Textaul Analysis of Music Video- Unfaithful by Rihanna

Unfaithful was from the album 'A Girl Like Me', which was Rihanna's second album. It was written by Ne-Yo, Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel S.Erikson. The label that owned it was Def Jam, which is a subsidiary of Universal Music Group which is one of the big 4. This means that they usually do mainstream music for a bigger audience, therefore Rihanna is targeting her song to a mainstream audience. Her song is a a pop/R&B Ballad which makes it different to her other songs but this song has a popular narrative to it. It is about a girl (Rihanna) cheating on her boyfriend, this is quite a popular story that happen in life so a lot of the audience will be able to relate to the story and therefore will like the song.
The typical conventions would be that she is dressed like a typical R&B singer in some of the scenes for example there is a shot of her wearing jeans, a jacket and sun glasses. She is also wearing a lot of jewellery especially big earings.
The music video is a performance as Rihanna is playing the role of the cheating girlfriend. At the beginning of the song we have heart-beating noises and a slow tune which makes the video really enteresting and makes the audience concentrate on the story line. It shows how Rihanna as the girl who cheats is feeling when they are in acafe and the guy she is cheating with sends her a message on a piece of paper when her boyfirend wasn't there. She is feeling scared and looks around to check the boyfriend isn't there.
From the mise-en-scene we can see that the video is shot in a theatre where everything is untidy and there is graffiti all over the walls, this relates to how she is feeling, nothing seems nice to her, she is tense and uneasy and she can't enjoy anything knowing that her boyfriend is heartborken as he knows she is cheating on him.
After the scene where we get introduced to the story, the song starts. We get a sequence of shots of Rihanna and her boyfriend that she is cheating on, from the shots they both seem happy, it shows how much he loves her, so knowing that there is someone in between their relationship will be very heartbreaking for the boyfriend.
When she starts singing, she is walking and fidgeting with her fingers, everyone gets fidgety when there is something bothering them, when they are worried and don't know what to do. Similarly towards the end of the song she is leaning against a white wall and again she keeps moving, she seems to want to break out and cry becuase she doesn't want her boyfriend to suffer.

Textual Analysis of Music Video- Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart by Alicia Keyes

This music video is a performance and a narrative video as it tells us a story and also Alicia Keys is performing the story. It was produced by J Records which is a subsidiary owned by Sony. This tells us that she is a well known artist and that she is catering for a big mainstream audience. Their are typical conventions used, for example in the video their is a part where she wears skinny jeans, a vest, a leather jacket, sunglasses and a lot of jewellery.
Alicia Keys is represented as a superhero in this video. There is a birds eye shot showing Alicia keys touching the dog which has died. As she touches it, the dog becomes alive. There is another part where she flies up on top of a building, she is dressed in a purple suit which looks like a superhero's costume. This represents her as dominant as usually superhero's are male not female.
In the story she cannot be with the one she loves because she has to save other people and what they love, she is sending a message throughout the song and that message was written at the beginning of the song, "There are those among us who are blessed with the power to save what is loved by another. But powerless to use this blessing to love themselves".
Their is a shot showing a fence and behind the fence is the blocks and houses, this could represent that she is isolated from the world and the ordinary people, there is something (a fence) stopping her from getting to the other side. Also from the mise-en-scene there is a lot of run-down places used that have a lot graffiti and paint falling off. This makes it appeal to young people and also links to the story of her being heartbroken. She has sorrow and responsibility in her that isolates her from the guy she loves and the rest of the ordinary people.
She is also represented as dominant especially when she is riding the bike, usually guys are shown as riding a bike, but its her and it shows her having control and she dominant. She is also represented as strong as after she gets off the bike she can hear the guy coming from behind her, but she gets away from him by flying up on top of the building. This also links to the lyrics "I'll make it without you tonight".This means that she is trying to be strong and not fall apart.
There is also a part where the guy is facing her and she reaches out to touch his face but as her hand gets closer, his skin starts to get wrinkly as if its burning so she pulls away, gives a sympathetic smiles and walks away. She knows that staying with him will be dangerous for the guy, the only way to not harm him is by staying away from him, which seems hard for her but she keeps herself strong and walks away. Similarly at the end when she is back in her room she is holding the guys picture and when she cries a tear drop falls on the picture which makes the frame break and the picture to disappear, this again means that there is no way that they can be together.
She isn't wearing a lot of revealing clothes and she is represented as doiminant which is supporting post-feminism views as there is no male gaze and she is getting represented as the main person in the story who is dominant and strong and not with the idea that women are just used in videos to look at.
The target audience would be teenagers and middle-aged people so around the age of 15-30, this age group is the biggest and easiest age group to target at as they are interested in music the most, so aiming at the age she will be making a lot of profit as lots of people would be listening and watching her video and because she's also making mainstream music lots of people would listen to it as its the type of song most people want to listen to. Also the narrative is sad and upsetting and it can relate to some of the audiences life of them not being with their loved one so again more people will be interested in it.