Music Video Analysis- Hurts Wonderful Life

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Hurts is an electronic, soft rock/alternative rock band, who take inspiration from the new wave movement of the 1980s for their music, videos and overall styling. Their song and video “Wonderful Life” was one of their first hits, the video popularly features conceptual/artistic visuals which create a cinematic narrative, which is commonly seen in alt. rock videos. The backing dancers in the video make it appear much more 80s electronic, however they also create the artistic visuals, as their performance explains some of the narrative within the video, but it can be left up to audience interpretation. There are many close ups and shallow focus shots used to show the actors and singers emotions, which can be seen in many alt. rock videos as these type of videos aim to be more cinematic. There is a clear color palette in the video as practically all of the shots are in neutral colors, such as grey, black, white and pale blue.

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The lyrics do appear to relate to the visuals but aren’t exactly the same. Because of the conceptual interpretation left to the audience due to the artistic visual there is a less straightforward meaning behind the video. It seems as thought the singer is telling a story about the past and the visuals which are seen resemble the present of this story, for example:

“don’t let go, never give up, it’s such a wonderful life” this lyric is accompanied by the backing dancers either motioning something similar to drowning, or being in the actual pool. But there is also a scene where an older man is placing a picture of a woman who looks similar to all of the backing dancers in to the pool, hinting that she drowned and he has had trouble letting go of her, but is finally attempting to.

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The pace of the song begins slowly and speeds up, however to appeal to the dramatic percussion in the music the editing keeps to a steady pace. Cutting at every other drum beat.

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Hurts as a band are commonly seen in plain suits, appearing very clean cut, in order to relate to their new wave 80s inspiration. This is seen in Wonderful life through the band member’s similar suits, the actors in a black suit and the backing dancers in the same black dress, relating to the narrative of the video.