A Detailed Analysis of "Royals" by Lorde
"Royals" is the artist Lorde's first song from her number one selling debut album, Pure Heroine. The music video was first released on the 12th of May 2013 and later released onto VEVO with the "U.S version'' on the 18th of June 2013. The difference between the two is more close-ups of the artist are featured in the U.S version. This conforms to a theory of Andrew Goodwin's (the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist) the use of close-ups are again, mostly featured in the U.S version of the video and this was released as soon as people started paying attention to Lorde's music. This establishes what the artist looks like to the audience and creates recognition. Lorde is shown through the use of mid shots and Goodwin's theory of voyeurism and the notion of looking is not displayed throughout "Royals." Instead, Lorde goes against pop video conventions and how typical pop artists look as she is dressed like an average teenager and has messy natural hair and minimal make-up with appropriate costume which allows a sense of relatability to be established to her main target audience, teenagers of a similar age. How Lorde is dressed also relates back to the song. Although Lorde's appearances form no narrative it establishes to her audience that she knows she will never be 'royal'.
"Royals" is both narrative and performance based which conforms to Goodwin's theory of music videos demonstrating pop genre characteristics. The performance and the narrative however do not link as Lorde does not feature in the narrative side of the video which centres around the average lives of two teenage boys. The cuts throughout "Royals" match the beat of the song and this is a common characteristic of the pop genre.
There is some relationship between the lyrics and the visuals of the song and therefore "Royals" conforms to another theory of Goodwin's. "Royals" is a song about knowing you'll never have the glamorous and luxurious life of celebrities and the video shows this as the four people throughout the video are wearing plain costume and the props used in the video are outdated and lack colour, because of this, "Royals" is therefore a highly amplified video.
''Royals'' mostly uses close-ups and mid-shots however the narrative story of the video is shown through the use of long shots and establishing shots as these mainly focus on the setting. However, a few close-ups of the protagonists shown are used for emotive purposes as a clear view of their facial expressions are shown.
The video displays little intertextual references (''there is often intertextual references to films, tv programmes, other music videos'' - Andrew Goodwin) but a common theme which runs through music videos is the idea of leadership. However, "Royals" conforms to indie genre characteristics in narrative sense as the protagonists are making the most out of what they have and are not worrying about what they don't have because they don't want to be wealthy.
''Royals'' mostly uses close-ups and mid-shots however the narrative story of the video is shown through the use of long shots and establishing shots as these mainly focus on the setting. However, a few close-ups of the protagonists shown are used for emotive purposes as a clear view of their facial expressions are shown.
The video displays little intertextual references (''there is often intertextual references to films, tv programmes, other music videos'' - Andrew Goodwin) but a common theme which runs through music videos is the idea of leadership. However, "Royals" conforms to indie genre characteristics in narrative sense as the protagonists are making the most out of what they have and are not worrying about what they don't have because they don't want to be wealthy.
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