28 North Lyrics Analysis

28 North – Los Angeles by Jack Barrell on Scribd

In the presentation above I have outlined the key concepts, ideas and connotations present in the lyrics in 28 North - Los Angeles. Through these subtle connotations in the lyrics, ideas of a wider narrative are interpretable.



For example, there are many hints and references to themes of heartbreak, guilt and loss, this is clear in lyrics such as 'The one that got away', 'She said I broke her heart', 'running from my past' and 'no peace'. All of these lyrics do have strong connotations of past heartbreak and guilt. Furthermore, lyrics such as 'no peace' and 'sanity's a luxury' indicate themes of guilt and open up possible psychological aspects and feelings of the viewpoint from which this song and these lyrics are taken, with the lyrics 'no peace' and 'sanity's a luxury' it is implied that this person is haunted by the past and is struggling to find peace in life, this connotation is then reinforced by the lyrics 'now sanity's a luxury'.



Further into the song, the concept of finding peace is even more apparent yet it is subtly represented with travelling to physically find peace in location. This is evident in lyrics such as 'I could stay in PA', 'moved to California in my 25th year' and finally 'I found no peace in Los Angeles', it is inferred that this person feel lost and that they don't belong in 'PA' and they 'could stay' but don't necessarily feel right emotionally doing so. This metaphorical search for a sense of belonging is further expanded with he lyrics 'moved to California'. After this, in the more chorus sections of the song lyrics such as 'I found no peace in Los Angeles', 'no peace in Los Angeles', these lyrics give the suggestion that Los Angeles is the final place that this person has travelled to in order to find this 'peace', however they are unsuccessful in their efforts as after all the travelling they cannot even find the 'peace in Los Angeles', with this emphasis on Los Angeles it is implied that this person considered Los Angeles a heavenly place and this is considered by many as Los Angeles is nicknamed 'City of Angels'. Therefore the fact that they can't even find peace in this place that they see as heavenly leads us to believe that they are guilt ridden and feel as if they will never get rid of this guilt.

Digipak Analysis

Music Video Focus Group

Questionnaire

Overall, the focus group after the Vox Pop, was another way to find out more about our possible target audience. However, with the focus group, we were able to select a specific group of people all of similar age but split with three males and three females. The first part of the focus group activity involved offering the participants a questionnaire these questions all revolved around a possible song choice for our music video and we played the song to the focus group while they answered the questionnaire.

 

Thumbs up, Thumbs down

After we issued the questionnaire to the participants, they took part in a ‘Thumbs up, Thumbs down’ exercise, this entailed the focus group answering four different questions relating to the chosen possible song and their only form of answering was either putting their thumbs up or down usually signifying ‘yes or no’. This again was a very effective method in eventually choosing a song for our music video and discovering what aspects of songs and music videos they were attracted to the most. Again, this exercise took place while the participants listened to the song.

The first question that we asked the focus group read ‘Does the song provide a wide range of music video ideas?’, we thought that this was an appropriate question to ask the focus group due to the fact that we plan to create a music video with an amplification narrative it is vital that we have selected a song that does offer ideas and concepts that could be implemented into a music video. Successfully, the answered we received from the participants were 100% yes as all participants evidently put their thumbs up. With this information we now know that members of our possible target audience possibly view the song choice as original, unique and rich with connotations and concepts.

For the second question, we sked, if the music video for the song should contain lip-syncing, we again thought that this was a suitable question to ask the focus group as many of our answers that we received from the vox pop specified that they preferred an equal ratio of narrative and performance therefore we intended to find out if members of our potential target audience wanted to see lip syncing as a part of this performance or not. Similarly to the previous answer, responses were very one sided as 5 out of 6 participants answered yes with only the one negative answer. With this information, we suspect that the majority of our potential audience do enjoy lip-syncing in music videos and feel that it should particularly feature in the music video for our potential chosen song.

The third question that we asked our focus group questioned the participants whether instruments should feature in the music video for our potential song choice. This question, similarly to the previous question about lip-syncing relates to the performance aspect of the music video and we felt it was essential that we discovered which aspects of performance our potential audience prefer, and would possibly envision seeing in our music video. The answers that we received for this were substantially less one sided to the previous responses, the responses we received were split equally with three answering yes and three answering no. However this was split between the males and females with all of the girls answering yes and the boys the ones answering no. These findings intrigued us as they could suggest that the psychographics of girls are that of liking performance with both lip-syncing and instruments being played yet boys only enjoy lip-syncing in music in videos. However, these findings could simply lead us to believe the girls enjoy the instrumentals to the song more than the lyrics yet the boys are more drawn to the specific lyrics.

The final question that we asked the focus group was relatively similar to the first question that we asked in terms of ideas for the music video, however, in this fourth question we asked if there connotations and concepts present in the lyrics specifically. This was essential information for us again due to the fact that we plan to make our music video with an amplification narrative therefore connotation and key concepts in the lyrics are key and it is vital that our potential audience can pick out these connotations. Fortunately, the responses that we received form the focus group were completely positive as all members put their thumbs up. These findings now inform us that our potential audience understands the song and the lyrics in particular.

 

Music Video Vox Pop

   

From the Vox Pop question that detailed participants’ favourite music genre, we discovered that even though people do have different favourite genres such as R&B, Rock and Alternative, their reasoning behind liking these genres are due to the fact they are not necessarily considered mainstream and they are all unique in their own ways and they prefer genres like this to the pop genre for example. This could impact our possible song ideas for our music video production as possibly more different, less mainstream genres are more likeable than simply the pop genre.

With the question in which we asked what participants thought made a music video memorable, we discovered that originality could be key, this originality could be present in the narrative, as one answer stated that an ‘interesting’ narrative made a music video memorable. On top of this, we learnt that originality could also be vital in terms of mise-en-scene as another answer stated good mise-en-scene makes music videos memorable. As another participant stated, the music video can simply just be fun and enjoyable to watch. This could influence our ideas for our music video production as we have now learnt that originality can definitely be effectively and in our production we plan to be as original as possible in as many aspects as possible.

In the question ‘What do you like most about music videos?’, we gained similar responses to the answers to what made a music video memorable, these answers included, originality in narrative and song, however we did learn from this question that positive emotions and concepts are the most likeable features of a music video, as we received answers such as vibrance, fun and excitement.

From the examples given by the participants for memorable music videos their thoughts on what makes a memorable music video are reinforced as the examples they give roughly contain all of the aspects they have mentioned to be effective.

In the question in which we asked for the participants’ preference on narrative type, we learned further that people really enjoy a story in a music video. Out of the five answers we received, 4 out of the 5 chose either amplification or illustration, from this we learnt that people like to be able to associate the lyrics of the song visually in the video, whether this is an illustration where the video almost reflects the video exactly, or if its amplification where the key concepts or ideas are visually reflected on the video.

With the final question, we intended to find out what type of performance to narrative ratio people prefer. From the Vox Pop, we did learn that people do in fact enjoy the presence of both, as we discovered that people would ‘get bored’ if there was too much performance or too much narrative therefore a 50/50 ratio would possibly be more effective.

28 north band Biography

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Use of Genre Conventions

Cinematography in Music Videos