Music video analysis 2 -Griminal

Griminal- Invincible

Griminal is an MC from East London and was one of the most popular grime artists in 2008. In terms of proper releases his album titled ‘Not just barz’ was out in 2008 and was claimed to be one of the best thing he would do. Although Grimial has never released a real album as ‘Not just barz’ was categorized under a complication some of his well known songs are ‘Supa Dupa’ and ‘Invincible’.  ‘Invincible’ was released as a single in November 2009 and video was made directed by Carly Cussen.

I looked at Andrew Goodwin’s writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ in order to help me analyse my chosen video. Goodwins uses a six point analysis when looking a music video these points include, whether music videos demonstrate genre characteristics, if there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals, if there is a relationship between music and visuals, the demands of the record label which has been portrayed by showing the artist in a certain way, frequent reference to notion of looking and if there’s any intersexual reference.

I began by looking at point 1 of Goodwin’s analysis by looking at the genre characteristics of grime shown in the video. In typical grime videos you would expect to see performance or a narrative based performance which is shown throughout his video of him.  ‘Invincible’ uses these traits has having a boy and girl relationship portrayed on screen showing a narrative based performance. This is also a trait of having a girl present in the video who acts as Griminal’s ‘love interest’. Griminal is acting as himself as he is the star image of the video he begins by using the trait of many Grime songs which is to perceive the artist as if he/she is writing the music from their own point of view such as Stan by Eminem. Griminal uses this trait by being pictured at the beginning of the video writing bars down on paper while listening to music. The first image the audience has on viewing the video is the shot of the high rise buildings showing its in London. The mise-en-scene is set in a flat showing the upbringing that Griminal has and shows his culture which is typical of grime videos to show their roots. This is characteristic of Grime videos and establishes to the audience straight away the genre of music. Grime video use high rise buildings in many videos such as Chipmunk ‘Superstar’ to show where they grew up in and also show the origin of Grime music which was East London. 
Below shows the opening of the music video which shows Griminal's name and the background is the high-rise flats.

Griminal is shown to be wearing typical ‘young East London boy’ clothes such as a hoodie and trainers this is a characteristic of Grime video and also relate back to the idea of their origin. The video is also set during the night time which gives a dark edge to the video and is a lot like other Grime videos which set their video’s at night time to match the feel and mood of the music such as Kano ‘P&Q’S’.

The second point to Goodwin’s analysis is ‘is there a relationship between lyrics and visuals’. The lyrics depict a girl and boy in love using terms such as ‘we’ and ‘us’ showing that the two share a relationship with each other. This concept is further emphasized in the video by the couple sharing an intimate moment. The lyrics also lead up to the words ‘love’ on screen and the ring has the word love on it and the couple seem in love in the video. The girl is then in a close-up putting lip gloss on while the lyrics say ‘I love your makeup’. The girl is then shown to be listening to music while on her phone and the lyrics lead up to ‘I’m phoning your phone your rejecting me calls’ this is portrayed by her then throwing her phone down.

This screen shot shows the girl putting on her make-up when the lyrics go to 'i love your make-up'

The shot above shows their intimate moment and shows her ring which says love which relates to the narrative of the music video.

The third point is whether there is a ‘relationship between music and visuals’. The music has a strong beat which is fast and the cuts match to the pace of the music very well.  When the girl and boy shown in the video appear to be meeting as he lives his house to walk to hers the music is slower to build for tension. The music builds ending from the chorus into a bridge and the boy realises he has left his jacket at her house and her parents are going to find out this change of music shows his expression.

Goodwin’s fourth point is ‘the demands for the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work’. I include the fourth point and fifth point together as they linked well, the fourth point is based on ‘frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body’. The company is looking to sell this record showing Griminal as a boy other boys can relate to by him wearing ‘normal’ clothes such as jeans and a hoodie relating to Dyers theory of the star initiating a fashion trend and the fans copying he/she’s style. Many boys from East London dress like this so may copy his style and see him as someone cool and stylish. The record label are selling Griminal as one of the boys from East London hoping that they will relate to him instead of setting him up to be a big superstar. In reference to Dyers Star theory states that the record company wants to make money out of audiences, who respond to various elements of a star persona by buying records and becoming fans. The record label for Griminal does this by showing him to be a relatable person. This idea of him being depicted as a ‘normal’ boy in East London show his culture, attitude and promoting a certain ideology. The use of close ups throughout the video it helps show a sense of visual style that ties in with the record label. The record company also depicts a sexual smooth style of the artist by a close up of his torso when his getting undressed. Being represented as sexy could reach out to the target audience of women. This is an important element to the video as particular genders are more likely to listen to certain types of genres, so it interests the women by having Griminal appear to be sexy they will then listen to the song and draw in women audiences.  The woman present in the video is also seen as sexy by her being dressed up and doing her makeup Laura Mulley’s theory suggests that an audience are forced to view the text from the perspective a male this is the case with Griminal video as the target audience is males and shown this by the video being from his point of view. 
Griminal is not a huge artists so hasn’t got many other video releases although his video for ‘Supa dupa’ looks more expensive to make with fast cars and big lights. The similarities with ‘Supa dupa’ and ‘Invincible’ are the presence of girls and the urban clothing.