Textual Analysis 1

Best Of You – Foo Fighters

The Foo Fighters are an American rock band, formed in Seattle, Washington in 1995. The band was formed by their lead singer, Dave Grohl, after the dissolution of his former band, Nirvana. A lot of there music is reminiscent of Nirvana’s music, Grohl acknowledged that Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain was a major influence on his song writing. The video I am analysing is ‘Best Of You’, released in May 2005. The director of the video was Mark Pellington, best known for his work on the video ‘Jeremy’ for Pearl Jam. The song falls into the alternative rock genre, this is a very broad genre, and has many characteristics. Best Of You shows some of these characteristics, such as the lyrics addressing a topic of social concern, depression and anger. The video is both performance based and concept based. Throughout the videos there are several cuts between the group performing the song on top of a high building, and then to shorter clips of various different things, this is the conceptual part, with the concept being based around anger, violence and depression.

The lyrics within the song are amplified by the visuals throughout the video. When the group playing the band is the focus, you can see the emotions of anger and pain on the lead singers face as he sings. The video starts with an extreme close up of the lead singer, this close up backs up my point very well, as you can see Grohl’s pain by his facial expression. Within the song are the lyrics “I was too weak to give in, too strong to loose”, as this is sung there is a quick cut to a red wall, with the word resist written on it clearly, and then another quick cut to an angry baboon, then back to the band, and then to another shot of a red wall, but this time with a heart on it, the wall is half covered by a shadow, giving it a gloomy and dark effect, this quick succession of shots exaggerates the lyrics greatly. Another example of the lyrics being exaggerated is through the line of “Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the pain you feel, You trust, you must confess”. The visuals on the screen show firstly a young girl sat cross legged in a nurse’s outfit, in a very gloomy corridor, with low key lighting, making her look almost ghost like. There is then straight away a cut to a very quick cut to a wolf growling and biting with blood on the snow beneath it’s feet, there is then a cut to another young girl, but this time the girl is smiling with sun over her shoulder, an extreme opposite of the young girl before, the two girls illustrating “ Has someone taken your faith? It’s real, the pain you feel”.

The music and the visuals sync together very well in this video. The song starts off at a slow pace for the first 50 or so seconds, and then drops into a much faster pace, with a heavier sound. This is illustrated by the visuals seamlessly, at the slow part of the song, the focus is only on the lead singer, as an extreme close up just focus’s on Grohls face and the microphone, and then as the beat drops the camera cuts away to quick shots of the group, following the pace of the music itself. Throughout the video there are cuts from the group, to short clips illustrating pain, depression and anger, these aren’t always cut to the beat, but some of them cut with the drum beat. As the song breaks down and the lyrics stop, focusing only on the instruments, there are numerous close ups of the members of the band playing there instruments.

There are a lot of close ups of the artists throughout the video, particularly the lead singer Dave Grohl, promoting him and the band throughout. The record company paid great attention the the band itself within the video, as this is a way of selling the record in its own, as this single was part of their fifth album, they were already a highly respected and well known band, particularly front man Grohl as he was also known from previous band Nirvana, again being another selling point. A lot of previous videos from the Foo fighters are performance based, focusing on the group themselves, creating a common link for fans to acknowledge a foo video by.

There aren’t really any references to looking within this video, and no real sexualised display or sexual display of anyone throughout, but this is because of the lyrics to the song, focusing on anger and depression. The only sign of any affection within the video is a few selected shots of couples in bed together, or laying down with one another.

The video has no specific intertextual references, but there is a slight intertextual reference of genre, as in psychological thrillers. The quick cuts to animals pouncing on their prey, and young girls, and walls covered in writing, are all reminiscent of “The Butterfly Effect” and “Donnie Darko”. This is used to really exaggerate the emotions within the song, visually providing back up of the lyrics to the song.

Best Of You is a well worked video as a whole, providing great support to the song. The emotional feelings of the single itself are shown well within the video, expressing the lyrics clearly. The video promotes the artists a lot, with close ups throughout, and a lot of focus on the group, and their performance, showing the audience there style and flare.

Jake Stout.

Sorry for the subtitles..unless your spanish