Kings Of Leon - Pyro - Textual Analysis

My task is to analyse in detail the music video of the Kings of Leon song, Pyro, which is the second single that was released from their latest album, ‘Come Around Sundown’. Kings of Leon are an American rock band, from Nashville, Tennessee, that are very serious about their music. They have been very successful in the UK achieving 9 top 40 singles and head lining world famous festival such as Reading and Leeds. The band have also won 2 BRIT awards in 2008 and all 3 of their albums have reached the top 5 in the UK’s album chart. Their most popular singles are arguably ‘Sex on fire’ and ‘Use Somebody’, which managed to make the number 1 spot in this country. The band was formed in 1999 but has only really been successful in recent years perhaps due to their change in genre. They started off with Southern Rock and blues influences however it has eventually changed over time where now the majority of their music is alternative, arena rock. The inspiration from this song came from Caleb Followill, lead vocalist, when he found out about a load of Christians being killed and it’s also about a man that is fed up with the world we live in today. The actual song itself is a fairly dull and depressing one and the video matches that. The video is pretty much based around one guy who is surrounded by a load of low lives in a bar. At the start of the video, we see the neon ‘Bar’ lights that shows that the bar is tacky and cheap. This straight away gives us the impression that the people that attend this bar aren’t very well off and they live in an area with not a lot of wealth. We are introduced to a guy as he is entering the bar and he seems normal compared to the other people inside it. Before he actually goes into the bar he helps a vagabond, which gives the audience the impression that he is in a stable condition and is quite helpful. We think he is normal, not only because of the condition that he is in, but because of his appearance and the clothes that he is wearing. He is wearing smart casual clothes, which shows us that he is a pretty average guy. At this point in the video, no real stand out piece of editing has been noticed. As the guy walks through the door, that’s when the music begins to kick in which links really well, which is linked to Andrew Goodwin. With the same camera shot still in action, it then begins to pan across the bar showing the people in difficulty and distress. This shot is a very good one as it shows the environment of the bar and we also witness that the colour pallet of the video is very dark and meandering which associates well with the song as it is at quite a low and mellow tempo. The people that we see in this shot look like they are on the edge of society and that they have seen better days in their lives. This pan shot is undoubtedly the most crucial shot in the whole video as it gives the audience an idea of what the characters are like and you are able to witness the whole scenery. The camera then eventually pans to the band playing their music; this is one of the few shots that we see of the band in the whole video and it shows that they take their music very seriously. We see them on a small stage in very tacky bar, which could relate to when they first started playing their music, as they probably at a similar level to what they are like in the video. Usually, the band does performance-based videos to show how serious they take their music but they decided to do something different here with a narrative behind it. What follows this is that the guy who the video focuses on tries to split up an argument and then ends up getting punched in the face; this is when the first cut of the video comes in, which is also the beginning of the chorus, which again links well, which is again linked to Andrew Goodwin. The man then continues to get beaten as the song progresses and the volume of the music gets louder and louder which emphasizes him getting a serious beating. What follows this is that the rest of the video is in slow motion emphasizing people’s reactions to what is going on. The people in the bar then begin to rise up, literally. This perhaps suggests that life can only get better as they’re rising towards a light. The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals are that they are relevant as the lyrics are talking about what is actually happening. It allows the audience to understand the song more easily with the video showing what the lyrics are actually about therefore connecting both together. As far as I am aware there are no intertextual references to another song. To conclude, after watching the video several times I have found out that the music and the lyrics all relate together along with the visuals to give the audience an understanding of the song and the video. Kings of Leon choosing a narrative based song is different for them as they are used to doing performance based ones. Even though the overall song wasn’t very successful as it peaked at 69 in the UK charts, however to me personally I feel it was very good and it all linked well.