Andrew Goodwin’s 6 Features of Music Videos

Lana Del Rey- Ride

Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics

The genre of this music video is soul pop. The whole video is actually a short story from Lana's life. So she creates it in a way the audience can understand it the best they can. The story is played for three minutes at the beginning and then the song opens with an audible inhalation, before Lana sings out and is on stage. Throughout the whole video it has Lana singing on stage but repetitively goes back to the story she is telling. The clothing that she wears in this video fits in with where it is set which is in America and it part of the video she is wrapped up in an American flag. Also when she is on the open road, where it looks like a desert sort of place, she is wearing cowboy like clothes. The video focuses on this single not on the whole album itself as the whole album is her telling all different parts of her life not just one certain one. The beat of this song is very mellow, it doesn't necessarily have an upbeat tempo or a very slow one, its soothing and relaxing.



Relationship between lyrics and visuals

A lot of the lyrics in Ride, they relates to what's actually happening in the video. She also does actions when she's singing on stage, to what she is singing. For example, one of the lyrics she says is 'That's the way the road dogs do it – ride 'til dark' and at this point she pulls the rock and roll sing with her hands as this is what type of men are featured in her video, so it links together. Also as the song is called Ride it says that word a lot, when the chorus comes on it shows her riding on the road on the back of the mans motorbike, this creates a really good relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. she also says 'I've got a war in my mind' whilst she sings this she points the gun up to her head which is very powerful and links to the lyrics very strongly. I think the lyrics and the visuals link nearly in every part of this music video is because of the fact it is a story and if it didn't link it, the story she is trying to tell wouldn't make any sense.

Relationship between music and visuals

In this music video, the music and visuals also work well together. At the beginning Lana is swinging on a rope in the middle of nowhere, the music is just one tune that goes very well with how she is swinging, then when the music proper kicks in the story begins. The clips where she is singing on the stage she lip sings to the lyrics. During the verses, the camera shots are much slower and more long-winded, then when it goes to the chorus, as the music speeds up a little, so does the camera shots. The camera movements are also in time with the music rhythm, a good example of this is just when the music is about to kick in and is just a continuous tune the camera follows up the mike until it meets with Lana's face in sync with the music.

Record label

In the Ride music video, they use a lot of closeups on Lana's face, this is so male and female audiences can gaze on her and actually get to see what she really looks like. Throughout her music videos she seems to have a reoccurring motif which is for her; love and death. This is why her videos become so popular because she portrays them in a beautiful way and not the original way some singers do, she tells it in her own way and that's how she became so famous.

Reference to notion of looking 

In the video, it shows how popular Lana Del Rey is because, she has only just met these men on the road and they seem like they have fallen in love with her, as she has them. They make her feel free and this is what she wants, so in all the clips it shows them being affectionate towards her and it shows the audience, how easy it is to love her. In some of the clips, it has parts of Lana where she isn't wearing much, and bends over the balcony in a very short white dress, this makes people, particularly males, want to watch her videos because they like that sort of thing. One scene in the video, also indicates that her and the man have sex, but don't show it explicitly they just indicate it by her bending over on a pinball machine with the man behind her, if people hear about this, this is one of the parts that make people want to watch it because they want to see if it is true or not. It also shows her singing on the stage alone, which means everyone will have their eyes on her, because there is nothing else going on, its all focusing on her. 


Inter-textual reference 

It uses a lot of inter- textual references, as it is a short film, at the beginning of the film it says 'RIDE' in capital letters, so introducing the song straight away and letting everybody know what it is called. Once the music video has ended it then has credits appear at the end, with the actors names and who plays who, so like a real film would have. It also tells us who directed it and the designers, it also lets the audience know who it is presented by. Lana says that her influences for things that she adds into her music videos are Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and other older singers.