Analysing a music video

Lily Allen Smile Music video

The music video narrative is quite clearly an illustration of what the singer lily Allen is singing about. The song is about a guy who cheats on a girl with another girl. The girl acts swiftly and tries to get her own back by setting up all these horrible and nasty things to happen to him. The man always goes back to the girl he cheated on always complaining about what has happened to him, little does he know it’s the girl that he’s speaking  to that’s setting it all up. The sound or tune is very much a juxtaposition with what’s actually going on since the video is a man being beaten up and his life getting ruined and the tune is a very happy one. At one point she say’s “I felt bad for a while but now I just smile” this shows that she felt bad at the beginning but now she doesn't care and even enjoys ripping apart his life. Most of Lilly Allens songs are about ex-boyfriends and how they ended badly and this is just like the rest of them, whether or not this is a true story is uncertain.

The genre of this piece of music is very indie and unique so to give it an easy label would be incorrect however if I had to choose one I would probably have to go with Rocksteady,  pop, reggae fusion, funk, R&B which is what it is listed as online. The song was released on July 3^rd 2006, was written by Lily Allen, Iyiola Babalola, and Darren Lewis and was directed by Sophie Muller. Soon after the video was released it was banned from MTV after school hours because it had the use of a swear word. Lily Allen addressed this issue in an interview and said “I got really offended when my single 'Smile' got banned during after-school hours from MTV in the U.K. because it had the word f*ck in it. They said, 'We don't want kids to grow up too quickly.' But then you have Paris Hilton and the Pussycat Dolls taking their clothes off and gyrating up against men, and that's acceptable. You're thinking your kids are gonna grow up quicker because they heard the word f*ck?” A DJ called DJ Ron Slomowicz commented on the video on the website about.com and criticized it saying it was “mean-spirited” and implied that if a man did this to his ex-girlfriend then he would be shown as a violent person and therefore so should a girl that does this to a boy. He ending his comment by questioning her taste in music.

For iconography, this was her first ever debut song that was actually released so not a lot of people knew her music unless they were already a fan of her samples. Before this she was given £25,000 by regal records (which was who she signed with) to create a whole album. To get some attention she created a Myspace account and started to release a few sample songs. She became extremely popular as she gained tens of thousands of fans. She made 500 vinyls and they sold for as much as £40 each. She also created two mixtapes which were also released on her Myspace page to try and gain even more fans. Before the album was released she was given better mainstream producers and top-line writers. Smile was one of the songs she was extremely happy with and claims that is the first song she ever wrote. 

 The structure of the music video is very clear as it is literally telling a story. There are a few special effects when it comes to the transition from scene to scene. There probably wasn't enough money for amazing special effects since this was her first real song and they didn't know if the song was going to do well. On the other they may not have included special effects because they weren't needed. Without lots of special effects music a video becomes very clear and keeps constancy. An example of a music video that uses special effects and creates confusion is nicki minaj’s fairly new song pill of potions.

The main shots that are used in the music video are mid shots so the audience is able to see the emotions of each character and follow the narrative. if the all the shots were long shots/extreme long shots then the audience would have no idea what is happening. Its all the smirks and smiles that the female actress does that tells the audience that she enjoys torturing him.    

In conclusion I believe the purpose of the video was fulfilled. The purpose was to demonstrate how a relationship can end in a bad way and what happens to the people after it ends. In this case it displays how a woman can take vengeance on the opposite side of the relationship. In this case the story arc was clear in the actually video and the lyrics.