Indie/rock music video analyses

I chose three different music videos which I thought represented the genres of indie and rock all accurately but in different ways. 

The video for Heart Shaped Box by Nirvana is an example of a 'grunge' rock video. Grunge is a combination of hard rock, punk rock, and heavy metal. This video was written by Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana, and directed by dutch photographer and director Anton Corbijn, who has also directed music videos for Joy Division, Metallica, Echo & the Bunnymen, and Depeche Mode, as well as directing films such as Control (2007), the biopic of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis's life, and photographing many musicians, which shows his involvement with the popular music industry. Despite being a professional music video director, Corbijn decided to let Cobain take over with the concept of the video, as he had already meticulously conceptualised and documented his ideas. The video is highly colorised, contrasting the darkness of the song. The video involves religious imagery & references to drug addiction, all of which are based in a surreal dreamworld. The camerawork involves many out-of-focus extreme closeups of the singer and less shots of the rest of the band, which puts the emphasis and attention almost wholly on Cobain. The video follows no clear story but the narrative shifts from three central characters, a girl, a crucified man in a santa hat, and a woman painted as a human anatomy model, and is interspersed with shots of the band.

In 1990, American rock band Pixies were offered an opportunity to play their song Velouria on Top of The Pops, but as a rule at the time, only songs with videos were allowed to appear on the show. The band had no interest in shooting a professional video and so while on tour in Manchester, filmed a 23-second clip of themselves running towards the camera over rocks in a quarry, and then slowed it down to fit the length of the song. The video has no cuts or editing at all other than having been slowed down. It has often been described as an 'anti-video', and in the context of this punk angst-driven band is extremely effective in creating an ironic & humourous contrast to the high-budget, meticulously crafted pop music videos of the time. 

Visual artist & indie alternative musician Tom Milsom created the video for his song Take Me Out using a combination of disorienting split-screen found vintage footage interspersed with clips of himself singing & dancing with psychedelic kaleidoscopic overlays. The video often progresses in time with the beat of the song, and although the clips used have little relevance to the content of the song, the result is a combination of sound & visual art working harmoniously.