Michelle Young:Music Video Analysis

Duffy: Rockferry
Duffy’s music video Rockferry was first released on 3rd march 2008 in both the US and the UK; achieving 4th best selling album in 2008 worldwide. According to Duffy this single is loosely based on Rock Ferry a suburb of Birkenhead. This album was a release to try and make her known as at the time she was still relatively unknown; this was a good move for Duffy as she become recognised and even made around number 4 in the charts in the UK for 52 weeks, making her well loved and successful. Thus this single sold Duffy as a sexy, single attractive young artist showing she would be very successful in the future and suggesting we would be seeing Duffy a lot more in the future.
Throughout this video you see the blonde bombshell has having many moments of self-doubt , you are made to see this through the camera emphasising on her facial expression alongside the greyscale of the video.
The constant movement of the camera, using panning and tracking shots, combined with the shots of trains, train stations and scenery around Ffestiniong railway add to the emphasis of a journey right from the beginning of the video. We also see Duffy literally moving within the shots too; this sets in mind of the audience that Duffy is about to take us on a journey, the greyscale and mood of the song suggest this journey will be a sad journey showing Duffy’s emotions/feelings. Later on in the video we see her get on a train and are therefore shown a literal representation of her journey, showing an attempt to get away, yet is still seen as a strong person. The suitcase she is carrying down an old-fashioned cobbled road also is a visual representation of leaving, travelling perhaps on her journey.
We see Duffy from the beginning in a tree and by lots of nature suggesting she is going to be very open and genuine about her emotions and expressing them as a natural feeling. This could also suggest to the audience that Duffy is a natural person, relating to a literal observation of the nature in the background. Compared to other videos she also is seen to be ‘real’ a natural person with no added effects and she is also not seen covered in make-up suggesting she has a sense of purity to her personality.
In this video long takes are used to add to the ‘reality’ of real time an emphasis on the fact she is a real person and perhaps not as out of reach as many other ‘stars’ are seen to be in their videos. This also shows Duffy as quiet natural and real related to her very emotional lyrics and vocals in this single.
Despite the fact that this single is very emotional due to the lyrics and vocals, Duffy is seen to be very strong as a women due to not using fragmented shots, suggesting she is not like the other female ‘stars’ at the moment, this also emphasises her old-fashioned sense of personality and look that is being portrayed.
We as an audience see her writing in a cafe, we presume this is her writing songs, showing she write her own songs, suggesting she is a very stong female who doesn’t need any help adding to her old-fashioned-look.
We see Duffy doing normal things which ‘normal’ people do such as buying a cd in this case we see her going into ‘COB records’ this is to add to the emphasis that she is old-fashioned yet we still like her in this look.
Despite Duffy being compared to Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse i feel she should be compared to singers in the 60’s such as Dusty Springfield and Lulu due to her incredible vocals through her vintage style of pop soul showing perhaps a tribute to the 60’s. Both her voice and style suggest a reminiscent of their style of bleached hair, blue eyed beauty and soul in music. She isn’t just old school she is old-fashioned, which she makes seem very popular and also sexy. The old-fashioned look is emphasised by the greyscale they added to the music video and by the ‘retro’ style clothes she is seen wearing throughout the whole video; wearing a black and white blazer suit, suggesting subtle femininity and her sexy ‘blonde’ side.
She is seen in the video as recapturing the blue-eyed soul of the late 60s, the band also adds to the authenticity of the song. The band plus Duffys vocals play a big part of adding to the retro vibe of this single. The vocals from this track expresses Duffy’s emotions as genuine mastering the art of emoting, which may be very hard to achieve such as Joss Stone found hard to show genuine emotions. Due to Duffy writing this song she is seen to have more of an emotional investment within the song, this adds closeness with her song, thus adding a closeness to her audience. Therefore showing she is a very emotive person and likes to share her emotions with her audience.
Duffy is shown in this video to express her genuine talent, with her strong ‘retro’ voice and lyrics, combined with her old school vibe is shown as genuine and shows her love of classic soul; this video therefore shows her in this light suggesting she will be a big hit in the future, which she later went on to be . This song sets the stage for Duffy as an artist as well as a person. She’s not prototypical troubled bad girl like Amy Winehouse, nor a nice girl gone wild like Joss Stone. She’s an old-fashioned good girl and her music is a reflection of this. When Duffy is sad or hurt (expressed in this song) she still manages to keep her composure both lyrically and also vocally; this perhaps suggests she will be strong when she has to be.