Textual Analysis
Seether – Fake it
Age: 15-25
Gender: Majority Males but appeals to both genders
Interests: Grunge music, calling out fakes
Location: Western Hemisphere, Europe, America, Australia, South Africa
Ethnicity: White males mainly but there is no specific targeting
The music video that I analysed is by Seether. Seether is a post-grunge/alternative metal band from Pretoria, South Africa, that was formed in 1999. The band is currently signed to wind-up records and musketeer records. Originally named Saron Gas and signed to musketeer records in South Africa, the band changed its name in 2002 coinciding with the release of its second album, and major label debut, Disclaimer. Its associated acts have been known to be with Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, Evanescence, Staind, Static-X and Dark New Day.
Shaun Morgan – Lead Vocals, Lead Guitar
Dale Stewart – Base Guitar, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
John Humphrey – Drums
This is the bands current line up, they have had 15 different line ups since the band was formed.
“Fake it” is the first single from Seethers album “finding beauty in negative spaces”. The single quickly rose to number one on both the billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks and Hot Modern Rock Tracks charts. It also reached number 56 on the Billboard Hot 100, the second highest of their singles after "Broken", which reached number 20. The single was certified platinum by the RIAA.
The original version of the song was first recorded in singer Shaun Morgan's bedroom and was an iTunes exclusive bonus track named "Quirk," included with pre-orders of Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces.
The music video, which was directed by Tony Petrossian, debuted on Seether's website as part of a "worldwide fan premiere" on October 23, 2007, the same day the album was released. It shows Shaun Morgan filming a music video on a plane set, with girls dancing seductively around him. It then goes on to show the band playing in a snowy area and an industrial looking arena surrounded by fans. Each setting is then inundated with various parts of the others, such as having the scantily clad models from the plane dance through the snowy area, revealing all the various music videos to be faked in some way, through the use of props, bluescreen, or computer manipulation, reflecting the theme of the lyrics.
The fact that the entire video is about how people and videos are fake, will attract others that dislike how fake the modern world has become. It also highlights how many music videos are faked and gives a simplified idea of how the process is done. This could also help reinforce the stereotypical view of grunge groups as outsiders, as they are exposing others to be fakes.
The Camera work is a mixture of medium shots, close-ups, extreme close-ups, track shots, pan shots, long shots and zoom out shots. The first 3 shots occur within the first 30 seconds of the video, but also throughout the video. This is to make the Audience focus on the 3 band members throughout the video linking them to the instruments played. The zoom out shot occurs just before the first chorus kicks in. The lighting is low key and high key throughout the video, it changes with each scene. The relationship between the lyrics and visuals are connected in some ways as the song is called fake it and everything that happens in the video is fake. The tempo of the music doesn’t match the tempo of the editing of the music and the visuals do not match all the time, but having said that, every now and again they do. The video is mainly performance based but with also some narrative based.
The analysis shows that the performance is the key part to this video as it promotes the band and their music. You can tell that performance based is what they focused on mainly because throughout the video you pretty much see the band performing all the time.
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