Bad Meets Evil - Fast Lane ft. Eminem, Royce Da 5'9
Marshall Bruce Mathers III better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer who decided to team up with royce da 5'9 to bring out an album called “Bad Meets Evil”. The music video I will be analysing is Fast Lane by Eminem, which was directed by James Larese. The music in the video belongs to the Rap genre and this is backed up mainly by the actual song/lyrics but certain characteristics such as clothing connotes the fact that they are dressed in a particular manner which suits the style of music. This whole music video is structured around the visualisation of lyrics through the use of brilliant editing. The video has a lot of typography on screen alongside the artist as they are singing the lyrics; this is only for certain lyrics of the song, which may mean more than others as they are being amplified. The animation techniques in this video are another way in which the lyrics are illustrated one example would be where Royce Da 5'9 hits a CGI of the word “Cop” showing his feelings towards them while singing the lyrics… “Slap up a cop and then snatch ‘im out of his uniform” This enhances the lyrics as they are illustrated using animation techniques to visually show the actions in the lyrics. The relationship between the music and visuals is quite varied so there are no specific things, which can be picked up on. The only thing, which is clear, is at times when the music changes beat there is a cut to the next scene where more visualisation of lyrics will be shown. I feel the record company is trying to sell this song on a huge scale as they know the artist “Eminem” is very popular and known around the world, the track will appeal to his fans along with Royce’s fans as this is a collaborative song. This song was the first of his album to be made into a music video which connotes the idea that this song means more to them a great deal more than the others songs on the album. The image of the artist being offered is in some sense the “re-image” as this was a kind of comeback album after producing somewhat low quality music for a while. The usual image of Eminem is being portrayed through his old look, which is what his target audience is used to and like. This a very different style of video to what Eminem has usually been in and kind of contrasts his image as an old school rapper in a narrative video with no conceptual features, but this video is quite the opposite and has a lot concept material within it. In the music there are definite motifs, which are represent the artist a lot, but the motif of the visuals is completely different to what Eminem has normally been involved with. Within this video there is no sense of sexual display, which can be seen in several of his other songs, the camerawork and costume don’t connote the idea of sexual display in the video either. Screens in this video are not present which seems appropriate, as the style of music wouldn’t fit that style of visualisation. This video is I would say around 60% conceptual and 30% performance. It’s arguable that the video has a sort of narrative to it as the visuals are following the lyrics so the 10% narrative is arguable. Many of the images created in the video are concept ideas, which help enhance the lyrics. There is still however some sense of performance in this video, which can be seen by the two artists in the video as they interact with these conceptual images, produced. This music video is very conceptual based which is very different to what this artist usually produces but it somehow in a sense produces a much more meaningful experience as the lyrics are heavily emphasised by these generated visuals. This is what can be argued as a narrative meaning within this music video, connoting the idea that this music video is open to interpretation by the audience as to what they are trying to portray by showing what they do.
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