Music Video Analysis - Massive Attack and Depeche Mode

Angel is a song by Massive Ataack from their 1998 album, Mezzanine. The plot of the video is that a man (played by one of the members of Massive Attack) leaves his a car park and walks to supposedly his place of work, with him being dressed in what looks like a work uniform. Gradually people start following him and by the end there are hundreds of people following him. This video really puts across a sort of gang mentality and tht lots of people can be accused of following the crowd, quite literally in this case. This contrasts with the lyrics of the song, with it being about a guardian angel. 'You are my angel/Come from way above to bring me love'. With the camera angles there are lots of close up's on the man being chased's face to show his reactions to what is happening around him. There are also close-ups of the individual gang members to show their neutral faces as if they're in a trance like state. Being as the gang members are all dressed differently, this might imply that Massice Attack's music can be listened to and enjoyed by a vast majority of people from all different backgrounds. The video ends with a long shot of the man chasing after the gang and the gang all running away from him. This is a very abstract video but I also like the camera work on the video with close-ups to the face of the person so you can clearly get the emotions they are feeling. I will consider applying this to my video.

Enjoy the Silence is a song by Depeche Mode from their 1990 album, Violator. The video is directed by Anton Corbijn. The video consists of lead singer, Dave Gahan, dressed as a king and walking to 4 remote locations then sitting on a deck chair and observing the view. This could mean that where-ever the band go they will always be recognised, no matter how remote the place is, someone will have listened to their music. Between the montages of Gahan as the king, there are shots of the whole band in black and white and also small shots that don't even last for a few seconds, of the album artwork for 'Violator' in different colours. This idea of showing the artwork or name of the album in a music video is seen oftenly, for example 'Lyla' by Oasis and 'Stress' by Justice. This also, like Angel, is an abstract video but because of Corbijn also being a photographer, you can see in the shots of Gahan where he's lokking out to his surroundings that they look more like photographs than moving images. This also occurs when there are cuts to the shots of the band in black and white. I feel though that at some point it would be very effective if I could include the album artwork I will use in my digipak into the video. I would then link this in when writing my exam.