Indie Rock Music Video Analysis

In this post I plan to analyse the music video, 'Handsome' by The Vaccines as it belongs to a sub-genre within my chosen genre, Indie.

The video, 'Handsome', displays conventions typical of the Indie Rock genre. An example of the conventions being adhered to could be the way in which the artists are represented as a brand, through the use of costume. It is made clear within the music video that once the band put on their jackets which label them as 'The Vaccines' that they are a force to be reckoned with, and that they become much stronger. This is typical within the Indie Rock genre as the use of a narrative and props to create a particular image is a common way for the artist to represent themselves. 

The setting with an Indie Rock music video tends to be more urban, with locations such as apartments or backstreets commonly featuring as the main location. This could perhaps be because the budget can be slightly lower for less established artists, however, as the Vaccines are a more well known artist, it could be suggested that the budget would be slightly higher. There are three clear settings within this video, the bar, the training ground of the sensei fish, and the backstreet in which the battle occurs at the end of the video. The use of a green screen is also clearly shown within a couple extracts of the text. I feel that the variation in settings makes the music video more interesting for the audience, as it allows them to clearly split the video into a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Moreover, the use of the urban settings also makes the music video more relatable to the audience as these are places that they are more likely to visit on a day to day basis. This also creates verisimilitude within the text, despite there clearly being parts within the text which are are purely fictional (the other gang and characters within the bar).

The costumes worn within this video are pretty simple despite the masks being used to create characters such as the gang leader and the sensei fish. The band members are eventually shown to be wearing the same jacket, thus creating an identity that the audience can easily label. This is very much stereotypical of the Indie Rock genre, as the artists are most often portrayed to have a very laidback style, and their look almost appears to be effortless to copy. This creates the sort of message that the audience and the artist are very similar, thus creating verisimilitude, and a branding which will most likely appeal to them. Moreover, the majority of the costumes are quite dark, with the colour black being worn by the majority of the cast at some point or other.