Music Video Analysis #1

Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down

 

The Arctic Monkeys are a 4 piece English indie rock band from Sheffield. Arctic Monkeys are heralded as one of the first acts to come to the public attention via the Internet with many suggesting that they represented a change in the way in which new bands are promoted and marketed as they prodominantly self-promoted their songs and gigs via the social networking site, Myspace, gaining them a large underground following of "Indie-kids".

  

When this song was released, on the 16 January 2006, Arctic Monkeys were still a relatively unknown band as it is only their second single, taken from their first album. Their main audience was the users of Myspace as this was the platform the band used for their music. Also, as the Arctic Monkeys are considered an 'Indie-Alternative' band their fans were fans of this genre.

  

The song itself is based on prostitution in the long abolished constituency of Neepsend in Sheffield. Neepsend was only a constituency from 1950-1955. Obviously as the song is about prostitution it tackles a very, very controversial issue. The song is from the point of view of one of the prostitutes potential suitors who turns her down and then observes the "scummy man" make his move. It starred Lauren Socha and Stephen Graham, 2 up and coming british actors. The music video used footage from a longer film, Scummy Man, a short film, written and directed by Paul Fraser, which used the same actors who appeared in the music video to tell the story of 'Nina', the nameless "that girl there" from the song.

This song is an 'Indie-rock' song. We know this as it incorporates guitar riffs, drums and bass guitar.

  

The music video is one of narrative form as the action in the video follow the lyrics of the song. The song is played over the video all the way through, and there is no performance in the video. It could be argued that some of the aspects of the video, the magician for example, are abstract as they do not seem to follow any narrative structure in the lyrics.