Good Charlotte - I Just Wanna Live
by Suzanne Cadiou
Introduction
When they first started off on TV, music videos were rather frowned upon
by intellectuals and artistic critics. Film had already had difficulties being
perceived as a form of art, worthy enough to become part of culture. Linking it
so tightly to music had to find its way into society as well. Not so long ago,
it was a common conception that music in film had to interrupt the plot only when
it made sense to transform the person watching into the person listening in
order to discern those elements that could not be delivered to the audience by
mere images.[1] Today,
however, the borders between film and music are fading. Film productions
without music are hardly imaginable and music videos are not only accepted in
the society, but evolving to an art form of their own. Karnik goes further in
his argumentation, stating that clips function within the music, but do not limit
themselves to that anymore. On the contrary, the music video, the former “minor
work", has become the major thing within the past four to five years, overtaking
the actual music.[2] Admittedly, music video directors nowadays often make
long and short movies as well as clips, having big budgets for most of their
projects. This obviously leads to more possibilities and creative freedom when
it comes to plot and realisation. The take on the videos often is a more
artistic one and interacts with the artistic conception the musicians,
sometimes giving a song a whole new dimension and more depth.
Considering
the fact that clips are growing more important and play a bigger role for
musical careers, the analysis of music videos could be seen as normal and
necessary. As explained by Leo Dorner, it is, however, a rather complex
exercise:
“Die
Schwierigkeit, das Musikvideo ästhetisch, kulturgeschichtlich und
gesellschaftlich zu begreifen, hat drei Gründe: einmal explodiert in ihm die
technologische Entwicklung des bewegtes Bildes als ästhetische: das
Zusammenspiel der digitalisierten Film- und Videotechnik mit der gleichfalls
industriell verfügbaren Computeranimation löst die Utopien der Avantgarde ein,
aber anders als diese dachte. Zum anderen ist das Musikvideo das erste
ästhetische Produkt, das der Markt für Unterhaltungsgüter in seiner
Marketingabteilung geboren hat; es ist der geglückte Versuch, die anfangs
fernsehuntaugliche Pop-Musik fernsehfilmtauglich zu machen, selbstverständlich
unter ökonomischem Zweck und Zwang: es gilt die enormen Produktionskosten durch
den Verkauf der Alben und Singles wieder einzuspielen. Es ist ein Produkt der
Werbung, aber zugleich auch ein eigenes Produkt, Werbung und wofür geworben
wird, ist ununterscheidbar. Und zum dritten fressen im Musikvideo die Geister
der Unterhaltung jene der ästhetischen Moderne, beide rasen im Whirlpool des
technologischen Bildersturzes ineinander.”[3]
In
his opinion, technical and aesthetic issues of film come together in a way that
is not compatible with the avant-garde conception. However, I think that this
is no longer relevant to the understanding of clips and film in general. He
also considers the music video to be a product of the entertainment industry
that is used to make music suitable for television for an economic purpose.
In
this essay, I am therefore taking a closer look to the video of the song “I
just wanna live” by the American band Good Charlotte. It is a clip situated in
the aforementioned construct, but is nonetheless very self reflective about it,
and helps to understand the link between music/entertainment industry and music
videos.
Video discussion
In
the first years, Good Charlotte is referred to as a punk-rock band, later as a
more pop-punk, and now often as a pop band. The release of the third studio
album led to the appellation of “emo” band, which commonly has a pejorative
connotation. The interesting fact about this musical development throughout the
albums is that, at the same time, the band members changed physically. Their
clothing style, hair colour and haircuts always more or less matched what
supposedly is the style of a punk-rocker, an emo, or a pop-rocker.
“You can often tell more about an artist from
the first ten seconds of a music video than you can from listening through the
entire song for the first time. The saying: “a picture is worth a thousand
words” certainly applies to music videos.
Upon seeing an artist: how they portray themselves, how they walk, and
what they wear, you can gain immediate insight into what they are all about.
The success of an artist’s brand depends a great deal on the visuals they
attach to themselves.”[4]
The
first ten seconds of “I just wanna live” (clip released in 2004) portray the
band just finishing playing a song in a small bar or club, with almost no
audience. The bad lightening reinforces the depressing first impression we get
from the band in this beginning: we think we see an unsuccessful, ordinary
emo-core band. As the plot continues, the image of the unsuccessful band is
confirmed: the young men cannot make a living out of their music and therefore
have to distribute flyers, disguised as giant vegetables and junk food items.
In these costumes they are “discovered” and start a music career as “The Food
Group”. They are however directed by a producer who is only interested in a
constructed band and the profit he makes of it.
In
later viewings of the clip, the costumes that first come across as the trade
mark of “The Food Group” can be perceived as the element of standardisation of
the musician. In theatre, wearing it is the colour black that has this function:
it enables the actors to take on any role, different roles and keeping a
distance to themselves. The food clothing works the same way: it is a creative
representation of the “role” that musicians and singer often play nowadays. The
five band members in the clip could all have been wearing the same colour, or
an accessory, or suits; it would have had this standardisation function as well.
The costumes however add an absurd effect which helps the audience understand
the concept, and reflect about musicians through the portrait painted in the
clip. Karnik highlights that images have their own impact regardless of whether
they are conveying music, or not. That is the reason why people remember
specific scenes in music videos of long-forgotten songs.[5]
The pizza-slice front man, for instance, is an image to keep in mind.
The
music video definitely does not only criticise the way musicians behave these
days. Even if just to a little extend, but it also tries to show that there is
an industry behind every “constructed” artist, having primarily economic and
not artistic interests [see the dollar sings in the eyes of the man from the
limousine when he discovers the band members]. The critic towards singers and
industry is primarily formulated via parody, depicting typical scandals they
are mired in, flaws, and stereotypes in an exaggerated way to make them obvious
[wild parties, relations with fan girls, peculiar “artistic” behaviour (see the
cat-loving strawberry), playback...]. The use of fake newspaper covers and the
subtle allusions to existing bands in the headlines [“food fight”/FOO FIGHTERS,
“lip-sync”/N-SYNC, “corned”/KORN, “burger busted”/Busted] make the parody and
the actual criticism even more obvious.
It
could be perceived as hypocritical of Good Charlotte to paint such a portrait
because it can easily make the band appear as the one exception to said
portrait. This is not the case in “I just wanna live” because the lyrics as
well as the video also contain an important part of self-reflection (and
probably even of self-criticism). Especially the lyrics reflect on how the band
changed musically and how it evolved economically, they show Good Charlotte was
confronted to criticism concerning their career and labelling of the different
styles both musical and clothes-wise. The clip emphasises this changes by
showing a supposedly passionate band succumb to parties and success, but it also
displays how Good Charlotte seem to have coped with this. The majority of the
music video shows a band that lives the crazy life of success, but the end and
so to say conclusion of the career is very clear: the band members are no
longer loved because the fans realise they are not “real”, they stripe off
their costumes, throw them in the rubbish bin and go back to playing in a
little room. Actually, they go back to doing music for the love of it, for
themselves. As Karnik states it, music videos are more than just the
representation of a song. They intensify the topic of a song and sometimes even
add new dimensions to it so that the “look of sound” itself becomes the
attraction. A music video is not just about lyrics, notes, or film, it’s a
combination.[6]
Just like a band or an artist is not just tied to one single genre. I think
this is an important message that Good Charlotte wanted to share. The fact that
the whole video constantly broaches the issue of itself by showing a song in a
song [in the ten first seconds of the video we can hear the last notes of
another Good Charlotte song], a music video in a music video [“All U Can Eat”
by The Food Group within the “I just wanna live” clip] and the band in the band
[the “real” Good Charlotte or Food Group that’s inside the costume], emphasises the importance of variety for the
band.
Conclusion
The
self-reflection and criticism in this video could be discussed further by using
more examples and a more detailed analysis of the images in the music video and
the lyrics. However, I think it would be even more interesting to discuss this
topic by using clips from other bands or artists, who have done similar works.
I
also recommend watching other Good Charlotte videos such as “The River”,
“Predictable”, “The Anthem”, and “1979” to analyse morphing, intertextual
references with comics, stereotypes and so on.
Literature:
Dorner, Leo. “Musikvideo:
Thesen zu Film, Kunst und Unterhaltung.” www.leo- dorner.net.
Online source. 26-10-14.
Karnik,
Olaf. “Musikvideo – Hybrid im
Spannungsfeld von Popmusik und Kurzfilm, Musikindustrie
und Musikfernsehen.” (Originalfassung). www.olafkarnik.com.
Online source. 27-10-14. http://olafkarnik.com/journalismus/print/freiberuflich/musikvideo- hybrid-im-spannungsfeld-von-popmusik-und-kurzfilm-musikindustrie- und-musikfernsehen-originalfassung/.
Petchers,
Brian. “The Collision of Music and
Video.” www.forbes.com. Online source. 27-10-14.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brianpetchers/2012/08/01/the-collision- of-music-and-video/.