Textual Analysis

I am analysing 'Summertime In The City' by Scouting For Girls. I am going to apply Andrew Goodwin's framework of key features which distinguish the music video as a form (1992). The music video was directed by Remy Cayuela. The genre of this song is clearly Pop, and this is known by the catchy, repetitive lyrics and beat. Also there is a moderate tempo with a sexual nature to the song, which would usually attract teenagers and young adults.

The lyrics for the song are about youth having fun in the British summer. The visuals illustrate many of the lyrics, such as at 1.18 "Boys go silly" there is a mid shot of a boy in swimming trunks and sunglasses in the pouring rain making a sandcastle out of mud on the grass. Although, the visuals also contradict the lyrics such as at 1.06 "Here comes the summer" is repeated whilst people are sunbathing and it starts heavily raining. This is for a comedy effect for it reflects the unreliable British summer weather. Also it represents Brits as wanting to have fun no matter what the weather is like.

There is also a strong relationship between music and visuals. At the very beginning of the music video there is a piano solo which is shown in the visuals by using a close up shot, and when the drums kick in there is a shot of the drums too hence making a very smooth introduction. The video cuts to the beat to some extent, but the most noticeable part where there is a relationship between music and visuals is at 1.55. A man spills a drink on a woman and the music stops with the lead singer pulling a puzzled expression, added sound effects of a rewind noise heighten the emotion of clumsiness. This again is to imply humour and reinforce the repeated line throughout, 'boys go silly'!

The record company is looking to sell this track by representing Scouting For Girls as young, fun and having a good time. The brand image of the band is centralised by the lead singer, for throughout the music video there are many close ups of him. In the close ups of the lead singer the majority of the time he is looking directly at the camera, whilst using a shallow focus when other band members are in the background, making the lead singer the central gaze.

The notion of looking in the music video highly shows voyeurism, which is introduced early into the video at 0.18 where a woman who is wearing a pencil skirt and shirt is walking, and a high angle tracking shot is used to make her seem vulnerable. This is followed by a quick extreme close up of the woman's chest whilst she is unbuttoning her shirt. Later on at 1.44 a long shot is used to show the women in a bikini led down in the rain with her head back using a fan. Hence the change in costume and the women's body language portrayed by camerawork shows city women becoming more sexually displayed in the summer. At 2.00 another high angle tracking shot is used to follow a line of girls putting sunscreen on each others backs in a line. This once again shows women in a vulnerable sexual display and is a typical convention of women in pop genre music videos hence meets the target audiences expectations.

The music video is half performance-based and half narrative-based. There is not a strong narrative to the video for there is a lot of visuals purely to fit the lyrics, because there is not a deeper meaning to the lyrics. The music video helps simply to reinforce the brand image of Scouting For Girls being fun loving and not taking life to seriously.

In conclusion this music video has all the typical conventions of a pop genre music video, including bright colours, main emphasis on the lead singer, girls dancing around and many visuals matching lyrics. Therefore, Scouting For Girls' video can be applied to Andrew Goodwin's theory and be distinguished as being constructed in pop genre form. The iconographic use of voyerism and the half narrative-based video portray the band as being easy going, looking for fun, and enjoying life. Also, the video also uses humour about the British weather, hence young people would easily relate to this video.