Michael Jackson ‘Beat It’

Music Video Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdxUFDoQe0

Background

● The song is written and sung by American ‘Pop King’ Michael Jackson. The purpose of the music video is to advertise the song and promote the artist. It reached number 3 in the UK singles chart.

● Unlike most Michael Jackson songs which are off the pop genre, this one is off the rock-pop genre and acts as a mix of the two.

Type of Music Video● It is a mix of performance

and a narrative.● The performance element is

intercut with the narrative of shots of the artist singing, whilst there is a gang war taking place inside a diner.

● The gang war is prevented by the singing and dancing of the artist and the violence seems to stop. This prevents a knife-crime fight, which suggests that one person would kill the other.

Genre Characteristics● Since it is a pop-rock video, it has qualities of both the

pop genre and the rock genre.● The lighting is very dark, dull with out much vibrance. This

is for verisimilitude because it is set at night, but it gives it the feel of more on the rock side than on the pop side. The fact that it is set at night adds to this.

● The performance element of singing and dancing however, is converging to the stereotypical pop music video though as most pop videos do contain singing and dancing.

● The costumes are more of the rock genre, tatty jeans, dark black clothes aren’t things you would really find in a pop video but could easily be found in a rock video.

● The narrative is something that is more common of the pop genre, problems being solved by singing and dancing happens a lot in pop videos.

● All these things clearly show it as a mix of the genres.

Relationship between Visuals and Lyrics

● The visuals are not a direct portrayal of the lyrics but they are a close portrayal.

● The lyrics describe someone trying to act tough, and this annoying someone ending up in a fight, and the song is trying to warn the annoying person not to fight and that one is imminent. The visuals are set in the future when the fight is happening and the lyrics act as the back story to these visuals.

Relationship between Visuals and Music

● The music is edited in time with the lyrics. The music gradually picks up pace over time and each shot time begins to increase in speed. This means that as the music gets faster the pace of the edit gets faster.

● Another bit of relationship between the visuals and music is that when the music begins to get an instrumental section, the fight breaks out. When the lyrics resume the fight is broken up. This helps to show the narrative that it is singing and dancing that solves the problem.

Shot Types

● Throughout most of the narrative section, long and medium shots are used (more common of the rock genre) to help show the tension and anger between the rival gangs.

● During the narrative section, it is mainly close ups, common of the pop genre. However when the dancing begins it becomes long shots so that the dancing can be seen, this is still common of the pop genre as it is a performance element.

Voyeurism

● There is no voyeurism in the video. This makes the artist look more respectable as he is not needing sex to sell his image or his music.

Intertextuality● The entire plot of the music video

is reminiscent of American Gangster films. The fact that it is set in a diner, and two gangs are against each other is the stereotypical plot for an American Gangster film.

● The entire music video is a lot like Broadway Musical ‘West Side Story’ in the fact that two gangs are out to get each other, and there is crime involving knife. However it is not a homage or pastiche because it was never intended to look like the musical, it just does.