RB: Music Video Analysis 2

Fearless Vampire Killers – Bow Ties on Dead Guys (Fearless Vampire Killers, 2012) (Institution and Audience)

• As it is an alternative rock track, the music video for this song is usually shown on music channels such as Kerrang! and Scuzz. These channels would be viewed by a similar audience as fans of the genre of music meaning the video is likely to fulfil their generic expectations.
• As it is released by an independent record label, the song is less likely to be played on mainstream radio station such as Radio 1 or Capital, but can be viewed by fans on the artist’s and record label’s webites. 

• The video is mainly made up of the band performance with most of the narrative tied into the performance. Many of Fearless Vampire Killers’ music videos follow the same ideas and concepts, and as a single from their album ‘Militia of the Lost,’ this video does this in a similar way.
• For this reason, much of the audience would not understand the story in this video and would instead view it as narrative fuzz because of the few conventional aspects of the narrative, such as the fight scene.

• Even for viewers who don’t understand the meaning of the part of the story told in the narrative, the narrative fuzz could encourage repeatability. Because of the unusual narrative in the video acting only as part of a story to be completed by the other videos, Bow Ties on Dead Guys cannot be considered a formulaic or mainstream idea for a music video.

• ‘Militia of the Lost’ was released by Goremount Records, an independent label owned by the band. As they directed and edited the videos from the album themselves, it proves that the band have complete creative freedom over their music and the concepts of the video.
• This is unusual for a band as their record label would usually want to create a music video with the main purpose of promoting the song. 

• They have chosen to stick to a theme for the album and videos of all released tracks which works as an effective promotional technique. This also shows that as well as promoting the track, the band want to create a series of videos that its fan base can understand, even if they are viewed differently by other audience members.
• Also, as they are a fairly new band from an independent record label, it would be assumed that the production of their videos would use a low budget. This is evident in the video as no special effects are used and the entire video seems to be shot in a single room.
• As the band direct and produce their own videos, this makes it obvious that they do not want high production values or conventional music videos, and therefore do not view music videos primarily as a promotion technique.