indie music video analysis

1. Indie Music Video Analysis
By Hattie Ryan

2. What is Indie music?
• Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom in
the 1980s. Indie rock was extremely diverse.
• In the mid-1980s, the term “indie” began to be used to describe the music
produced on punk and post-punk labels. A number of prominent indie rock record
labels were founded during the 1980s. During the 1990s, Grunge bands broke into
the mainstream, and the term “alternative” lost its original counter-cultural
meaning.
• The term “indie-rock” became associated with the bands and genres that remained
dedicated to their independent status. By the end of the 1990s indie rock
developed a number of subgenres and related styles.
• In the 2000s, changes in the music industry and in music technology enabled a new
wave of indie rock bands to achieve mainstream music.
• The term Indie rock, which comes from “independent”, describes the small and
relatively low-budget labels on which it is released and the do-it-yourself attitude
of the bands and artists involved.
• The influences and styles of the artists have been extremely diverse, including
punk, psychedelic, post-punk and country.

3. Examples of Indie music artist’s
The Strokes
The Arctic Monkeys
Vampire Weekend
Florence and The Machine
Coldplay
The Kooks
Arcade Fire
Lana Del Ray
The XX

4. Florence and The Machine
Name: Florence Welch
Born: August 28th 1986, in Camberwell, London.
Florence Welch was raised in a family of writers and academics.
She took to music at an early age and created her own band,
which she named Florence and The Machine. The band met with
success beginning in 2006.
• Her first album ‘Lungs’ was released on the 3rd July, 2009.
• Her second album ‘Ceremonials’, was released on the 28th
October, 2011.
• Her most recent album is ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’,
which was released on the 29th May, 2015.

5. Florence and The Machine
(style and marketing)
Lungs Album:
‘Dog Days Are Over.’ (2009)
In Florence and The Machine’s music video, ‘Dog Days Are Over’, we can tell she is a very fun artist, this is
shown through the bright colors that are used. She is marketed as being fun, artistic, creative and crazy.
From her first album she is marketed as being lively and confident.
The use of party banners suggest to the audience that she is up for a good time, this song is very upbeat so it
fits in well.
We would like to incorporate some of these elements into our music video. However, we would have to
think very careful as this is for a lively video and ours is more relaxed and laid back.

6. Florence and The Machine
(style and marketing)
Ceremonials Album:
‘Shake It Out.’ (2011)
This song’s music video is different to the album ‘Lungs’, as it is a lot more professionally carried
out.
The outfits are changed a lot more creating different scenes. There is still a continuous theme of
wildlife but the artist has explored creatively a lot more.
There is a continuous color scheme throughout each music video, this time it is red and gold,
which represents royalty. The artist has developed since her last album and this is very clearly
shown through this music video.

7. Florence and The Machine
(style and marketing)
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album:
‘Ship To Wreck.’ (2015)
This music video from this album is a lot more emotional and sad, we gather this from the
message that is being portrayed. The music video is expressing her anger for a loved one.
Over time we can see that the music videos are becoming more and more professional with
different style of shots being incorporated.
This video is very glum. However, the use of nature has been consistent throughout the albums
and this features in most songs.
This music video is different to the two previous albums as it isn’t as up beat and consists of a
lot more sad emotions.

8. Incorporation
In our music video we are going to incorporate some of Florence and The Machines
elements from her videos and put it into ours as they are of a similar genre.
The use of nature throughout her music videos is a touch we would like to add, as our
song is an emotional song a good way to express this is through nature.
We are also going to use a mixture of different clothing as style is very important to our
artist. This is similar to Florence and The Machines videos and she has a range of
different outfits but they are all of similar colors. They are also not obvious pieces of
clothing that you could find in any shop, they are of a vintage style. This is what we
want our artist to be dressed in as she’s an alternative artist and fashion is very
important to her.
We are also going to use a range of different locations and settings. As we can see from
the music video ‘Dog Days Are Over’, there aren’t a lot of locations used throughout.
We don’t want to do this as we want to create a range of different shots.
Her music videos are both performance and storyline based, this captivates the
audience. In our music video we want to create a performance but not a dramatic one
with lots of people in it because it’s all about the artist and we don’t want the audience
to loose focus. By making it storyline based this paints a picture to the audience. The
genre of the song means that shots consisting of beautiful setting are relevant.