Vance Joy's Riptide

Vance Joy's Riptide

Riptide was an Indie song released by Vance Joy. Riptide' music video subverts the typical conventions of the form. Whilst audiences expect the lyrics to be interpreted figuratively, the video is extremely literal obscuring and amplifying the lyrics. Riptide rejects normal narrative devices and instead constructs a montage of apparently disparate images that lack narrative cohesion, leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions. 

Disjuncture means lacking unity, thus creating a separation or disconnection, for example between the lyrics and the visuals in a music video. Riptide creates disjuncture by repeating image sequences for example the woman running to the sea which is repeated with the woman in different clothing, literally matching the lyrics but this succeeds in creating an enigma and not narrative clarification. Similarly, the shot of the two lollies being pulled apart is used as a visual for the lyrics 'Oh and they come unstuck' but has no obvious place in the narrative.  The most disconcerting links between the lyrics and the visuals are the repeated shots of the woman singing into the microphone and becoming increasingly disheveled as the music video progresses. Here the wrong lyrics appear on the screen as the actual lyrics are heard and her lip-syncing becomes disjointed. This deliberately subverts the typical conventions of music videos where the 'star' would be filmed singing the correct lyrics with perfect lip-syncing.

Riptide contains intertextual references that contribute to the surreal feel of the music video and is less related to communicating an overall message. The music video is constructed like a short film, as there is no representation of the artist and is presented as a montage of images. There are references to the horror and thriller genre, with the repeated images of the woman's body being dragged away, the graveyard scenes, the stabbing of the hand and the progressively abused stage of the female performer. These references demand that the audience engage more actively to decode meanings from the product. Riptide also contains references to the cinematic style of film director Wes Anderson due to the attention to symmetry that is reflected in the way that the shots are constructed. There are also similarities with the way Anderson uses colour palettes moving from muted hues to bold splashes of colour.


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