Music Video Analysis - All The Small Things

Goodwin’s Music Video Analysis

Blink 182 – Pop Punk Music

Punk music itself is known for how rebellious they are against the stereotypical genre of pop, so for a pop punk band to release a music video such as All the Small Things, people weren’t particularly use to hearing this type of music. They were an all boy band who rebelled against the stereotypical clean cut music video.

The characteristics of a pop punk music video are simply..

• ·         Particularly All Male Band
• ·         Rebelling against the stereotypes
• ·         Live Band playing
• ·         Doesn’t always have a link to the song
• ·         Large area of people

Most music videos match up to the lyrics of the song that is being played, for Blink 182 ‘All the Small Things’ this is a different situation, they have minor characteristics to the video and song, this is most likely because the type of music itself is often seen as rebellious, it’s not hard to see they carried on this perspective and perpetrated it into the music video as well. The only moments the song had really been linked to the music video was round about half way through…

The lyrics ‘Late night, come home’ one of the band members is lying on the floor, with a beach scenery behind him, and what appears to be dark. This links to the lyrics as most people only consider the time of day to be ‘late’ if it’s dark outside

‘Always I know, you’ll be at my show, Watching, waiting, commiserating’ during these lyrics the band can be seen performing on various stages, once in front of a mic, in a type of venue area, and in a dance studio, this is all going on while the band play their music, and a group of fans is screaming and shouting watching and waiting for them to play.

‘She left my roses by the stairs,’ while there isn’t much of a visible link, the band member Travis Barker where’s a flower necklace round his neck, while the scene itself is in black and white to get it a more softer feel to the music.

With hit songs such as All the Small Things, it related to a lot of pop punk fans, this means that during this era everything was amplified and everything had a punk feel to it. Throughout a lot of the music video the music was linked to the visuals, but there were moments when the visuals didn’t have much to do with the visuals, for example when a lot of the main guitar and drum’s moments are playing they’re at a one of their shows playing matching up to what the music is making you visualise.

During the music video there’s a lot of close-ups of the artist showing their face, including of them performing in a group. The main shots are close-ups of the lead singer performing, and most of the things relating to them, including of their dog in which he was previously seen with, and a lad in a bikini holding a sign, that the drummer was with, this is showing that they have an importance within the music video, the close-ups of the artists are used to promote the record label by stating this is the image they want to sell, the record label will show a demand of a certain style they want the band to have, which can be seen throughout the music video itself as a rebellious kind of fashion.

There are several references to the notion of looking in the music video, especially during one particular part where the music video has a reference by looking through a telescope at the lead singer and his dog on the beach, however because the music video and song mostly focuses on the band unlike many other music video there isn’t as much voyeuristic treatment that can be seen to the female body.

By Danniella Chapman