The Grammy Winners and Their Music Videos

The 55^th annual Grammy awards were this past Sunday, and for those of you who did not watch, two artists stole the show. The artist’s I’m talking about Gotye and the group, Fun. At the Grammy’s each artist dominated in certain categories with a particular song from this past year. I wanted to make a blog post about the award winning songs and their music videos.

First up I want to talk about Gotye. Gotye was nominated for two categories this year for his song, Somebody that I Used to Know, and one for his album. Making Mirrors. Gotye ended up winning all three categories, including record of the year, the most coveted award of the night. If you were alive this year, there is no way you haven’t heard Gotye’s hit, Somebody that I Used to Know. Although I do love the song, I love this music video even more.

This music video is a perfect representation of Gotye’s song. Both the video and song are so simple, yet so powerful. The video uses simplistic modern art to portray the emotions of both Gotye and Kimbra as they become apart of the painting. What keeps this video simple is the use of paint color and stop-start filming. Gotye kept the paint colors neutral which emphasizes the artist’s emotion. If the colors were brighter or darker, Gotye’s true emotion as he sings the chorus may have been lost throughout the video. The stop-start video is the perfect editing technique for this video. The paint creeps up Gotye’s body as he is becoming apart of the painting. With these techniques, the video remains effortless and beautiful, which is a perfect match for the record of the year.

The second artist who stole the Grammy’s was the group, Fun. Fun was nominated for six categories including record of the year, song of the year, best new artist, and album of the year. Unlike Gotye, Fun did not sweep all of their categories, however they did win two Grammy’s, song of the year for their hit, We Are Young, and best new artist. The song We Are Young definitely destroyed charts this year.

The music video for We Are Young is not what I expected when I first watched it. The whole video is slow motion, which is an interesting technique. Shooting this video in slow motion was definitely a smart move because it works seamlessly with the powerful chorus. The slow motion helps create some very riveting and beautiful shots.  For example, when two guys destroy a teddy bear, the green beads go everywhere, which looks amazing in slow motion. The whole video consists of crazy shots of young people fighting, kissing, falling, and dancing, all while the band is remaining calm and performing on stage. The destruction in the video relates to Fun’s lyrics, “Tonight, we are young, so let’s set the world on fire.” Fun definitely took this video to the right place, and I can’t wait to see what they’ve got coming next.