Monday, 13 June 2011

Homework! 80's video :)


This video is by Queen - Radio Ga Ga. (1984)

I thought it was iconic because I believe it is on about music videos 'killing' the radio, just like 'Video killed the radio star'. It suggests that television and the music videos are taking over the radio and making the radio less popular.

Roger Taylor (who wrote the song) claimed he was inspired to write this after watching MTV. He noticed that lots of kids were watching the channel instead of listening to the radio. This shows that maybe it is not music videos that have entirely taken over the radio, but the amount of publicity MTV is given, and how much is has been advertised, has boosted the ratings of music videos and MTV.

There is a part of the music video that shows Queen performing infront of a group of people. Nowadays, music videos normally consist of the artist dancing throughout the song or trying to make a narrative throughout the music video, whereas, in this particular music video, it focuses on the artist's talent and their music instead of their appearence to show to an audience. I think this links in with the meaning of this song that 'radio is better than music videos' because the radio focuses on the lyrics and talent, whereas the music videos are used to portray an 'image'.

However, as this shows a difference between then and now, I still think this video is iconic because it later on was performed by Sophie Ellis Bextor and other artists. I think this shows that the thought that radio is still important, aswell as music video, still stands, which is shown through the ongoing rememberance and performance of this song. I also think this video has done well because it has given new artists inspiration, for example, Lady Gaga has said that she got her name from this song. I think this shows that this song has been iconic because it has stayed in the industry through new artists.
This music video also shows an image of the radio itself.

Although it links the picture with the lyrics, it is also contradicting itself because the image of the radio is actually in a music video.


2 comments:

  1. You have the right general interpretation of this song but there is so much more that uou could have said
    Have a look at the lonk below and this do a bit of textual analysis
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Ga_Ga

    ReplyDelete
  2. oops, I did this as a starter and forgot to go back and add to it! I`ll do that now..

    ReplyDelete