Ryans Analysis Of Blurs "Parklife" Video

Analysis Of Blurs video for Parklife

Blurs video for Parklife was released in April 1994 the video stars Phill Daniels who also narrated the video. Parklife was the third blur album and was released after their disappointing second album Modern Life Is Rubbish which was released in 1993. The band consists of Damon Albarn with the vocals, Graham Coxon with backing vocals and electric guitar, Alex James on the bass guitar and Dave Rowntree on drums.

Blur are signed to EMI and the band have benefited from EMI being one of the big four record labels worldwide with a huge marketing budget to advertise their albums and songs. Parklife reached number 10 in the singles chart but when released as a album it went to number 1 in the UK album charts.

The video for Parklife is putting some areas of the song into a visual context for example when the song says “Parklife” a word saying park life comes up on the screen. Also various other parts of the song are shown in the video such as when the song says “you should cut down on your pork pies mate... get some exercise”. There is a fat person in the background of the shot.

The song Parklife is taking the mic out of British suburban living and how Britain is becoming Americanised and Blur not liking it. This is represented through the video by various clips of the band getting annoyed with getting stuck in traffic, being rudely awakened by dust bin men. There are lines which are taking the mick out of Americans such ones about obesity which there is a lot of in America. Blur also take the mic out of joggers saying they run round in circles and in the background there is a jogger looking tired. The jogger is wearing traditional jogging clothes such as a jogging suit and a sweat band round his head this mise-en-scene has been used to make him look more of a idiot.

In the video there are lots of things to represent how British life should be such as kicking a football around near a ice cream van, drinking cups of tea which a very British thing to do and also feed the pigeons which there are lots of in London. In the middle of the video there is a poster on a wall with a picture of a pint of beer with Blur and Parklife around it. This is a traditional stereotype of Britain as a lot of American think all English people do is sit around in pubs drinking beer.

In the video there are lots of close ups on the face of the driver of the car. This makes the audience listen to lyrics because as the camera is close to the face he is singing the song so people want to know what is being spoken about. The video also opens up on two door to door salesmen trying to sell double glazing windows. As the video opens on them it introduced them as the main characters of the video.

There are lots of fast shots in the video with lots going on in each of the shots. This has been deliberately done in order for there to be too much going on for the viewer to take it all in first time of viewing so the viewer has to watch it again to take all of the shots in. The video also has funny shots in such as the jogger and the fat man walking along. These shots are designed to be funny so that the audience wants to see the video again to laugh at the people.

This video is very British and does well to take the mic out of British suburban life and how we are becoming Americanised. Throughout the video there are shots of stereotypical British things such as footballs, drinking tea, terraced housing, feeding pigeons and a pint of beer. These clips also illustrate the lyrics of the song as usually when park life is said the visual word comes up on the screen in British objects such as a red bus which is a unique London object. When the lyrics are about joggers there is a jogger on screen jogging. This song is a typical Britpop bands video with lots of cuts and lively actors jumping around the set.

By Ryan Williams