The music video for "Anna Molly" by Incubus illustrates the lyrics through visual imagery that represents the song's narrative about a seemingly dead girl who is revealed to still be alive. It features common elements of alternative rock music videos like showing the band performing and having a darker narrative tone. While creating a balanced performance-narrative video, it lacks intertextual references to other media that could have added more depth. The video simply illustrates the song's meaning through a basic story structure without amplifying or ignoring the lyrics.
2. In his 1992 book, Dancing in the
Distraction Factory, Andrew Goodwin laid
out five points that are often commonplace
features found in music videos.
3. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. The lyrics are
represented with images.
There is a relationship between music and visuals. The tone and
atmosphere of the visuals reflect those of the music.
Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
The demands of the record label will include the need for close ups
of the artist, who may develop a personal visual style
There is frequent reference to the notion of looking (screens within
screens, mirrors) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female
body
There are often intertextual references to films, other music videos,
TV shows
4. Goodwin stated in his theory that there are three ways
in which the visuals can respond to the music in a
video. Music can illustrate, amplify, or ignore the
meaning of the song completely (disjuncture).
Music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the
meaning of the lyrics and genre, and was very
common in older music videos.
Music videos can amplify the meaning of the song,
where the visuals add another depth to the song
Or, the meaning of the song can be completely
ignored creating a disjuncture
5. Anna Molly – Incubus
http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/353082
2107858639553/
I will be applying the framework of this theory to
American indie rock group Incubus‟ 2006 track,
Anna Molly.
6. There are various examples of where lyrics are
represented with images. For example:
Lyric:
“A cloud hangs over this city by the
sea,”
Represented by:
Paralinguistic feature of Brandon
Boyd portraying a cloud, as well as
alluding to a seemingly dead girl
Lyric:
“Anna molly,”
Represented by/interpretation:
Anna Molly is sung as „anomaly‟,
which connotes a sense of
something strange or out of the
ordinary. The scene of the dead girl
is different as it could be seen as
though a forensic officer is called to
deal with a possibly unique case.
7. Further relationships between visuals and lyrics
include:
Lyric:
1 “Wait, there is a light, there is a
fire defragmenting the attic.
Fate? Or something better? I
couldn't care less, just stay with
me for a while,”
2 Represented
by/interpretation:
The lyric „there is a light, there
is a fire‟ connote that the
3 apparently „dead‟ girl who is
shown in the mortuary (1) is
actually alive. This is shown
with a fire that self-ignites (3)
immediately after one of the
girl‟s fingers moves (2).
8. The music video simply illustrates the music in
how a narrative is provided in the music video as
well as a performance from Incubus. The video
could fall under a hybrid performa-narrative
category, as the balance of narrative and
performance scenes in the video is balanced fairly
equally.
9. Incubus fits into the alternative rock genre, and follows
the genre‟s typical music video conventions. These
music videos of this genre tend to be of the
performance variety; often featuring a narrative with
darker overtones (in this video, the preternatural).
In music videos it is commonplace for the artist(s) or
band to be shown prominently, and this video
achieves that with many shots showing the band. The
sense of place gives Incubus a rough, alternative
visual style which matches up well with their musical
genre.
10. The music video does feature a female character
who is shown in a variety of places. She is shown
as almost powerless as she lies on the mortuary
table, but the video does not make a stereotypical
subjection of her.
The video doesn‟t contain any particularly
voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
11. There are often intertextual references to films, TV
programmes, other music videos and other forms
of media in music videos however it seems that
Incubus‟ video has lacked in these features, which
could add a sense of entropy to the video.
There is a sense of narrative with a beginning,
middle and end structure but no intertextual
references to other media.
