Research - The Stone Roses - One Love Music Video Analysis

This music video is mainly the band performing, like many of the other Stone Roses' music videos it has no narrative to the video. This was perhaps because of the band's style, only caring about the sound of their music rather than how the music is presented on a visual platform. I interpret this song to be about the idea of free love and unification through music. The lyrics, "One Love, we don't need another love. One Love, one heart and one soul" appeals to the idea of the Northern Soul scene taken from the late 60s Mod scene. The Stone Roses, showed signs of mod influence in their earlier years with songs such as 'So Young' and 'Tell Me'. This particular genre showed rhythmic influences from 'soul' and 'rhythm and blues', this inspiration is evident through the jangly guitar sounds and the rhythmic bass tones.
The genre for this song is a mix between Britpop and indie, and even the sub-genre 'Madchester' that was inspired by the 'baggy' generation. The conventions used in this music video adhere to the typical traits seen in the rock genre, which is seen as the overall 'blanket' genre of the seminal group. One such trait is the video just being solely based on the band, showing little narrative, thus making the video more of a performance. The iconography seen in the video seems to adhere to the rock genre, showing that the background is primarily fire, presumably to add the appropriate 'edge' to the video to appeal to the younger, teenage audience.
The mise-en-scene for this music video is fairly basic, using virtually no props or any inclination to what the setting is, other than a large fiery background. Despite the giant fire, the lighting used in the video is fairly dark when it comes to the band members, typical of the rock genre. Atypical, however, of the Britpop sub-genre. Music videos for a Britpop song such as 'Step On' by Happy Mondays feature bright lighting.The clothing of the band adheres to the foundations of the 'baggy' generation as they are seen , unsurprisingly, wearing baggy clothing and the drummer wearing a bucket hat. Thus providing a very natural vibe to the performance of the song, further suggesting the absence of a narrative. Almost as if the band turned up in the clothes they would be found wearing any other day, to perform one of their hit singles.
The editing in the video seems to switch between slow-motion and normal speed, perhaps adhering to the inspirations of psychedelics in the tone of their music. However, the editing and cuts don't seem to match with the drum beat, as seen in a majority of music videos . The camera work features a variety of shots, such as close-ups on various members of the band. However, the focus is primarily pinned on the lead singer Ian Brown's famous 'dancing' and John Squire's jangly guitar playing. This is done to bring the audience closer to the band.
As for inspiration I will take from this video, I would like to centre my music around a performance and possibly a narrative in between, different to this video. As for my branding intend to somewhat recreate the look, for the nostalgic purposes of my project.

One Love was released as a non-album single in 1990, then later appeared on the Turns Into Stone compilation.