The video I will be analysing is Taylor Swift’s video for you belong with me. Music videos are not only to promote the song but show off the unique characteristics of the artist and their music. You can clearly see that Taylor Swift sings in the genre of pop, this stereotypical “pop” image is created through the use of icons such as the video being set in a high school, based around a teenage love affair involving the stereotypical characters of a handsome boy and his nasty girlfriend who totally ignore the stereotypically geeky girl who is in love with the handsome boy who she feels is out of her league to even be noticed. The story also consists of lots of costume change throughout which is a trend that runs through many pop videos. For example Taylor Swift goes from a T-shirt, to a band member outfit then lastly to a prom dress, this along with other dress changes in the verses shows her as a controversial artist. Another aspect of the video that relates to the genre of pop is using props to show off some wealth, like the convertible car that is featured and all the glamorous dresses gives off a stereotypical pop feel.
Now looking at the relationship between lyrics and visuals, the video is a narrative music video with some performance throughout as Taylor basically sings to all of the songs lyrics whilst telling the underlying story behind it. All the way through the video the visuals amplify the lyrics and usually reconstruct the images she sings about. An example of this is right as the lyrics start Taylor sings “Your on the phone to your girlfriend she’s upset” and you see the boy on the phone pacing his room which links the visuals and the lyrics together instantly, even though we don’t get to see or hear the girlfriend we can assume that she is on the other end of the phone due to the lyrics matching the visuals. This idea of following the lyrics with the visuals shows the narrative aspect of the song, which is also shown when the chorus is sung “she’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers” the audience is shown a quick shot of both the girls, the cheer leader and then her as a bleacher which is adding the image to the lyrics that she is singing about, which amplifies the whole message of the song. Another aspect of the song is some of it is performance based as we do see Taylor Swift singing throughout, although she is not actually performing to an audience live, she is still performing to us as an outside audience. For example she sings into a hairbrush in her room, which gives the idea of performing as she uses the hairbrush instead of a microphone which also adds to the narrative side as she talks about being in her room on a “typical Tuesday night” and then we see her based in her room.
The relationship between the music and visuals is all set in the same pace as the video, when she sings faster it goes with the beat which then makes the visuals speed up as you see lots of fast cutting between scenes of the video. For example when she sings “all this time I’ve been waiting at your back door” the beat gets faster along with her singing and therefore the visuals in the video get a lot more choppy and fast, the band jumps up and down along with the crowd in the background which is parallel to the lyrics and beat. This is also parallel with the solo instrumental of the electric guitar that is played just after the fast paced part of the video. The video at this point then slows back down with the actions of what is going on, we see the boy and his girlfriend arguing to the electric guitar giving the element of anger between them, this definitely shows that the video’s visuals change pace with the music as on every chorus “you can see that I’m the one that understands you… you belong with me” the tempo is raised along with the music, at every chorus the visuals always speed up. The first chorus Taylor dances around her room then you have her singing and dancing with the crown at the football game which shows how it all speeds up and slows down in a manner that keeps the visuals and lyrics adjacent to each other.
This video shows Taylor Swift as the same as her previous song Love story. The idea of her image is to show her innocence and I believe to give a simpleness to every teenage girls life, to forget about other issues and just be a teenage for a minute or two. I feel that the record label are selling this record by emphasizing the stereotypical teenage love triangle to relate it to every other teenager to sell the song and video. The video does represent a change to her previous video Love story as her image looks slightly older and more serious in its visuals, like the 18th century dress and medieval castle used as the setting. I feel this was to attract a wider audience with the video then with “you belong with me” another angle was taken as the song highlights teenage issues.
There is no reference to the notion of looking as the song and artist tends to be aimed at such a young audience therefore the idea of her being on sexual display doesn’t get included, the opposite of her being innocent is used throughout the video, which plays effect on the actual artist being innocent and her songs/lyrics. For example the use of very little makeup highlights her innocent nature and also the prom dress at the end of the song is white or a very cream colour which suggests innocence. Along with the constant dancing and smiling throughout this also shows the notion of looking is not as a sexualised display.
As for any intertextual references I don’t feel that there is any specific aspects except from maybe films such as “Cinderella story” when you get the quiet girl turning into the princess and winning the man, it could also be referenced to fairytale story’s and old films such as grease which relate to teenagers in love triangles.
To conclude this video is mostly a narrative video as a story is being told throughout which is parallel to the lyrics, this creates a sense of her personality as an artist and how she see’s life and stereotypes. There is some performance based included in this video as she does sing the lyrics throughout the song also whilst following the narrative storyline, this I feel adds to the pop genre and along with the props and ideas in the video like it is set in a high school with lots of costume change and bright lighting. I think that this video attracts its audience very well as it includes a range of diverse ideas for teenagers to relate to. She also sells herself very well as an artist through the lack of intertextual references as she can show she is an independent and different artist to others that are aiming to attract this audience also.
