Unfinished Sympathy + Burn the witch music video analysis
Both songs convey a very different message and have a very different theme. With Unfinished Sympathy, we see a seemingly traditional love song that is contrasted with an up tempo Trip-hop beat to accompany it - equating to a nice mix of the two. the song speaks about someone who has been hurt by love - possibly a breakup - and is singing their feelings. You can see his from the repeated line of 'Really hurt me baby, really hurt me baby' as well as 'I know that I've been mad in love before and how it could be with you'. From these lyrics, and the passion they are sung with, we see that the song is clearly about how a woman has had her heart broken and has been hurt by a man. On the other hand, once analysing the softly spoken lyric of Radioheads Burn the Witch, it states in one of the lines 'This is a low flying panic attack'. This seems to be a reference to the popular saying: “Flying under the radar”, meaning “untraceable” or “invisible”. The people are severely panicking (so much that it is a “panic attack”) but they don’t even know it. Low-flying attacks were historically carried out by bombers, flying low to avoid radar. This is a play on words; instead of a bombing attack it’s a a panic attack, one that the sufferer is not aware of until it’s upon him. This therefore, could refer to use of drones by law enforcement, and/or technologies sometimes believed to induce panic in the subject without their being aware of the source, such as infrasound/ultrasound and microwave radiation, used for crowd control. Though upon looking more loosely at the songs message as a whole, we see its repetition of 'Burn the witch' throughout, which accompanies the video that features a stop motion video in the form of the children tv programme Trumpton, though we see that the story of it follows the famous horror film 'The wicker man' in which a policeman visits a small island due to hearing about the death of a girl, though he is introduced to paganism there and eventually he is burnt in a giant wicker man. This strong juxtaposition creates an eerie feel, and the lyrics of 'Red crosses on wooden doors, and if you float you burn' emphasises this.
The lyrics used in both songs convey very different messages to the audience. Firstly, Unfinished Sympathy is almost a woman conveying to the audience how much your love for someone can be ripped apart when they hurt you, and just how devastating that feeling is. It goes on to show how powerful that is with stating 'Like a day without a night', which is showing how bad them being separated feels, it's as bad as day not having night. On the opposite end of the spectrum however, in Burn the witch we seem to get much more cryptic messages that act as almost a warning to the audience. We get a repetition of 'we know where you live' which to the audience seems rather scary, though looking in further and the previous analysis on what the government are doing to control us, the song could be referring to how the government are trying to put fear into us sswell as giving us threats.
Upon looking at the videos of each and how the artists are represented, we once again see a major difference in both. To begin with, in Unfinished Sympathy we see the main vocal artist Shara Nelson going about daily life, walking along the streets of New York. In the video she is represented as an everyday person and interestingly not as a celebrity or anyone special. She walks among everyone else though is not hassled for photos and such like it may be in a real life scenario, which could be showing us how the artists are normal people. An interesting point about this video though is that all 3 other band members appear throughout the video, simply walking in the background. We first see an out of focus image of Daddy G walking with his son behind Shara, which for those who don't know the band would look like normal person - possibly what they are trying to get across, that they don't care about fame. We then see Robert Del Naja come from a telephone box and start walking much the same though drops off, then finally 3D appears towards the end. Overall then, the artists in this video are all seen as so normal doing a normal everyday thing and wearing normal clothes - much like outlandish outfits worn by other celebrities in videos at the time. In contrast to this, Burn the witch doesn't feature any of their band members in the video, which for the band is rather different as we usually see the lead singer appearing in them all however bazar they my be. By doing this, it may be how they are tying to take the attention of themselves in order to let people understand the story, aswell as the seriousness of the message they are trying to get across. I believe the videos successfully represent the artists in the way they want to be, as with Unfinished Sympathy we see such a plain every day video which is what Massive Attack wanted, instead of the bold and stereotypical celebrity videos that we usually see. Also, with Burn the witch, by having no show of the artist we can very easily understand the story on its own and take the attention off who is making the music, and more to the message they are giving. Therefore, by not including the band members themselves, it relates to how the band are in themselves and how they don't focus on being noticed - only the music.
The film making in the two respective videos are worlds apart, though very important and spectacular in themselves. With Unfinished Sympathy, the main focal point is not only the fact that the video is filmed along a busy new york street with this main singer walking past every day life, but also how this one video is filmed in a continuous shot. To film a video like this takes time and skill, and was not utilised by many other artists at the time, and so was very unique. By filming in a continuous shot, it allows the viewer to become more immersed in what they are watching and really understand what the video is about, as it is creating the impression of walking with Shara Nelson. I believe Massive Attack also used the style as a way to set themselves apart from the rest much like their music was at the time. Upon viewing Radioheads video we again see something so bizarre and fascinating, but completely different to Massive Attack. Burn the Witch features a stop-motion animation to act out the story of the wicker man. This horror film story line is acted out by the childish characters from Trumpton, which i believe was a purposeful contrast by Radiohead in order to keep up their repertoire of videos that are not the norm.
If we look closer as to why Trumpton and The wicker man are featured in Radioheads video, we can see that what he has firstly tried to do, is to create this creepy feel to the video which matches the odd lyrics in the song. By having childrens tv characters act out a horror a twisted horror film focusing on paganism, it unsettles the viewers though in a way can be rather intriguing.
The lyrics used in both songs convey very different messages to the audience. Firstly, Unfinished Sympathy is almost a woman conveying to the audience how much your love for someone can be ripped apart when they hurt you, and just how devastating that feeling is. It goes on to show how powerful that is with stating 'Like a day without a night', which is showing how bad them being separated feels, it's as bad as day not having night. On the opposite end of the spectrum however, in Burn the witch we seem to get much more cryptic messages that act as almost a warning to the audience. We get a repetition of 'we know where you live' which to the audience seems rather scary, though looking in further and the previous analysis on what the government are doing to control us, the song could be referring to how the government are trying to put fear into us sswell as giving us threats.
Upon looking at the videos of each and how the artists are represented, we once again see a major difference in both. To begin with, in Unfinished Sympathy we see the main vocal artist Shara Nelson going about daily life, walking along the streets of New York. In the video she is represented as an everyday person and interestingly not as a celebrity or anyone special. She walks among everyone else though is not hassled for photos and such like it may be in a real life scenario, which could be showing us how the artists are normal people. An interesting point about this video though is that all 3 other band members appear throughout the video, simply walking in the background. We first see an out of focus image of Daddy G walking with his son behind Shara, which for those who don't know the band would look like normal person - possibly what they are trying to get across, that they don't care about fame. We then see Robert Del Naja come from a telephone box and start walking much the same though drops off, then finally 3D appears towards the end. Overall then, the artists in this video are all seen as so normal doing a normal everyday thing and wearing normal clothes - much like outlandish outfits worn by other celebrities in videos at the time. In contrast to this, Burn the witch doesn't feature any of their band members in the video, which for the band is rather different as we usually see the lead singer appearing in them all however bazar they my be. By doing this, it may be how they are tying to take the attention of themselves in order to let people understand the story, aswell as the seriousness of the message they are trying to get across. I believe the videos successfully represent the artists in the way they want to be, as with Unfinished Sympathy we see such a plain every day video which is what Massive Attack wanted, instead of the bold and stereotypical celebrity videos that we usually see. Also, with Burn the witch, by having no show of the artist we can very easily understand the story on its own and take the attention off who is making the music, and more to the message they are giving. Therefore, by not including the band members themselves, it relates to how the band are in themselves and how they don't focus on being noticed - only the music.
The film making in the two respective videos are worlds apart, though very important and spectacular in themselves. With Unfinished Sympathy, the main focal point is not only the fact that the video is filmed along a busy new york street with this main singer walking past every day life, but also how this one video is filmed in a continuous shot. To film a video like this takes time and skill, and was not utilised by many other artists at the time, and so was very unique. By filming in a continuous shot, it allows the viewer to become more immersed in what they are watching and really understand what the video is about, as it is creating the impression of walking with Shara Nelson. I believe Massive Attack also used the style as a way to set themselves apart from the rest much like their music was at the time. Upon viewing Radioheads video we again see something so bizarre and fascinating, but completely different to Massive Attack. Burn the Witch features a stop-motion animation to act out the story of the wicker man. This horror film story line is acted out by the childish characters from Trumpton, which i believe was a purposeful contrast by Radiohead in order to keep up their repertoire of videos that are not the norm.
If we look closer as to why Trumpton and The wicker man are featured in Radioheads video, we can see that what he has firstly tried to do, is to create this creepy feel to the video which matches the odd lyrics in the song. By having childrens tv characters act out a horror a twisted horror film focusing on paganism, it unsettles the viewers though in a way can be rather intriguing.
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