The Fray- How to Save a Life.
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The band The Fray are a very popular well known band for it’s moving songs and catchy lyrics. The band genre is acoustic indie. The characteristics that the band are well known for is playing there own instruments and becoming very involved and moved by there songs. This song and music video is very powerful and emotional due to both the music (lyrics) and the video.
The relationship between the lyrics and the visual side of the video is that by my first expression of the actual title song then my first reaction to the video is medical. This is because the band is set in a plain white studio which can symbolise cleanness or even heaven which contradicts to ‘how to save a life’. I believe that the meaning of the song is about helping your friends out when they need you most if they have a drug addiction, dying or going through a break up. When ever the main singer of The Fray sings ‘Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend’ the shot is always of someone on there own. This can portray loneliness when you need someone the most in your life. The actual lyrics of the song are sad and emotional, so its no surprise that in the music video there are actors crying and screaming out to someone. Such as when a young girl is crying out for her mother. Or when a young girl is crying over her dad, I can identify this as when the girl looks up a small amount of text saying ‘dad’ goes past her face. I can guess that her dad has died and she is looking up to heaven for him.
Through out the music video words become a visual side to the video as the director of the video has included small and large amount of text saying words such as ‘Touch’,’Smile’,’Love’ and ‘Breath’ these then become both eye catching to the audience as when there eyes catch a glimpse of the word they automatically read it, by then their mind has processed it to what they think the video is meant to mean by those certain words. It’s a very effective way to capture the audience and their minds.
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The relationship between music and visuals is that at first you can hear a piano being played and when you can see a blurred figure playing it you automatically think it’s the band. Throughout the whole of the music video the band The Fray play all of the instruments giving the audience something to think about. At first the beat of the song is slow and calm, however the beat starts to pick up and with that the visual side of the video becomes quicker and faster. The cuts are quicker and the movement of the actors are faster. When there is just instrumental being played the visual effects are slower and have a much calmer sense about it. As the music is such a powerful slow song the visual side of the video such as the plain white backgrounds and the actors having such emotional expressions on their faces gives the audience a chance to think about what is actually going on and what is the sense and emotions in this certain type of video.
The record company are aiming this track at a very wide audience as its such as the grow of acoustic singers is widening. However I believe that this track is targeted at mid aged teenagers to an much older aged group. Anyone can enjoy this type of music and song especially if they feel connect with it. Such as when you’re feeling down you do listen to slow songs as you are just in the type of mood. This type of video is different to other Fray music videos, however only in slight ways such as the plain backgrounds and the use of text. Key things that is similar in other music videos is that The Fray often play their instruments in there videos also the mood in most of The Fray’s videos are near the same. However ‘How to save a life’ is far more moving and emotional.
There is no sexual reference in ‘How to save a life’ as it’s not that kind of song Hip hop and R n B are more sexual and use women as sexual objects. Overall I can conclude that The Fray are a more emotional and relative to there target audience which can be anyway as there songs can express emotions that any can go through. They are a very talented acoustic band.
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