Explain how representations used in Music Videos communicate information about their cultural and political contexts.

Music videos can convey a lot more subtly and or powerful messages that other forms of communication can’t. The political point, The Specials were trying to get across was, the experiences they observed whilst touring around England and the event happening around England in the 1980’s. In the 1980’s England experienced a recession in the industrial workplace. As a result, in 1981 the recession had left the country suffering badly, and unemployment increased immensely with It being estimated that over 3 million were unemployed in the UK around this time.

The video itself constitutes “eerie” and from my research a great quote that links to the idea of the song and music video is  Mark Fisher’s work, “The Weird And The Eerie”, to understand it. He wrote how,

The sensation of the eerie occurs either when there is something present where there should be nothing, or there is nothing present when there should be something.

Here, in a major capital city, where the streets should be teeming, there is no-one but The Specials, a group of young black and white men, from a depressed and demoralised Midlands town. They are in charge. 

As if to further underline this, the camera was placed on the car bonnet so we see The Specials as if they are crashing into us. And when they all sing “yah, ya ya, ya, yaah, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya…”, they seem like an insane Greek chorus, before Lynval Golding, the band’s rhythm guitarist and vocalist, murmurs the last line “the people getting angry”. The song fades out in dub reggae tradition, inconclusive, echoing.

The summer of 1981 saw riots in over 35 locations around the UK. In response to the linking of the song to these events, singer Terry Hall said, “When we recorded ‘Ghost Town’, we were talking about 1980’s riots in Bristol and Brixton. The fact that it became popular when it did was just a weird coincidence.” The song created resentment in Coventry where residents angrily rejected the characterisation of the city as a town in decline.

England was hit by recession and away riots were breaking out across its urban areas. Deprived, forgotten, run down and angry, these were places where young people, black and white, erupted. In these neglected parts of London, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool the young, the unemployed, and the disaffected fought pitch battles with the police. 

“Ghost Town” was the mournful sound of these riots, a poetic protest. It articulates anger at a state structure, an economic system and an entrenched animosity towards the young, black, white and poor. It asks,

“Why must the youth fight against themselves.”

The streets that The Specials conjure up in “Ghost Town” are inhabited by ghosts; dancing is a memory, silence reigns. The sounds of life, community, creativity are no longer, “bands don’t play no more”. In the song’s short bridge section in the bright key of G major, Hall asks us to,

“remember the good old days/before the ghost town/ when we danced and sang, and the music played in de boom town”.

(TASK1) Background Information:

• A song by ‘The Specials’
• It was released on the 12th of June 1981
• When released, the song spent 3 weeks at No. 1 and 10 Weeks in total on the Uk Singles Chart’s Top 40.
• It was awarded the “Single of the Year” in 1981
• It won an NME award for being the ‘Best Single’
• The song was written just as the 3 band members (Neville Staples, Lynval Golding and Terry Hall) were leaving ‘The Specials’ to form a band called ‘Fun Boy Three’
• According to Dammers, the song was inspired by the band splitting up. He said in 2008: “‘Ghost Town’ was about the breakup of the Specials. It just appeared hopeless. But I just didn’t want to write about my state of mind so I tried to relate it to the country as a whole.”
• The band’s ‘2 Tone” record label gave its name to the genre that fused ska, reggae and new wave.
• Formed in 1977, the group had became the pioneers of a cross-cultural sound that fused the sounds of reggae music with the raw anger of punk.
• In a space of 2 years (1979-1981), the original “Specials” managed to embody the new decade’s violent emerges of violent energies, morals and conflicts.

(TASK 2) Cultural, Social and Historical Background

• The song was addressing the themes of urban decay, deindustrialisation, unemployment and violence in inner cities
• In 1981, industrial decline had left the city suffering badly and unemployment rates were at the highest level within the UK
• In 1981, unemployment was heading up to 3 million people
• The band’s ‘2 Tone’ record label inspired a crisply attired youth movement
  • However, as a consequence, ‘The Specials” gigs began to attract the hostile of presence groups, such as The National Front and the British Movement.
• Ghost Town is believed to be a prophecy that sounds like an aftermath as the Ghost Town it describes of is gutted by recession and appears to be the terrain before a riot.
• 1981 was the height of youth unemployment as the UK reacted to Margaret Thatcher’s cuts and riots were erupting all over the country
• The song consists of many different sounds, chords and unusual instruments to represent the chaos and confusion which was happening during 1981
• The origin of the song began back in 1980, after Dammers had witnessed the St Paul Riots in Bristol. For most of the 1970s, St Pauls, which was a predominantly black and white working class area, was a victim of deteriorating housing, poor education services and and increasingly strong Police presence.
• The band included both members with black and white skin, which was very rare back in the 80s, identifying the “Specials” are challenging the dominant ideology
• Drammers said to the Guardian in 2008 “For me, it was no good being anti-racist if you didn’t involve black people, so what the Specials tried to do was to create something that is more integrated”

(TASK 3) Ways in which this music video creates and communicates meaning using media language

• Some of the band members are in dark suits, whereas some are in bright clothing, which contradicts each other and could possibly signify the divide between different skin colours
• The lighting of this music video is very dark and not much is happening in the background, suggesting the idea of a Ghost Town.
• Cinematography is used through the merging of each scene of the music video, that switches from scene to scene using a sliding transition, which was common in music videos during the 80s
• At 1min 13seconds, the car is swerving out of control, possibly to signify how the unemployment situation in the UK is going out of control
• During the video, the band maintains eye contact, which could identify seriousness
• A creepy tone is used by wha sounds like an accordion, which follows Steven Neale’s Genre theory of sameness, since ‘Ghost Town” could link to the horror genre due to the word “Ghost”
• The panoramic shots of driving down the street identify that it is a ghost town and sets the tone for the song
• The binary opposition theory by Levi-Strauss can be linked to this song because there are 2 contrasting genres of music (ska and jazz)
• Todorov’s theory of narrative structure can be linked to this music video because their the video starts with equilibrium, then progress, then disruption, a resolution and then a new equilibrium is found.
• On the first verse “Too much fighting on the dance floor” it in referencing the riots that are happening on the streets
• The lines “can’t go on anymore, too many people angry” reference how the “Specials” gigs were attracting a hostile of presence groups, such as the National Front and the British Movements.
• Ghost Town EP included discordant horns, haunting chords and demonic vocal harmonies to emphasise how the Ghost Town was a scary place to be.