"The Music Scene" Video Discussion

A screen capture from the music video discussed in this post

Okay guys! I know I haven't posted in a while, I've been quite busy with practicing my painting and making so many new creations which I hope to share with you all very soon, however today I want to discuss my analysis of a music video that has recently become very important to me! The video in question is the official music video for a song called "The Music Scene" by Blockhead. You really should watch the video before reading any further, which you can view here.

About the video

The video opens up with dark grays and blues, and the viewer sees some root like tentacles creeping across the ground where they eventually reach a set of TV's that are mounted in front of a lone chair. The TV turns on and there is a single eye that peers out at the chair sending the tentacles forward to make a life form and hand it a remote, right as a trippy looking deer runs past the screen. It becomes colorful for a quick second, but the deer escapes unscathed. The screens then scan the area and reveal a variety of animals in the shadows, minding their own business. The screen grows mobility and travels to the animals, showing them caricatures of themselves, but none of the animals seem very interested. The screen grows frustrated and rounds up all of the animals, devolving them into streams of color and begins constructing human-like forms out of them, seats them in chairs and continues showing them caricatures of themselves, building a more and more complex human being, yet the animals try and escape one again. Things devolve into a massive mix of morphing shapes and colors until eventually, the video ends with the screens shaped into a human that appears to be attached to the tentacles as a sort of life source, that rots away and the screens turn off. The person melts into nothingness and the video zooms out to see a singular, colorful deer in the corner of the scene. 

My interpretation 

While the video is great purely because of the awesome animation that is surely timeless, I feel like there are several overreaching metaphors hidden in the video that I didn't fully uncover until recently. My original interpretation was one that technology is interfering with our originality, with our self awareness. Taking our individuality and molding us into generic human forms. But you could even take it one step further to suggest that the animals are meant to be anthropomorphic, suggesting that us humans are existing as animals within a kingdom, but our ability to be self aware and to adapt moves us to the top of the food chain, because we learned to use these gifts to our advantage. We have risen to the top of the food chain however in the video, the television is ripping at the flesh of the 'human' form that was created that eventually, at the end of the video, falls in shreds to the ground. This could potentially be symbolic of the human rise to the top of the food chain, or even a personal rise to be the best version of yourself that you can be. Spending your younger years in school getting an education and learning to be yourself and follow your heart and your beliefs, practicing skills and sports, only to become enslaved by television and popular culture, yet those who escape early like the deer did, can retain their individuality (their colorfulness). 

In this video it suggests that for the television, which I believe is representative of most media, needs to be given attention for it to have any power. It shows the animals 

Another interpretation I had, that might be a little off the mark, has more to do with religion. Our society is becoming less and less religious. Church attendances are at a low, and more people are openly identifying as atheist or agnostic than in past generations. I think the video could potentially allude to a scenario in which God (the television) is unhappy with the his creations (the animals) for not appreciating his work, so he tries to create man to praise him, but it ends up ultimately falling apart. This interpretation has many holes, but was just something I was toying with. 

I would love to hear what you all think the video is about! Feel free to leave your comments below!