Tove Lo – Not On Drugs

Analysis

Conventional?

• Lip syncing.

• Different editing techniques.

• Artist appears in video.

• Performance.

• Costume change for different scenes.

• Editing matches pace of song.

• Lyrics and video match.

Meaning?

• The song is about love, and how she feels that love and drugs give her a similar feeling.

• Although the song states that she is ‘not on drugs’, parts of the song are edited to look slightly psychedelic, which differs to the lyrics.

• The song mentions that she is ‘just in love’, which could be used in the song to connote a negative thing; that she thinks love isn’t as good as drugs.

• Throughout the video, she is the only person that appears. I think this is used to make the viewer feel connected to the song as it is like she is singing to everyone as she uses direct language like ‘you’ and the loving name ‘baby’.

What does it give the audience?

• The video for the video is quite fun, colourful and bright.

• I think this is how she has attracted a young audience, because they will be drawn to the colour of the video.

• The song is about love which means that a lot of people can relate to the song and therefore will understand what it is about.

• Rather than including someone else in the video, the artist has consciously made the choice to be alone in the video to directly address the viewer to make them feel connected with her.

Language.

• In this music video, there is a lot of references to drugs, whether it be in the lyrics, the green screen used to reflect drug use or the way It has been edited to give it an abnormal/psychedelic look.

• The illusions created by the green screen are linked in with the line “You’re high enough for me” as this reflects the theme of drug use.

• The song is about being in love and the lyrics mention the word ‘you’ a lot, which gives direct address to the viewer making them feel connected with both the song and artist.

• Close-ups are used in this video to convey her emotions, as this makes you understand the song a lot more and feel you can connect with it.

Ideology.

• Tove Lo is signed to Universal Records.

• Universal have artists signed to their label such as Ariana Grande, Calvin Harris and Miley Cyrus.

• Because these artists have a lot of young fans, Tove Lo’s video for ‘Not on Drugs’ similarly suits this age range by the way she acts and performs in her video.

• This record label is part of the ‘big 3’ (Universal, Sony and Warner). Because of this, the artist will have had access to money which is how she had a lot of outfit and scene changes in her video.

• The institution’s main aim of the video is to promote the artist and to receive profit through her work.

• This is because the ‘Big 3’ record labels don’t really care about the artist or the songs they release, they are focused on the profit and the profit alone, which is different to independent labels because they are focused on making music and the profit is simply a bonus to them.

Institution.

• The artist that sings this song is Tove Lo, who is signed to Universal Records.

• This means that the artist will have access to a variety of locations and costumes, due to the fact that Universal are a major record label and have a lot of money to be able to do this.

• This makes the video look more interesting and keeps the viewer entertained because of the variety of scenes and outfits.

Audience.

• The audience for this song is mainly young girls because it is pop, which is stereotypically a female-orientated genre.

• The song appeals to girls because it has bright colours and lots of costume/outfit changes.

• To attract a male audience (although this will be a lot less than females), the clothes that she wears in the video are things like skirts and shorts which are revealing, creating likeability.

• A colour that is used in the song is pink, which again is stereotypically a girly colour, which appeals to the target audience.

Representation.

• The artist is represented in this video as fun and in control.

• I think the video is fun because of the fast paced editing, the colours used throughout the video and the effects used with the green screen.

• She looks in control in the video by simply being the only person to appear on screen. I think this shows her strength and power as the lyrics state that she is in love, but how she is strong so can cope with the intensity of it.

Mise-en-scene

• The locations used in this video are: Studio setting, room with coloured smoke, green screen, warehouse, side of road under bridges and a corridor

• Do these locations link with song?

Studio-allows the artist to have a simple white background

Room with coloured smoke-bright colours which attract the younger audience

Green screen-gives the illusion of hallucinations/drugs

Warehouse-confuses the viewer as they wonder why she is in this place

Road side-simplicity

Corridor-used to allow the artist to have a long space to keep the video interesting; possibly used to signify escaping from the drugs and into the light

I think Tove Lo consciously decided to have lots of different locations in her video to reflect the drug references in her song; to disorientate the viewer

• Props and costumes used; curtain, lighting equipment in studio, grey crop top with jeans and boots, green screen, grey jumper, wind machine, skirt with see through top and bra, white tshirt, black skirt, black shoes and grey jacket, white vest, grey boots and white shorts, smoke bombs

• Do these link with the song?

I think the curtain is used at the beginning of the song to simply start off the video, and the variety of outfits keep the viewer entertained because, if the artist was wearing the same thing throughout the whole video, it would be boring, the smoke bombs and the green screen relate to the song because they show the drug element and also capture the audience’s eye due to the bright colours

• The variety of settings and outfits used in the video makes it more enjoyable as it keeps changing, and this can be done due to the major record label that Tove Lo is signed to.

• I especially like how the green screen was used in the video because it really reflects the meaning of the song and also gives a hallucinogenic feel to it.

Cinematography

• At the beginning of the video, a track is used to follow the artist into an unknown place, as the viewer is unable to distinguish the surroundings. The camera then follows the artist into a studio setting and has a cut to a range of medium close-ups and long shots. The artist is placed in the middle of the screen on most of the shots to demonstrate how she is the focus of the video, and to speak directly to the viewer through the lyrics. Lots of different shots are used in the video like long shots, medium close-ups and zooms to keep the video interesting and enjoyable. I also think the variety of shots was a conscious decision by the artist as this gives the illusion of drugs as it may disorientate the viewer, which reflects the lyrics.

Editing

• Fast paced editing is used in the video as she is singing about how she is in love and is happy with the person. I think this makes the video look really fun and exciting, as it uses quick cuts from different scenes which also creates a disorientated feeling to it. In the chorus, there are 33 edits used which demonstrates just how fast the editing is throughout the video.

• A green screen is used a lot in the video to give an abstract feeling to it and to give the illusion of drugs, because of the hallucinogenic theme.

• I think the message created through the edits in the video is that she is ‘high on love’, which is shown through the green screen effects.

Sound

• Lyrics and sound breaks used for narrative? The song only has the sound of the song, and doesn’t really have a narrative but does include iconography which connotes things to the viewer.

• Does the song get louder at any point? At the chorus, the song gets slightly louder to make this part of the video more memorable as this is where the song title is. This is done by the artist to help promote the song to get it more sales.

• Asynchronous sound used? For this video, the artist does a lot of lip-syncing. For some of the song you can hear the artist singing but she doesn’t lip-sync to the song. This is used to make the focus on what she is doing/what is happening rather than her singing the song.

Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze Theory.

• For this music video, the camera movements don’t focus on the curves of her body.

• Although the video doesn’t illustrate this theory explicitly, the clothes she is wearing are things like skirts and crop tops. I think this has been done by the artist to appeal to a male audience as the song appeals mostly to a female crowd.

• I think the artist has consciously chose to not have herself presented in a sexual way due to her young fan base, as it would have been inappropriate if she tried to be sexy.