Music video analysis - Lewis Shooter

In their music videos Megadeth use their performance of the song as an icon to represent them and their instruments are like a big icon in their videos because their music comes from their instruments and its important. The lead guitarist and singer, Dave Mustaine is the only band member that remained since the beginning of the band and he founded the band after being kicked out of Metallica. They have a type of mascot, which is a skeleton faced army man. Most of their videos are based in a post-industrial or post-nuclear war world.

Their music genre is thrash metal and they are one of the big four thrash metal bands along with Anthrax, Slayer and Metallica. The big four thrash metal bands simultaneously created the thrash metal genre in the 1980’s. Megadeth is known for being one of the heaviest and fastest thrash metal bands. Anthrax is well known for their consistent style of music. Slayer is known for being a load heavy band that was the main inspiration for death metal. Metallica are the most well known.

Megadeth, Peace sells, 1986

The main video is the band playing with cross cuts to news and worldwide issues.

Megadeth, Public enemy no.1, 2011

There is a performance by Dave Mustaine but the main part of the video is a short story about the criminal monkey and the police monkey chasing him.

Megadeth have progressed from making performance videos with clips from the news into making narratives along with their performance. Peace Sells has a lot of performance shots of the band, with many news clips whereas Public Enemy no.1 has hardly any performance but it has a narrative. Both the short film and the news clips show what the lyrics in the songs are about.

The genetic conventions used in Megadeths videos are dark colours, consisting of performances and the use of post nuclear/industrial war worlds. This follows the darkness and sadness in the lyrics and fits in with the fast heavy riffs played by the instruments.

Back in 1986 music videos were quite new, and most were performances and experimental clips. Now in 2012 music videos are much more structured, they usually consist of performance and a narrative. This is due to the fact music videos have been studied and made so that they are something normal and every day.

The mise en scene for the videos Megadeth have is a post nuclear world, and the band performing at a popular concert, there are a lot of close ups of Dave Mustaine playing his guitar and singing.

The artist uses effects to show the world disappearing. The editing is fast to go with the music and to show how fast the world is disappearing. The camerawork is mostly low angle shots on the band; this shows their skills and the music.

The artist relate to the news because many of their things they sing about are about a corrupt and dying world, and things that happen on the news.