Textual Analysis- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Red Hot Chili Peppers: 'Under The Bridge'

'Under The Bridge' Written and performed by Red Hot Chili Peppers was released on March 10th 1992.

Genre: The genre of of this video would be either rock or alternative and the genre of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is funk. I would class the genre of the video to be alternative because it is different to most videos being produced in the 1990's.

Narrative: There is no strong narrative to the music video, the majority of the music video is performance by the band while other sections include the lead singer walking through Los Angeles. The performance is expected in the music video as most other videos in the genre at the time were primarily performance. The scenes of the singer walking through the streets were less expected however those scenes fit with the lyrics from the song, The only intertextual reference would be the Los Angeles as that is what the song is about. The video reflects the lyrics because then you hear the lyrics 'The city I live in, the city of angels' he is refering to Los Angeles which appears on the screen. There is no story line to this music video because it is performance strong, thereforte there is a constant state of equilibrium throughout the video. When he walks through the streets you hear lyrics such as 'The city she loves me, Lonely as I am, Together we cry' showing that it is only in the city where he feels he belongs which is reflected in the video.

Represenation: There is very little representation in this video because the only people focussed on are those which are in the band and the opther people seen in the video are not focussed on. The band have a large role in the music video but are not seen as big stars as when they walk down the street the appeare like everyone else.

Camera: A lot of closeups of the band are used throughout the song, this is because the production company calls for this, there are also a large number of long shots used in the performance part of the music video, a number of tracking shots of Los Angeles are also used as that is one of the main themes of the song the video is for.