Black Sabbath – God is dead? Music video analysis

I am going to be analysing the ‘God is dead?’ music video by Black Sabbath; the first single from their 2013 comeback album, ‘13’ which reached number 1 in the album charts in the UK. The song and band itself is classified as metal across music download sites such as iTunes.

The music video is a combination of concept and performance; largely based around the cultural code. The concept is about a man, and video/song itself questioning the existence of a higher being on Earth. It also questions the idea that wars and conflicts more often than not are caused by religion. This includes terrorist attacks such as the 9/11 bombings. At the time the music video was put together in early 2013, conflicts were prolific in the Middle-East, so may have impacted on the video.

The man stands/walks slowly in the middle of a busy city, and judging by the high-rise buildings, is probably somewhere in America, with a vacant look on his face. As he stands there, everything is going on around him and everyone is going about their everyday lives. The movement in the video looks like a photodynamic photography technique because the light appears to follow the objects or people moving. This could suggest that all humans leave a trace on the Earth in some way.

There are numerous cutaways from the concept side of the video to the band performing. This concurs with Goodwin’s theory that the demands of the record label will include footage with close up images of the artist. At one point, the camera shot cuts away from a mid-shot of the man to a close up of his eye to show the performance inside it; this shows the conflicting ideas in his head of whether God exists or not.

The editing in the video is very significant because there is an image of the Bible which is filtered to look cartoon and comic book-like. This implies that Christianity is fictional and unbelievable. There are also numerous times where upon the image has a sepia filter, suggesting the concept of God is outdated and old.

Many people would have different readings of the video. Atheists would have a preferred reading of it, agreeing with the idea that God does not exist. However, at the same time, People with religious beliefs such as Christians would have an oppositional reading of the video. This is because they have conflicting ideas with what the majority of what video implies (the very end contradicts the whole of the video by saying that God does exist). Other people will have a negotiated reading of the video; they may even

question the existence of a higher being on Earth, putting themselves in the position of the man.

The camera shots are long and slow. This is because the song is slow paced, therefore making the visuals match the music, illustrating the lyrics. Again, this is one of the points Goodwin makes in his music video theory where the visuals illustrate, contradict or amplify the lyrics. However, he also said that videos rarely point to the lyrics; but ‘God is Dead’ contradicts this to an extent as the video’s concept questions the existence of God, hereby relating to the lyrics.

The video is heavily based on the idea of a Westernised society being very different from an Eastern one. This is because it shows a divide between rich people and poor people through the use of props such as expensive watches compared to people who are shown as plain, not having a lot of money. The idea of a Westernised society is supported by the display of corporate greed, where in which men are wearing suits, thus representing a Westernised society.

The visual imagery in the video shows many clips of people eating, hereby making a Capitalistic political statement about excess – people expressing a greed for food and money.

The juxtaposition of different people highlights their differences, such as their difference in culture and whether they are rich or poor. The clip of one man from an Eastern society shows him watching other people, not doing anything; this is used to express the changes between the two contrasting societies.