The music video I have decided to analyse is the AC/DC track “You Shook Me All Night Long”. The video is in fact the second of two videos made for this song. The first was similar to other AC/DC tracks and was directed by Eric Dionysius and Eric Mistler. But six years later David Mallet worked with the Rock Legends and made a new video based around Brian Johnson’s home town, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, in 1986.
The video is one of the more controversial videos of AC/DC as it contains many leather clad women and even one ex page 3 model. The aim of the video was to be more controversial than the band had ever been before.
The women in the video are all wearing black, which symbolises impurity and mischievous manners.
The video is very lyrically driven as they are what really feeds us the narrative. “she told me to come but I was already there” Now this can be taken in two very different ways, of course the literal meaning of the woman told him to come round, but he was so eager to be with her, he was already at her house. But there is also the more smutty meaning, which I’m sure we can all see for ourselves without further explaining.
It was conventional as it had elements of performance and narrative and even a tad of conceptualism in the video, which all make a fantastic video.
As I mentioned earlier the industry hadn’t yet experienced many videos with a sexual nature at this moment in time so this video was shall we say a bit of a shock to the system but also influenced many bands and performers into using the predominant male gaze tool to attract men to watch their videos.
The narrative section of the music video is in black and white, which can represent the fact the band are still the same and haven’t changed just because they have different and new video, and also to make it clear that it’s the narrative and the performance is in colour, where they really bring the song to life.
Matthew Allen
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