Analysis of a Music Video: Stone Sour - Through Glass

In order to know the forms and conventions realised through music videos, I will analyse music videos from various genres and compare and contrast them.

The first music video I will look at is "Through Glass" by Stone Sour. This video was produced by Roadrunner Records and directed by Tony Petrossian.

The main feature of the video is the way in which the special effects are used to aid the representation of both the band and the people from Hollywood that they're mocking. Throughout the video people who represent Hollywood stars who claim to be meaningful people are shown to be cardboard cut outs, showing the message of the video is that those people are shallow and fake. The representation of the band is therefore the opposite of this, showing they are trying to portray themselves as deep and unique people. This message will have been chosen because of the target audience of the band, being people who tend to stay away from the mainstream.

The editing and the camera shots are used to give the video a very smooth, flowing feel. This reinforces the idea of Hollywood being fake, as it compares the smoothness of the camera motion in this Hollywood mansion with the flawlessness desired by individuals trying to make themselves beautiful. In stark contrast to this the band stand very apart from the other people, visually.

We can see several of Goodwin's key points in this video, such as intertextual reference, as the Hollywood sign changed to say 'Hollowood' shows a distortion of an iconic symbol. The lead singer, Corey Taylor, spends much of the video looking directly into the camera, and so the notion of 'looking' is used here. However, the other aspect of 'looking', being the voyeuristic view of women, is mocked in this video by showing attractive women but presenting them as shallow. Clearly from the performance sections of the video the record label have been able to get many shots of the band in, and their contrast to the other people in the video creates a motif for them, fulfilling another of Goodwin's key points. The video also follows some genre characteristics of rock music videos, such as including a lot of performance shots and by mocking 'the man'.