Lyric Analysis: Adele- Hello

Adele- Hello

[Verse 1]

Hello, it's me

I was wondering if after all these years

You'd like to meet, to go over

Everything

They say that time's supposed to heal ya

But I ain't done much healing 

Hello, can you hear me?

I'm in California dreaming about who we used to be

When we were younger and free

I've forgotten how it felt before the world fell at our feet 

[Pre-Chorus 1]

There's such a difference between us 

And a million miles 

[Chorus]

Hello from the other side

I must've called a thousand times to tell you

I'm sorry, for everything that I've done 

But when I call you never seem to be home 

Hello from the outside

At least I can say that I've tried to tell you

I'm sorry, for breaking your heart

But it don't matter, it clearly doesn't tear you apart anymore 

[Verse 2]

Hello, how are you?

It's so typical of me to talk about myself

I'm sorry, I hope that you're well

Did you ever make it out of that town

Where nothing ever happened?

[Pre-Chorus 2]

It's no secret

That the both of us are running out of time

[Chorus]

Hello from the other side

I must've called a thousand times to tell you

I'm sorry, for everything that I've done

But when I call you never seem to be home

Hello from the outside

At least I can say that I've tried to tell you

I'm sorry, for breaking your heart

But it don't matter, it clearly doesn't tear you apart anymore

[Bridge]

Ooooohh, anymore

Ooooohh, anymore

Ooooohh, anymore

Anymore

[Chorus]

Hello from the other side

I must've called a thousand times to tell you

I'm sorry, for everything that I've done

But when I call you never seem to be home

Hello from the outside

At least I can say that I've tried to tell you

I'm sorry, for breaking your heart

But it don't matter, it clearly doesn't tear you apart anymore

Possible plots surrounding these lyrics:

-The whole plot surrounding Adele- Hello could be that she is singing about an old lover and they ended badly and she wants to make amends now and get rid of any guilt she may be feeling. She say's she's sorry a lot, "I'm sorry, for everything that I've done", so it implies it's her fault and she caused this or pushed him away, therefore she feels bad and wants to finally get things off her chest and resolve things.

-The song could be aimed at herself; she wants to reconnect with herself. So in the opening lines of "Hello," Adele greets someone. "Hello, it's me/ I was wondering/ If after all these years/ You'd like to meet/ To go over everything," she sings. Taking "Hello" as a song addressed to herself, these lines become about a woman looking to rediscover who she is after years of not knowing. 
In the chorus, Adele says hello from two different places: "the outside" and "the other side." The former would seem to refer not to location, but to thinking a bit beyond herself to better understand who she is now. The latter is similar — it's about a woman who lived through a very difficult relationship, as detailed in 21, and the influx of fame and came out on "the other side" of it.

In the song, Adele sings about calling someone at home "a thousand times." Adele could be trying to connect to herself, but her it never worked in the past. 
-"Hello" is not a literal song. The "million miles" she says separates her from the person she's addressing aren't physical — they're emotional. 

Media Language

Media Language

•Every medium has its own ‘language’ – or combination of languages – that it uses to communicate meaning. Television, for example, uses verbal and written language as well as the languages of moving images and sound.
•We call these ‘languages’ because they use familiar codes and conventions that are generally understood.


•Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules. Each form of communication-- whether newspapers, TV game shows or horror movies-- has its own creative language: scary music heightens fear, camera close-ups convey intimacy, big headlines signal significance.

•Understanding the grammar, syntax and metaphor system of media language, especially the language of sounds and visuals which can reach beyond the rational to our deepest emotional core, increases our appreciation and enjoyment of media experiences as well as helps us to be less susceptible to manipulation.

Semiotics 

•According to philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1931), “we think only in signs” .•Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning.

•“Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign” (Peirce, 1931).

•Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as 'signifying' something - referring to or standing for something other than itself. We interpret things as signs largely unconsciously by relating them to familiar systems of conventions. It is this meaningful use of signs which is at the heart of the concerns of semiotics.
•Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1974)  offered a 'dyadic' or two-part model of the sign. He defined a sign as being composed of:
•a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes;
•and  the 'signified' (signifié) - the concept it represents. 

Charles Sanders Pierce (1931) – Three types of sign..

•Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model, onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic' sounds in 'programme music', sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures; 

How does this apply to Bad Blood?
There are particular icons that signify Taylor Swift's character in Bad Blood. For example, the costumes she wears have icon references to other films such as The 5th Element. This is recognisable via the white costume and orange wig she wears, as she looks the same as the character in the film.(Michael Shore's theory recycled style)

•Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred: e.g. 'natural signs' (smoke, thunder, footprints, echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours), medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate), measuring instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level).

How does this apply to Bad Blood?
The signs of fire and flames towards the end of the Bad Blood music video relates to the index/indexical 2nd sign Charles Sanders states. The flames engulfing the area behind Taylor and her friends as they're walking to confront the others signifies the danger they're going into, as fire has connotations of death and red has connotations of blood and anger. 

•Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the relationship must be learnt: e.g. language in general (plus specific languages, alphabetical letters, punctuation marks, words, phrases and sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic lights, national flags. 

How does this apply to Bad Blood?

Denotation, connotation and myth

•In semiotics, denotation and connotation are terms describing the relationship between the signifier and its signified, and an analytic distinction is made between two types of signifieds: a denotative signified and a connotative signified. Meaning includes both denotation and connotation.


•As Roland Barthes (1967) noted, Saussure's model of the sign focused on denotation at the expense of connotation and it was left to subsequent theorists (notably Barthes himself) to offer an account of this important dimension of meaning .

•Barthes (1977) argued that in photography connotation can be (analytically) distinguished from denotation.

•As John Fiske (1982)  puts it “denotation is what is photographed, connotation is how it is photographed”. Link to Barthes’ editing at stage of production we discussed.


•Related to connotation is what Roland Barthes (1977)  refers to as myth. For Barthes myths were the dominant ideologies of our time. The 1st and 2nd orders of signification called denotation and connotation combine to produce ideology - which has been described as a third order of signification by Fiske and Hartley (1982).

Paradigms and Syntagms 

 •Roman Jakobson (1956), and later Claude Levi-Strauss, emphasized that meaning arises from the differences between signifiers; these differences are of two kinds: syntagmatic (concerning positioning) and paradigmatic (concerning substitution). 


•In film and television, paradigms include ways of changing shot (such as cut, fade, dissolve and wipe). The medium or genre are also paradigms, and particular media texts derive meaning from the ways in which the medium and genre used differs from the alternatives.

•Evaluating media language is an evaluation of all the micro elements and how they have created meaning to inform us about genre, narrative, representations/ ideology, targeting of audiences (through micro elements).•This therefore requires us to use semiotic terminology to explain our encoding of elements and codes and conventions within our texts.•We must also remember to discuss the preferred meaning (Hall, 1980) that we wanted our audience to DECODE based on what we ENCODED  - could link to readings.

Mise en scene

•Mise-en-scène constitutes the key aspect of the pre-production phase of the film and can be taken to include all aspects of production design and Cinematography.

•Mise-en-Scene creates the diegetic world/diegesis - the fictional space and time implied by the narrative, i.e. the world in which the story takes place.

1.Location - settings, set-design and iconography
2.Character – Costume, Properties and Make Up, Actors and Gesture
3.Cinematography - Lighting and Colour
4.Layout and Page Design – colour, juxtaposition of elements.

Camerawork
•There are Four aspects to camerawork that you need to understand:
1.Shot Types – particularly relevant for print.2.Camera Composition
3.Camera Movement4.Camera Angles

•Link to Propp (1928)•The villain — struggles against the hero.
•The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
•The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.
•The princess and her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.
•The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
•The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
•[False hero] — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.


Editing
•Editing is a post-production technique in which the footage shot during production is cut up and reassembled in such a way as to tell the story.
•TV shows are not filmed in chronological order.•They are filmed out of order in short sequences, called ‘takes’, which then have to be assembled in the correct order.

•Long Takes: takes of an unusually long length.•Short Takes: takes that only last for a few seconds.•
•There are two basic types of editing:
1.Continuity and…
2.Non-Continuity.

Continuity-

•Establishing/Re-establishing Shot
•Transitions.
•The 180° Line Rule.
•Action Match.
•Crosscutting.
•Cutaway.
•Insert Shots.
•Shot-Reverse Shot Structures.
•Eyeline Match.

The structure of the classic narrative system
•According to Pam Cook (1985), the standard Hollywood narrative structure should have:• Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution.•A high degree of narrative closure.•A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and temporal coherence.


•Tzvetan Todorov (1977) is a Bulgarian structural linguist.  He was interested in the way language is ordered to infer particular meanings and has been very influential in the field of narrative theory.


•Claude Lèvi-Strauss’ (1958) ideas about narrative amount to the fact that he believed all stories operated to certain clear Binary Opposites e.g. good vs. evil, black vs. white, rich vs. poor etc.

•Barthes (1977) suggested that narrative works with five different codes and the enigma code works to keep up setting problems or puzzles for the audience. His action code (a look, significant word, movement) is based on our cultural and stereotypical understanding of actions that act as a shorthand to advancing the narrative.

•Adrian Tilley (1991) used the buckling of the gun belt in the Western genre as a means of signifying the preferred reading of an imminent shoot out, and this works in the same way as the starting of a car engine etc.

Non- continuity- 

1.Montage Sequence.

2.Flash Back/Forward.

3.Ellipsis.

4.Graphic Match.

Sound
•Sound is layered on tracks in order to create meaning. On Premiere you used multiple audio tracks (one for dialogue and music). You can have sound bridges and sound motifs to enhance meaning.
•There are 2 types of sound:
•Diegetic
•Non-diegetic sound

•Diegetic Sound, which refers to sound whose origin is to be located in the story world such as the voices of the actors, sound effects etc.
1.Dialogue
2.Sound Effects and in some cases…
3.Music

•Non-diegetic Sound, which refers to sounds not explained in terms of any perceived source within the story world, such as mood music, or ‘voice-of-God’ type commentaries.
•Music added to enhance the show’s action is the most common form of non-diegetic sound.
1.Incidental Music
2.Voice Over/Narration
3.Non-diegetic sound effects (which can be asynchronous)

Audience

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Stuart Hall Theory

The reception theory states that media texts are encoded by the producer. This means that the text will have messages and values created by this producer. Then the text is decoded by an audience. Each person viewing a media text will view it differently, not always in the way the producer wanted it to.

There are 3 readings applied to this theory: dominant reading, negotiated reading and oppositional reading.

Dominant reading 

This means that an audience views a media text in the exact way the producer intended. The audience fully agrees with the ideology and the meaning behind the text. Therefore, this means that the consumption has been met and the institution is happy that the meaning they intended is understood by an audience.

How could an audience have a dominant reading?

-They are the same age so the product is more relatable

-From the same culture and have the same religious views
-The narrative is easy to understand

Negotiated reading

This is a mixture between the dominant and oppositional reading. An audience accepts the message the producer was trying to get across, yet also they have their own understanding of the media text. They don't agree or disagree, although they are aware of the point being made, however they have their own opinion of the text. 

How could an audience have a negotiated reading?

-They may not have been through the same life experiences so cannot fully understand
-Age may be too different so they fail to understand the narrative
-The messages may be hard and unclear to understand, therefore the dominant reading is not understood

Oppositional reading

The audience completely rejects the reading and creates their own understanding of the text. This means that they don't agree with the message being shown. They may misinterpret the text and see it in the wrong way. It could make them feel upset, annoyed and angry, meaning they have failed to see the intended message from the institution.

How could an audience have a oppositional reading?

-The media text conveys controversial themes
-They don't agree with whats being shown in the text
-Different cultures have different understandings
-May fail to understand what is going on
-They may find if offensive and cause negative feelings surrounding the text

Hypodermic needle theory

Implies that mass media had a direct, immediate, and powerful effect on it's audiences. Mass media in 1940's and 50's were perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change. 

The theory suggets that mass media could influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by 'shooting' or 'injecting' them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response.  It suggests a powerful and direct flow of information from the sender to the receiver. suggets that the media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. 

It expresses the view that the media is a dangerous means of communicating an idea because the receiver or audience is powerless to resist the impact of the message. People are seen as passive and are seen as having a lot of media material 'shot' at them. People end up thinking that what they are told because there are no other source of information.

The theory assumes that what we see or hear, we believe and consume. The theory implies we are brainwashed into believing the media messages.

We are consumed by media products and are influenced by them greatly. 

In the 1930's a radio broadcast of 'War of The Worlds' was performed like a real news broadcast to heighten the effect of the story, people listening thought it was real and assumed mars had come to invade the world.This demonstrates a passive audience and how an audience believes what they hear in the news and how this can quickly lead to misinterpretation. 

Cons of the theory:

-Not everyone watches the news/consumes media in the same way

-Very out of date and invalid

-Audiences are not simply passive, more up-to-date theories have proved this

-Technology has changed how we consume media and the sources where it originates from

-We are more aware of society and how institutions operate

-We are now used to consuming media texts that we understand conventions and know when to react to messages if we deem them insignificant.

How does the Bad Blood music video link or not link to the Hypodermic Needle Theory?

The strong narrative of Betrayal in the plot of the Bad Blood music video could make Taylor Swift's fans believe she is taking a side jab at someone who has betrayed her in the past. This relates to the Hypodermic needle theory because it means that the audience assume that what they're seeing has happened to the artist for her to produce a video on the subject in the first place. Furthermore, this also means that the audience believe any message that a type of media text promotes and implies that we are indeed brainwashed into believing the message being shown. However, as the theory is old, there are many cons, meaning the theory also couldn't conform to the Bad Blood music video as we are much more aware of how media institutions operate. Due to being so aware of how the media uses particular subjects to make the media text more popular, the producers of the Bad Blood music video may have chosen the subject of betrayal in order to make it seem like Taylor had 'bad blood' with someone, causing people to jump to conclusions and talk about who it could be aimed at. People believe it is a dig at Katy Perry and this shows that audiences are aware of how the institutions use certain subjects to gain more views. Therefore, audiences don't always consume the message in the same way; some people may think they've chosen the topic of betrayal for popularity as people will discuss it more, whereas others may believe they've chosen the topic of betrayal for the audience to sympathise with- proving that the theory is outdated because not everyone believes the same message and reasons behind the choice of the message a media text is trying to promote. 

Genre Theory

Genre

Genre is a critical tool that helps us study texts and audience responses to texts by dividing them into categories based on common elements: codes and conventions, iconography, organising structure, paradigm. 

Generic characteristics across all texts share similar elements:

-Typical mise en scene/visual style. (Iconography, props, set design, lighting, temporal and geographic location, costume, shot types, camera angles, special effects)
-Typical types of narrative (plots, historical setting, set pieces)
-Generic types ie. typical characters
-Typical studios/ production companies

-Typical personnel (directors, producers, actors, stars, auteurs, etc)
-Typical sound design (dialogue, sound effects
-Typical editing style

 Katy Perry

Lana Del Rey

For example, these two pop stars Katy Perry and Lana Del Rey are wearing similar costumes which conforms to the idea that they are both reflecting their chosen genre of music (pop) through the use of the bright coloured flowers, as rock artists would not have this particular style of iconography around them.

Daniel Chandler (2001)

Chandler argues that the word 'genre' comes from the French (and originally Latin) word for 'kind' or 'class.' The term is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory, media theory, to refer to a distinctive type of 'text.'

All genres have sub genres. This means that they are divided up into more specific categories that allow audiences to identify them specifically by their familiar and what become recognisable characteristics (Barry Keith Grant 1995)

Steve Neale (1995)

Neale stresses that 'genres' are not 'systems', they are processes of 'systemisation' ie. they are dynamic and evolve over time. Neale also says 'genres are instances of repetition and difference.' How a media text must conform to these conventions enough that it can still qualify and be identified as a media text of that genre. How much a media text subverts the genres stereotypes and conventions. He says that a media text must subvert these conventions enough that it is still viewed as a unique media text, not just a clone. Furthermore, he states that difference is vital to the economy of genre as simply repeating everything would not make an audience want to watch a media text, therefore media texts need to stick to a genre but also offer something different to attract the audience.

The Bad Blood music video and Katy Perry's 'Roar' is quite similar. Both videos are quite bright and often colourful. This represents their genre of pop and how these same connotations of bright colours are being used to allow the audience to identify the pop genre, however they are used differently to portray certain narratives, although we can still see it is a pop genre. This relates to Steve Neale's theory because although the two videos are different in terms of the messages being represented, the genre of the videos are identified through the same things; such as the bright colours, makeup choices and the outfits worn. This suggests that same genre music videos do represent the genre similarly, but are still different from each other enough to make it interesting for an audience to watch.

Jason Mittell (2001)
Mittell argues that genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within the industry, audience and cultural practises as well. Industries use genre to sell products to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that very often make cultural references to their audience knowledge of society, other texts. In the Bad Blood video there are lots of references to other film texts which all help to promote a certain message to sell to an audience- that message is the 'betrayed' storyline.

Rick Altman (1999) argues that genre offers audiences ‘a set of pleasures
•Emotional Pleasures: The emotional pleasures offered to audiences of genre films are particularly significant when they generate a strong audience response.•Visceral Pleasures: Visceral pleasures (‘visceral’ refers to internal organs) are ‘gut’ responses and are defined by how the film’s stylistic construction elicits a physical effect upon its audience. This can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed, or a ‘roller coaster ride’.•Intellectual Puzzles: Certain film genres such as the thriller or the ‘whodunit’ offer the pleasure in trying to unravel a mystery or a puzzle. Pleasure is derived from deciphering the plot and forecasting the end or the being surprised by the unexpected.
Taylor Swift's Bad Blood music video has all of these emotions labeled by Rick Altman. For example, it is an emotional video as the narrative is based around being betrayed by someone who meant a lot to her, which therefore creates emotional pleasure to an audience as they will sympathise with her and feel a particular way. Also, it offers visceral pleasure as the audience are on the edge of their seats wondering what Taylor is going to do when she's planning her revenge. The Bad Blood video also has intellectual puzzles as at the very beginning we're confused as to why she has been betrayed, however towards the end we realise that she was never really her friend to begin with and now there is a big feud between the two.

Postmodern Style

Music video is a medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres.

•They are called pop-promos as they are used to promote a band or artist.•Music videos are postmodern texts whose main purpose is to promote a star persona (Dyer, 1975).•They don’t have to be literal representations of the song or lyrics.
Bad Blood could relate to postmodern style as the video appeals to youth subcultures via the narrative and also the interesting mise en scene and editing techniques used. Such as the guns, bikes, helicopters and explosions; these would engage a youthful audience. However, it could also apply to an older audience too, as many ages could enjoy watching this video. Furthermore, the video helps to promote Taylor Swift, as well as her famous friends such as Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, Karlie Kloss, etc. This conveys the idea that the main purpose of media texts are to promote a star persona (Dyer 1975) and the Bad Blood music video does seem to promote stars such as models and singers.

 Gigi Hadid in the Bad Blood music video

Cara Delevingne in the Bad Blood music video

David Buckingham (1993) 

Argues that 'genre is not... Simply "given" by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change’.

The Bad Blood music video does link to David Buckingham's idea that genre is a constant process of negotiation and change. For example, the video genre is pop and it has various aspects of other media texts such as Kill Bill, Sin City, etc within the video and this implies that the pop genre is changing and referencing other genres of media within their own product. However, it is still a pop video which shows that by negotiating with other techniques, it can help to make the genre a bit different from other same genre videos and to make it more interesting for an audience to consume.