NW - Deconstruction of No kind words - The Maccabees

I am analysing this video as it is by the same band that we have chosen to do so will give me an idea of how their star persona is being constructed. The video is quite low fi but i has some very overate post production editing in the use of the background lights that animate in different ways in different parts of the video.

This video is very different to a lot of music videos i have seen as we do not see the band at all in any part of it, which even in a narrative based video there is usually even a quite glimpse of the band or parts of it. Using Dyer you can suggest that even though we do not see the star we see another famous actor and through this we visually connect the two of them and it means that we see the two as similar raising the image of the band. This also shows the band as absent but we are pulled closer to the actor and his presence.

There is no cutting rate in this video which is very strange for a music video, however this is overcome by the animation of the lights which is creating the movement in the video keeping our attention held very easily. This quite different thing enforces Dyer's idea of stardom by portraying them as original and almost rebellious in the way they are not conforming to the normal music video concepts.

Using Adorno we can see that by breaking the generic formula based music video they are actually conforming to the indie genre as many indie videos are quite quirky and by not conforming they are actually conforming. However, this video does not try to 'sell' you anything so is not providing false needs which Adorno believes that marketing does, this in turn doesn't create any commodity fetishism.

The points raised by Dyer in his theories show that all media of this type are just advertisement and are all just trying to sell you a product. Even though we do not see the band who we are trying to be sold by not being shown them we are drawn to think about them and their absence creates enigma. This also enhances the idea of the start being absent from us, however we are not being made to believe that we are close to the band as there is no first person mode of address from the band as they are not in the video. The way they have used the famous actor raises their star image and creates the false needs in the industry to use famous people to become successful.