Research; Brief Textual Analysis of a Music Video


      1.      Name of Artist? Olly Murs
      2.      Title of Song? Busy
3.      Date of release? 27th May 2011

4.      Director of video (if possible)? Corin Hardy
5.      What genre of music does this song fall into? Pop

6.      Is there a relationship between lyrics and visuals in the song? (Do the visuals ILLUSTRATE or AMPLIFY the lyrics? Give at least one example if they do.) The chorus goes "We spend all our time lying side by side going nowhere is really something getting busy doing nothing", so the fact he sings "doing nothing" links with thwe visuals because he is sat next to a doll.

7.      Is there a relationship between the music and the visuals? (Does the video cut to the beat? Are there solo instrumentals that are illustrated in some way by the visuals? Does the editing of the video change pace with the music? Give examples to support the points you make) In the chorus, he starts playing the guitar as there is a guitar playing in the audio.
      8.      What is the importance of the artist in the visuals?
(How is the artist being ‘sold’ to the audience? What image of the artist is being given? Does the video relate in any way to previous videos by this artist? Are there any motifs (signs) which have been used previously, or does this video represent a change? If it is the artist’s first video, how are they being portrayed and why?) The image that is given off by Olly is that he is a little crazy. This is shown by the looks that he gets off of people, this is also a point in the lyrics "I know that we're not crazy". Turns out he was right, because the doll comes to life at the end of the video.
9.      Is there any voyeurism in the video?
(Is the artist or anyone else portrayed in a sexual way? Are there any other aspects of voyeurism such as ‘screens within screens’, binoculars, cameras, etc?) There is no voyeurism in the video.

10.  Does the video have any intertextuality?
(Does it make reference to or show influence from any other media texts?) It shows them sitting in a car infront of a screen with a road on it, if that counts. Also, he makes the doll out of newspaper, again if that counts.

11.  What is the mixture in the video between performance (the artist performing) and narrative (a story being told)? The majority of the video is telling the story, but at times it shows him miming the lyrics and playing guitar to it.

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