Evening/Morning - Bombay Bicycle Club Analysis

The song I chose to analyse is a track called Evening/Morning by Bombay Bicycle Club from the album ‘I Had the Blues but I Shook Them Loose’. I chose to analyse this song as they are a band within the indie genre we were looking to create our music video in. This was their debut single.

As soon as the video starts the audience is greeted with the sound of a mixture of instruments often used within the genre. These kind of instruments let the audience know the kind of song they will be listening to right away. Along with the initial music, before the vocals start, in the video there is a person in a panda suit randomly sitting on a bench. This highlights the fun and random conventions of many indie music videos. The guy takes off his panda head and looks around in which there is a stand off between him and two other men. During this time there is a shot reverse shot which shows the emotions on everyone’s faces. The way that these are presented gives it quite a silly vibe, which is then reinforced as they run down the street chasing the panda, proceeding with strange facial expressions.

Up to 1:10 there has only been the two men chasing the panda through a housing estate. The audience then sees a wheel of a child’s bike that is then seen asking for payment for her bike. This is a very strange and childish thing which is often seen in indie videos but in different ways. The panda then rides the bike to what looks like a shed where a band is playing. He gets out the costume and starts playing the guitar. This small performance part is another convention of many music videos. The band are all in vibrant colour clothing which changes quickly between the bassist, guitarist and drummer which gives it an upbeat feel.

Soon after the lead singer is back on the run, this time he is in a yellow vest, sweatband and shorts where the two people chasing him are all in white. After this there are random cuts of the panda and the two men back in their shirt and ties, with the panda seen to be playing games with them. It ends up that the girl who sold the bicycle has the head of the panda costume, spinning around. As the music starts to quieten, the camera zooms out from the lead singer with his hands over his eyes and shows everyone in the music video doing star jumps and dancing weirdly until the end.

This music video was made up of many random and odd things that you do not typically see in music videos. This reaps the benefits as it does seem completely random from the song lyrics. But it works very well as it is within the indie genre. The video overall is visual interesting and quite amusing.