members playing the song. This is very usual for the genre of rock and alternative rock because it shows that the music is theirs not just played and copied on a computer or wrote by someone else just trying to reach the top of the hits.

Second ChorusThe key feature of this chorus is that even more riot officers march towards the line facing the band. By looking at the officers we can see that they are all dressed the same with the same shields and weapons. We can also see they are all numbered which is a complete contrast to the band who are all wearing different things and aren’t restricted to standing on one line. This could be to say the band members don’t want to be the same- they want to be different, they want to stand out and not be another ordinary person that to some people are just a number; this is an direct link to the lyrics, “What if I say I'm not like the others? What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?”. From realising this we could say that there is a hidden political meaning behind the song that the video acknowledges and shows visually.

Final ChorusDuring this final chorus the riot officers all charge forwards but during this the music slows down using quiet broken chords. The video imitates this by slowing down the videos and using less cuts.

Immediately after this the music gets louder and faster with all the instruments coming in at once and as soon as the music hits this point an explosion of red liquid sprays forwards behind the band hitting the line of patrol members. Straight away the video goes to fast cuts but not as fast as before, low angles and tilted shots are finally used to show the police fall to the ground before the video ends on Grohl smashing his guitar on the floor (which is another norm for the genre of rock).

Conclusion

Overall this video follows genre norms of rock and alternative rock because it does things seen often in alternative rock music videos such as having meaning behind it all and showing a lot of performance.

By evaluating each section of the song (the verses and choruses) we can see something new happens every time the music advances. In this case the band picks up their instruments then a riot patrol member comes then he reveals his weapon then more members come and finally they run forwards towards the band.