Music Video Analysis

In the music video for "Howlin' For You" by the Black Keys, we see scores of summer blockbuster cliches synced up with a catchy rock song by a band that has finally broken through to mainstream radio.
Reality (pft, hardly...) in "Howlin' For You" is portrayed very much like it would be in what might be seen as a mindless popcorn flick. This is obviously because the whole video is made to look like a movie trailer for just such a film. I think that it might have been intended to be a parody of this particular genre but it could also be some attempt at a tribute or satire (it depends what point of view you're looking at it from).

Ah, stereotypes. This video is chalked full of summer-action-blockbuster-popcorn movie stereotypes such as explosions, violence, beautiful women, and so on. This video cleverly employs almost every stereotype that comes to mind when thinking of the summer action movie trailer. We've got the cliche narrator (who sounds like he's reading the back of a DVD) running us through the cliche plot (something bad happens to someone, who in turn wants revenge). We see short snippets of what brainless popcorn-munchers want to see, which it to say violence, romance (sex) and the delivery of memorable lines ("I once choked a chupacabra to death with my bare hands for not saying grace."). It's silly and we know it, but we gobble it up anyway.

When watching this music video, I had a bit of a hard time trying to pick out creeds and values. We see certain groups being portrayed in certain ways (for example, men are portrayed as being stupid and only interested in sex). This video implies that killing scores of men just to justify one murder (watch the video, you'll get it) is all fine and dandy.

I think that this video would appeal to teenagers because it contains all of what many of us look for in a movie. It has action, women, and a simple plot (albeit false, as this music video is essentially a trailer for a fake movie). It catches your eye and entertains, and it's a welcome change from scantilly-clad women dancing to autotuned music.

In my opinion, "Howlin' For You" could fall into both the category of 'I like' and the category of 'good'. On the one hand, I like this music video because it breaks away from what you would typically see on a TV station. I also enjoy the song more than anything by Ke$ha or whatever, so I might be slightly biased. On the other hand, I believe that this is a good video because it appears to have had much more effort put into it than most of the videos one might see on a top 20 countdown. It has been directed and produced in such a way that it is convincing as a movie trailer(apparently it had IMDB fooled, they actually uploaded an article about it). While the focus of the video is less on the music and more on the imagery, it is an effective way to USE the music, and I think that it aids in creating a mood fitting of the song. Therefore I believe that the video for "Howlin' For You" by the Black Keys is a good music video, but that it could also be seen as simply a likeable piece of media.