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Chosen Song Meaning/Deconstruction

The Offspring – Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)

The song ridicules a "wannabe gangsta" who is immersed in hip-hop culture not because he truly loves or understands it, but because it is trendy, makes him feel tough and makes it seem that he can get all the girls ("and all the girls say I'm pretty fly - for a white guy"). The song openly mocks the middle-class suburban youths who listen to rap music for this reason.

The structure of the song fundamentally follows the conventions of most other songs. It confirms to the mainstream formula of verse-chorus-second verse-repeat chorus and so forth. The language and style of the lyrics used work well to fit in with the irony of the music video. There is lots of ‘gangsta’ slang words used which stereotypically don’t look right coming from the ‘white guy’ in the video. The lyrics tell the story of the day from a third person perspective of the ‘white guy’. For example ‘So he bought Vanilla Ice’ and ‘Now he's getting a tattoo’. As a song it’s very upbeat and happy. The catchy lyrics and guitar tunes allow the song to become recognisable from almost any point of the song. Also the comedy and humour of the lyrics make it a fun song to listen; it works well in several contexts and has done since its release in 1998. The tone of the singers voice in the band is very iconic, during this song he uses a tone that is quite aggressive but adds to the comedy of the song. Words like ‘Hey Hey!’ and ‘Give it to me baby!’ are emphasized the most during the song, these lyrics are sung just before the chorus starts, making the build up for it more exciting.

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Music Video Analysis

Jamiroquai - Virtual Insanity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE

Jamiroquai's virtual insanity is by far the bands most popular song. In 1996 it reached number 3 in the UK charts. In the same year it was nominated for 10 awards at the mtv music awards. A successful night saw them win 4 awards including breakthrough video and best video of the year.

The video was directed by Jonathon Glazer. He is a well-respected director in the music video industry working with songs such as; Radiohead’s Street Spirit (1996), Massive Attack’s Live with me (2006), and Blur’s The Universal (1995). He also directed Jamiroquai’s next hit, Cosmic Girl (1997). Not only was he involved in music videos but also directed Films and TV commercials.

The video for Virtual Insanity is very quirky, fun, eye catching, different/unique, simplistic and cleverly created. The simplicity of the video almost contradicts the technical elements of the song and the band itself. Like other music videos by Jonathon Glazer, the video cuts to the beat. This gives the video a flowing, easy to view style that is important when creating successful music videos.

The pace of the music video accompanies the tempo of the music perfectly. Jay kay (lead singer) dances around the room in front of a static camera for most of the video. The clever illusion of obstacles moving around the room is created by the walls and ceiling moving across the floor.  This seemingly makes it look like the sofas and Jay Kay himself are almost floating across the floor. 

The way Jay Kay moves towards and away from the Camera gives a range of close ups, mid shots and long shots adding to the conventions and unpredictability of the band, video and song.

The video for Stillness in Time, by Jamiroquai (1995), uses a similar technique in terms of camera positioning as Virtual insanity does. For the large majority of the video, the camera is static as Jay Kay and other members of the band dance around it. However, the stillness in time video is in a wide landscaped desert setting, whereas Virtual Insanity is much more confined and claustrophobic.  



Virtual Insanity Video

Stillness In Time Video

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