Analysis of Animals by Muse

I have chosen to analyse the song Animals by British rock band Muse as this is a song which I feel very familiar with, and one which I feel a lot can be said about. The song’s main theme is greed on the part of those in a position of power, including for example: large businesses and organisations, the government and insurance companies.

The music video is fully-animated and features no ‘real’ people, instead we are presented with two different types of character:

1) Tall, dark, silhouetted figures, with no facial features except for their sharp-toothed, cheesy smile. This suggests the inhumanity of these figures when compared to the others. These characters represent the rich, high-power organisations and conglomerates which dominate our planet. This can be deduced from the power that they exercise over the other characters, and the importance and significance that they find nothing but money.

2) The second type of character is small, lighter coloured figures with much clearer defined facial features which gives them a sense of humanity and familiarity to the audience of this music video. The lighter colour, when compared to the sinister darkness of the other figures, suggests the innocence of these characters.

This highlights the importance of Mise En Scene in generating certain representations in music videos, if the characters were not of the colours that they are, very different personality types would be connoted. In this case, these conventional representations are important and crucial to the success of the video because of the way in which they allow the audience to make quick judgements of the characters to better understand the meaning of the plot. This is particularly important in music videos as the length of time is far shorter, therefore helping the audience to quickly understand the plot is highly important.

Camerawork is just as important in creating representations and helping an audience to understand characters as quickly and easily as possible. For example, the differences between the two types of characters are highlighted through the use of camera angles. Using high angle shots when presenting the smaller, more human-like characters in the video gives the audience the impression of their inferiority, insignificance and lack of power. When contrasted with low angle shots of the tall, dark characters, these representations have been further enforced. A second camerawork technique used to emphasise the difference between the two types of characters is shot type. Using close up shots of both types of character further highlights the difference between them as close up shots are used to present a character’s emotions to the audience. In this case, the close ups conveyed the fear of the smaller figures against the joy of the taller, dark figures.

The producers of this music video have understood the band’s position politically and have reflected this understanding in the animation. The representations of large organisations is extremely negative. The dark figures are suggested to find joy in the pain of others, to make money in any and every way possible and to in some way become corrupted all for their own selfish greed. Muse’s album The 2nd Law plays on the theme of unsustainability. Below are the lyrics to another song from the album called ‘Unsustainable’…

“In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves an isolated system the entropy of that system increases energy continuously flows from being

concentrated to becoming dispersed, spread out, wasted and useless. New energy cannot be created and high grade energy is being destroyed.

An economy based on endless growth is unsustainable”

These lyrics are a metaphor for the state of the economy, comparing energy exchanges with the flow of money, and the isolated system as the economy. This suggests that Muse do not believe in a world of constant economic growth. This political standing has been reflected in the narrative of this music video.

This is a narrative and highly-concept based music video. The video tells the story of a group of powerful individuals who use a new money-making machine which kills people, grinds them up and turns them into money. In the final scenes, corruption is suggested to take hold, as the dark figures become more and more greedy. At this point, they start pulling each other’s limbs off and putting themselves into the machine, until eventually this greed gets the better of them and they all fall into the machine and get turned into cash. The pile of cash is then discovered by the once-powerless citizens who then burn it. This shot is accompanied by the sound of chants and cheers, which suggest/hint at an uprising or protest. Both the narrative and sound techniques are used at this point to imply the band’s humanitarian view that money is not important, it causes corruption, pain and unnecessary hierarchy.

GOODWINHow far does this music video conform to the conventions outlined by Goodwin?

The darkness of this animated music video and its exploration of themes such as pain and suffering – particularly caused by those in a position of power, link this to rock/alternative music. For example, the political messages link this music video and song to the alternative rock band Radiohead, who often explore politically active lyrics in their music.

The lyrics, “buy yourself an island/ocean”, link to the visuals and particularly to the narrative of this video as they suggest a company or individual has too much money and power, to the point that they could purchase their own island, like Virgin Media owner Richard Branson.

“Strike those in distress”, links also to visuals when the dark figure starts intimidating the smaller character whilst he/she is quivering in the corner.

The final scenes link to the lyrics, “kill the competition”, when they all begin to rip limbs of one another.

No close up shots of the band or iconography has been used in this video due to its animation style. Nor is there an element of the ‘notion of looking’ as this does not fit in with the style or messages in this music video.