Thinking logically, a music video can do one of three things: enhance, detract from, or do nothing for the music. A successful music video will enhance the music they accompany in a way that increases audience engagement, interest, and attraction to the production. There are multiple ways in which this can be done, and methods will vary across genres of music and what the producer(s) want to highlight. Since the possibilities are endless, for this post I’ve chosen to narrow in on what can make a music video successful specifically in the pop/indie genre.
Of course, whether a music video is “any good” or not is subjective and based on the opinion of the viewers, but one good way to see how the general audience is responding is by viewing the like to dislike ratio of the video as well as the comments (where the anonymity of posting behind a screenname guarantees for brutally honest and raw opinions). Based off of my own opinion and the YouTube audience (33K+ likes to 417 dislikes as of 4/17/19), I think it’s safe to say that the music video to Saw You in a Dream by The Japanese house is doing something right. But what, exactly?
“It isn’t the same, but it is enough”
One main difference between attending a live performance and listening to a recording is when replaying recordings, the human connection that exists in a live performance is somewhat lost or missing. Although it isn’t the same, music videos can create visual and mental connections with the audience in addition to the auditory connections that people make when hearing music.
The music video for Saw You in a Dream by The Japanese House creates a visual representation of the song’s atmosphere as the context of the video is dreamy and unreal. In the absence of the human connection that comes with a live performance, this provides the audience with more to grasp onto, deepening their relationship with the music. This creation of atmosphere is important because often times what makes a live performance so special is the ambiance of the performance: being surrounded with the energy of the audience and the mood created by the hall, performers, staging, and effects. Obviously you aren’t going to get that same experience from listening to a recording or even through watching a video and audio pairing, but when well thought out and produced, music videos can achieve a similar effect by giving the audience a taste of the song’s atmospheric character.
A main way in which the Saw You in a Dream music video creates this dreamy and unreal atmosphere is by switching between the incorporation of dark and cool scenes (dreamy) and warm hazy scenes (not grounded in reality). Additionally, the video incorporate elements from real life but use them to create scenes that would be more likely to be spotted in dreams than in real life.
Pictured above is a lone girl riding a two-person bicycle through a room draped with sheets towards a mural and past a potted cactus with a light coming out of it that casts a hazy glow over the room. These elements are all things that exist in real life, but abstract combination of them together in addition to the warm and fuzzy lighting creates the feeling of a dream world.
Additionally, there are multiple elements of the video that reinforce the music’s lyrics, which helps enhance the audience’s connection with the music (in the absence of the human connection a live performance can provide). For instance, during the lyrics “keep my eyes closed” people reach their hands over the eyes of other people, and during “then I awoke and it was so sad” a bright light shines down in the dark atmosphere and the people arise with the main character holding her hand over heart.
This connects and ties together the audience’s senses of sight and comprehension with their sense of sound, creating a more involved experience. Certain video effects used throughout the video also link visuals to melodic sounds in the song. In the opening, instrumentals slide up from E to B and C#, then back to B. During the melodic ascent, the video fades in from black then zooms into the scene, and as the melody settles back a step down to B, the camera pans upwards to show the surrounding scene. This combination of audio reinforced by camera movement draws the audience into the music video’s dream world atmosphere.
Now that you’ve heard from me… what is the general audience saying?
As previously mentioned, the audience reception (judging by the YouTube likes and comments) is pretty positive. After much scrolling through the top comments, I actually didn’t find any negative ones (this is surprising for YouTube but less surprising when looking at the 33K+ likes to 417 dislikes ratio on the video). Well liked comments like these also show that the music video is effective in bringing the audience into the song’s atmosphere.
These comments, specifically the second one pictured show how the audience becomes so drawn into the production and all its elements that they relate to it on a personal level , even sharing their own experiences.
There are also a variety of comments such as these which bring up another topic – the role of technology (specifically electronic devices) in gaining exposure for smaller/less well known artists:
Gabby’s comment suggests that she discovered this song by hearing it in an H&M. She could have asked someone working there for the name of the song, but what also could have happened is she liked what she heard and decided to look up the lyrics to see what the song was. This illustrates how technology has made things so convenient for us as well as how it can help promote less well-known artists by making it easier for them to be discovered – for example if people hear something they like they easily look up the lyrics on google or a song identification website. Or if the music is used in a video they were watching it will be likely linked in the video description for them to click on for further exploration. This is an example of technology working at its prime to assist both the creator and consumer: convenient for the audience/listeners and helpful for the artist(s).