Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
Bad Romance was released on October 25th 2009, the cover art for the single having been released on October 15th 2009. The single was the first release from her re-vamped debut album, The Fame Monster. It was directed by Francis Lawrence and reached number 1 in this country on December 13th, making her the first female artist to have 3 number 1 singles in one calendar year. The single was number 1 in 11 countries, including Austria, Italy and Russia.
The song was inspired by the paranoia she felt whilst touring the previous year, and the various "monsters" she faces. The lyrics in general talk about the joys of a bad romance, but it changes in the bridge when she sings about fashion. Whilst appearing on "It's on With Alexa Chung", she said that she was listing Alfred Hitchcock films in one verse "I want your psycho, your vertigo shtick / Want you in my rear window, baby you're sick". She also said that she was trying to say that she wants the "deepest, darkest, sickest parts of you that you are afraid to share with anyone because I love you that much"
The concept of the music video was that Lady Gaga is kidnapped by a bunch of supermodels, who then drug her and sell her to the Russian Mafia.
At the very beginning of the Bad Romance video, you hear some "twinkling" music, and you see Lady Gaga sitting on a chair posing with lots of extras surrounding her. She is wearing razor-blade sunglasses, which she uses to symbolise the inner strength of women. She pushes a button on a black box next to her and the track begins to play. The same "twinkling" music is played at the end of the track, when Lady Gaga is lying on a bed next to a man literally burnt to death.
Throughout the video there is very little mise-en-scene, mainly props, as I think the video is showing us that Lady G is the actual prop; she's the one they are after when she is sold to the Russian Mafia. The main props you do see is a mirror (0:47), coffins which Lady G and extras crawl out of at the start of the track in latex suits, vodka bottles, a bed, and a bath where a freaky big-eyed Lady G is kidnapped from. The impression I got from the music video is that Lady G wanted herself to be the main focus, and she lets her outfits (or lack of) be the main attraction of the video; she's an exhibitionist. The scenes all appear to be in one room that gets changed for each of her appearances; or a number of rooms decorated exactly the same. The interior of the room is bright and white, and, to me, it looks like a large padded cell situated in a mental institution, but we were told at the beginning of the video that it is the "bath haus of Gaga" Again, simple and not taking attention away from the lady herself.
The room starts off dark as they crawl out of the coffins, and is only light for the scenes of Lady G in the bath. It gets light as the chorus comes in, where the lights turn on and off in time with the beat. All of the scenes from here on in are bright and lit up (with the exception of the cage scene) until the bridge, where it goes dim again and continues on until the end of the track. The edits change between fast and slow depending on the tempo of the music; it also flickers between different images of Lady G. The video itself is very clever, as Lady G manages to make it, in my opinion, more of a work of art than just a music video. She uses fashion and poses to make the video look theatrical and change it from a performance based piece to a fashion show. The outfits and accessories aren't what you would see in normal day-to-day life, more like what you would see on a catwalk; this adds to making Lady G the main focus of the video. There are shots that you can see of just her shoes, and parts of her outfit that again point in the direction of the video being more like a show. There are a wide variety of shots in the video which make it visually interesting (establishing, MCU, LS, etc).
There are quite a few subtle visual effects in the video which are very creative, but aren't always the most noticeable thing about the video, which is a sign of an effect that has been used brilliantly. There were a few examples that really jumped out from the video, and made the video as interesting and shocking as Lady G could think up. One effect was Lady G's eyes in the scenes where she is sitting in the bathtub (1:25). It isn't obvious that it is an effect, and you may be like me in not entirely knowing whether it is an effect or not, but I think it is as it isn't her normal appearance. It is very effective as it adds to the overall feel of the video without taking anything away from what they were trying to achieve. Another example that I noticed was the scene where Lady G is in a cage-like cylinder naked; her spine sticks out (2:15, 2:27) further than you would expect, and it makes you feel uncomfortable to watch. Her body also appears to have been photoshopped to make her appear extremely thin at the waist, but with a lot of curves (2:41). It's all very odd, and does seem like subtle hints at being a monster. There is also a beautiful scene where Lady G is dressed in black lingerie wearing hundreds of diamonds, and all around her are diamonds suspended in the air around her (3:04). When you watch all of this together, it is very clever and creative; you want to see what she does next. In my opinion it is a brilliantly put together video, and is very subtle in what it is trying to tell you.
As far as I could work out, there isn't much of a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals; it's more about putting on a show and looking beautiful than actually linking to the lyrics (as it is in previous Gaga videos). It does link to the lyrics when the bridge hits and she sings "walk, walk fashion baby, work it, move that bitch crazy" (3:28), she does walk in some HUGE heels and it's all about fashion. I also think that the end scene on the bed is her "revenge" for the bad romance (4:33). Although there isn't an obvious link between lyrics and visuals, there is a strong link between the music and the visuals. Throughout the video the dance scenes are all in beat with the music, they all clap in time with the music (4:49), Lady G taps on the bathtub in time to the music (1:20). The editing also cuts to the beat on certain occasions, like in the bridge (3:28 - 3:44).
The video itself is a mixture of concept, narrative and performance based. There is an underlying story to the video (drugged, kidnapped, and then sold to the Russian Mafia), but at times it is also concept based as it can appear to be a bit random. It is most definitely a performance based piece because of the dance routines (1:26, 2:47, 4:00), and I think Lady G's whole appearance in the video is a performance to some extent, because in all of her live performances she likes to put on a show, and that is exactly what she is doing in this video. The video itself is completely unique, exactly Lady G's style and aim, and hasn't really taken a lot from other genres. I did notice that featuring in the video is previous images of Lady Gaga. It's like all of her images from previous videos are the monsters, and they are joining together in this video for Bad Romance to prove a point. For example, there is an image of Lady G from her Just Dance video (0:47), one from Poker Face (2:16) and one from Paparrazi (3:20). The new and improved Lady Gaga for 2010 is the one at the end (5:06), whereas the real Lady G, when she's at home and not performing, is the one stripped of all her make-up with tears running down her face (1:47). This, in my eyes, makes the video even more clever and imaginative.
Rihanna - Russian Roulette
Russian Roulette was released on November 20th 2009, having premiered on the radio on October 20th 2009. The video was directed by Anthony Mandler and it took 2 full days to film. The single reached number 2 in this country, and was number 1 in two countries. It is the lead single from her fourth studio album, Rated R.
The song was written and produced by Ne-Yo and Chuck Harmony, it is a fictitious metaphor about love, whilst also being a theatrical story.
The concept of the music video is Rihanna having several flashbacks, one being of her playing Russian Roulette. She has several post-traumatic heart murmurs, run over in a car and shot underwater.
The video is set primarily in two rooms; one where she is playing Russian Roulette, and one where she is being interrogated for information. Both rooms are dark, but you can see that one is more "controlled" than the other. The interrogation room is like a padded cell, with dark panels and lights from above; whereas the Russian Roulette room is dark and appears to be a bit "grubby", somewhere you would associate with drug users. There is little mise-en-scene throughout the video; in the interrogation room it is empty, just Rihanna singing to herself. In the Russian Roulette room there is a table, chairs, a gun and a fan. The main attraction of this video is Rihanna herself; you're supposed to look at her and concentrate on what she is doing throughout, whilst trying to piece together what she is trying to tell us, which isn't always clear.
The video is mainly narrative, a series of flashbacks of her life, the main one being a game of Russian Roulette. The story is that some Kashi's are trying to extract some information from her, presumably about a man's death, whilst she has numerous heart murmurs and remembers moments of her life. Sometimes the video doesn't make sense, it's as though Rihanna has short-term memory loss and is just seeing a few flashbacks of her life, which don't really make sense to her.
There are various visual effects including the scene of Rihanna being shot underwater (3:45), the scene itself is very clever, as you can see all of the bullets as it enters the water and it is very effective and subtle in telling the story. There is also another scene where Rihanna is sitting in another room (similar to the interrogation room, but with lots of red also included in the colour palette) with blood suddenly appearing from her chest (2:13). This scene is also linking to the lyrics because as she sings "you can see my heart", the blood is shaped like a heart on her chest, which I thought was a subtle but nice gesture. There is another scene that caught my eye towards the end of the video where it appears like you are looking through the gun's barrel at Rihanna (4:04), and as it moves in a clockwise rotation, it clicks like a gun would.
The video revolves around the flashbacks Rihanna sees as she is being questioned. The flashbacks are always in time with the drum beats, and are very short and quick, which makes it even more confusing when watching. They also appear when she sings the line "as my life flashes before my eyes" (2:51) there is a series of flashbacks that appear very quickly on the screen. The lyrics do link to the visuals you see on screen, for example, when she sings "take a breath", she does. Little things like this do help to make the video seem more realistic and are very subtle. It works well in making the video more visually interesting to watch; more like she is singing in her head and only the audience can hear her thoughts.
Generally the edits are quite slow and long, excluding the flashbacks, which fits with the tempo of the music and Rihanna's new style of music. The lighting is very minimal, and it usually comes from above Rihanna, like a spotlight on her (interrogation room, underwater). The flashbacks are quite dark, which adds to the mystery of the story and what Rihanna herself actually remembers. The overall feel of the video is dark and mysterious, just as you think you know what's going on and what has happened, another scene pops up that throws you and makes it even more confusing (car scene in the forest). There are various dark colours throughout the video, which add to the feel and enhance what you are watching (red, brown, black, dark blues).
The relationship between the music and the visuals is quite significant because as the song gets "bigger", Rihanna seems to get more stressed and have more flashbacks. She gets herself worked up and appears extremely distressed as the chorus hits. The flashbacks also appear in beat to the music at all times, and are edited to the beat. Some of Rihanna's actions are also in beat to the music also, so it is very important in order to keep the video going and to make it exciting to watch.
Rihanna's appearance is also significant to the video. During the flashback scenes she looks very glamourous, beautiful and tidy; whereas in the interrogation scenes, she is very unkept, her hair is a mess, and she looks as though she's in shock and suffering from some sort of stress. It's as though the final scene in the video changes her life and is actually very traumatic to her; like she loves him and is heartbroken that he's now gone.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1625927/20091110/lady_gaga.jhtmlJanuary 13th - 9:40
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Romance February 1st - 8:40
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Roulette_(song February 1st - 8:40
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