Music Video Analysis

Psychosocial – Slipknot

‘Psychosocial’ is a song by heavy metal band ‘Slipknot’. It was filmed in Iowa and directed by Paul Brown. The video is very fast paced and mainly performance based with a few cutaways of various different locations. The video is mainly set in a field at night with the whole band playing their instruments. The band is surrounded by fire and burning masks.

The visuals compliment the music in this video. The music is very fast paced and in your face and so are the visuals. There are some bits of extremely fast editing with several shots shown in less than half a second. This works really well as it disorientates and confuses the audience, a little like the music does. They also mix these fast paced bits up with some slow motion shots which are maybe a second or so long. This gives a visually stunning effect. The pace of the editing reacts to the music too, for example when the breakdown comes and the drums are left by themselves the speed of the visuals ease up a bit, but not too much so there is still an energetic and lively feeling. The music is very aggressive and in your face which is represented very well by the locations and the camerawork. The band is in a field at night with burning masks and fire surrounding them. The fire provides very hard lighting and often half of the lead singers face is completely in shadow. The costumes the band is wearing also add to the aggressiveness of the visuals. They are all wearing masks, some with spikes sticking out, crowns of thorns and demonic faces. What happens in the music is also represented on screen. When there is a guitar solo, the shots are mainly focused on the guitarist and one band member is hitting a giant beer keg at one point in the music which is shown on screen too. The lead singer looks very tensed and agitated whilst singing which aids the overall feel of the video.

There are several close-ups of the lead singer which are like the star shots. This shows us that it is Corey Taylor singing with his trademark potato sack mask. It also shows us that it is a real band playing real instruments which is very stereotypical to this genre of music videos. The band is being represented very well as a metal band; the camerawork and the acting of the band portrays them as being very, loud, distorted and violent which are all characteristics of a heavy metal band.

The video is mainly performance based with no conventional narratives being shown. However there are various cutaways of different locations. A dead rodent is shown several times at the beginning and a dark, eerie shack is shown with its windows being smashed at another point. This adds to the confusion and the viciousness of the band and the music.

In conclusion the band has been represented extremely well as a heavy metal band. The camerawork, mis-en-scene and fast paced editing all come together to make a truly technically and visually stunning music video.