Music Video Analysis - "Wake Up" by Story of the Year

Story Of The Year - Wake Up by epitaphrecords

This essay is an analysis of the video for "Wake Up" by Story of the Year, a post-hardcore song that was released in 2008. It contains several generic characteristics shared by post-hardcore music videos, including the band performing in a warehouse, and a loose narrative, cutting from one to the other throughout the video. It was directed by Ryan Smith. It targets an age group of 16-25yr olds as its primary age group, who like to avoid sharing the tastes of mainstream/popular culture. In April 2010, I attended a gig headlined by this band and the audience consisted of predominantly this age group, while the gender balance of the crowd was probably slightly in favour of males. The post-hardcore genre of the band and song is an offshoot relatively modern offshoot of hardcore punk music, itself an evolution of the original punk movement in the 1970s. While it began to appear during the 1980s, it experienced a growth in prevalence during the mid-00s. The genre differeentiates itself from the earlier punk rock and hardcore punk movements due to the presence of more complex guitar riffs, a wider range of vocals and varying levels of heavyness within the songs sound.

Even though there is no obvious link between the lyrics and the visuals, there is a link between the concept of the video and the lyrics. Both the lyrics and the narrative come across as derogatory of contemporary society and aim to highlight the negatives of modern life. This aspect is most obvious in the chorus, "Wake up, to the sound of this time bomb, wake up, to it's deafening song." These lyrics imply that it is so glaringly obvious something is wrong and that, if we don't do something about it soon, it will be too late. Visuals that illustrate the lyrics includes, towards the end of the video, where Marsala repeats the chorus several times, the camera becomes shaky and smoke fills the screen, referencing the “time bomb” and “deafening song” that the band believes is about to hit contemporary society.

The video frequently cuts in time with the beat of the song, and even changes pace to keep up with the music. An example of this is the opening of the video.  It begins with images of various places, such as a building, an airport and a highway, making use of shadows and low lighting to give it an air of dystopia,  before cutting to a warehouse where the band are playing. This cut is accompanied by a change in the tone and pace of music and features an increase in the speed of the camera's movement. There are also many close-ups of the lead singer, Dan Marsala, in the video. This is achieved through the use of the conventional camera being used to shoot the music video and a handheld camera, used by Marsala himself, which breaks the potential monotony of the regular camera.

Throughout the video, the logo associated with the album which features the song, The Black Swan, plays a fairly important role. It is used in the narrative in the form of a graffiti emblem sprayed onto plain t-shirts and already appearing on the clothing worn by members of the group within the narrative. It is also heavily featured at the end of the video in several different forms. This includes on buildings, billboards, a water tower, planes and road signs, heavily promoting the band and album. Instead of using sexuality to promotoe the band, Goodwin's notion of looking is referenced with Marsala's use of the handheld camera. By pointing the camera at himself, and with the TV behind him, the video image is looped several times due to what is being shown on the TV also being captured, in turn making it appear on the screen.

As previously stated, both the video and lyrics refer to the band's attitude towards contemporary society and the way in which this attitude is promoted. The notion the effectiveness of a cause you truly believe in is accomplished by highlighting that a small-scale operation is able to make themselves known on a much larger scale, by displaying an image in various places. This is a form of protest as well as a quasi-tribute to anonymous artist, Bansky.
The video contains elements of performance and narrative, cutting from one to the other throughout the course of the video. They are also linked together as they are taking place at the same location, but only existing together towards the end, when a smoke grenade is thrown into the warehouse, to cover the fact that the activists have been there, promptly explodes near a guitarist as he is playing.
The point of this video is to highlight the importance of standing up for the right cause and making sure changes are made before it is too late. There is also a secondary emphasis on the value of grass roots and small-scale organisations of activists that aim to promote their cause.