Intertextual References in Music Videos

I  have chosen to analyse and look at the music video 'Bob Sinclar - Rock This Party' as it is quite an old song but the video has stuck in my memory due to the clever use of intertextual references.




The song itself features and uses the iconic song 'Everybody Dance Now by Jock Jams' which makes it link in quite well with using intertextual references, as the song itself is a mashup of different sorts of music and artists (with the rap verses and more dancey bass chorus). The song is ultimately about dancing so the video is trying to en-capture all iconic and recognised forms of dancing by using clear representations of the artists who started these dance crazes. Bob Sinclar as an artist in the past had always used the same main boy in all his music videos, allowing the audience to recognise that its one of his music videos instantly.

Post-modernism is a period following modernism which representation gets remixed, played around with, through pastiche, parody and intertextual references.
Therefore this music video is clearly post modern as we would expect a young boy to be represented in an innocent way (as Bob Sinclar has done in the past with the same boy), but with this song he remixes the representation of the boy, linking him to many artists through dance, mirroring the song which also has a remix element.

We can clearly see the playing around with representation with the many various intertextual references.

Here we can see the representation of the Nirvana video 'Smells like Teen Spirit' which was well known for portraying riot and anarchy, which put into the video of this song could be almost saying that dance allows you to achieve many things, from pleasure to proving a point, but also as it is very famous gives the audience some viewing pleasure in recognising it.

Next we see the young boy representing Busted, dancing on a bed in his bedroom, a bit like in the video for Year 3000. This would appeal to the younger audience and listeners of Bob Sinclars music, but this could also be suggesting to the older generation that dancing makes you feel like a young rebellious teen again, loosing all inhibitions.

Then twice in the music video the boy is seen to be impersonating the rapper Sean Paul, mainly in the verses where the song is also rapping. This is showing a different form of dancing to the previous 'rebellious rock', a more laid back RnB style dancing which involves just bopping with the female dancers doing more of the 'booty shaking'. This intertextual reference i believe is in the music video to emphasise the mashup of different genres of music in the song, linking to the rap verses and contrasting with the more mainstream chorus.

Other iconic figures who are represented in the music video are Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever  and Justin Timberlake's Cry Me a River video as seen below.

All these intertextual references are well known for their dance influence or unique dancing skills. The effect of having them in the music video i believe is simply to make the audience want to dance and also to portray what i believe the overall message of the video is - that dance is a universal thing, whichever genre it is.

Another reason for iconic artists to be seen, such as the Beatles could be again to portray the message of the video that having an individual identity is important but everybody comes together within dance, even if the style is different etc. as it is their unique representation of the music they are dancing to.

In an artist perspective, i believe the video was made to show a different side to Bob Sinclar, that he doesn't take himself too seriously and could almost be a way of getting people to remember him and his music with a fun quirky video that will be aesthetically pleasing for the audience, and fun to recognise the different intertextual references.

In an institutional point of view, the video has been made with intertextual references to make it as eyecatching and entertaining as possible to make it stick in the audiences minds. As well as this, in every artist the young boy portrays he is clearly showing or wearing some sort of signifier that it is in fact a Bob Sinclar song- subliminal messaging getting the artists name to stick in their minds.

And overall i think from an artist, institute and audience perspective the video does very well in attracting and entertaining (with the intertextual references) potential buyers of the music.