Indie Pop Music Video Research: Two Door Cinema Club 'Undercover Martyn'

As we now know that the genre for our music video is going to be Indie Pop, I have chosen to analysis Indie Pop/Rock group ‘Two Door Cinema Club - Undercover Martyn’. I will do this by following the Andrew Goodwin’s typical music video features whilst also looking at typical codes and conventions of the Indie Pop genre.


The first of Goodwin’s features is the clear link between lyrics and visuals. In this particular video there is little association between lyrics and visuals apart from the use of placards when they say the word ‘basement’ leading up to the chorus. This is probably because of the genre; Indie Pop can mostly be about the performance of the artist rather than a narrative in the video.

Another of Goodwin’s music video features is the relationship between the music and the visuals. I believe that in this video the visuals and the music have the biggest part to play throughout the whole of the video. The pace of the music changes repeatedly throughout from slow to fast, and so the visuals keep up with this through use of editing. For example; at the instrumental at the very beginning of the video, the band are moving and playing their guitars very fast and lively. Then as soon as the music alters and becomes slower they stop moving, this makes the audience ‘feel’ the music so to speak and understand the genre. Towards the end of the video, there is another instrumental part and the band is shown in UV lighting. The pace of this is very upbeat and the jump cuts between UV and normal lighting fit perfectly in time with the music, this fits in the with Indie Pop genre as it is experimental and lively. The images shown in the music video correlate to the music. When the music picks up and becomes more energetic the video becomes more animated with images of bright coloured ribbons, circles, balloons and the fact that they are being held up by people dressed in black becomes more apparent. The bright colours stand out from the black back ground making the video fun and individual which is was an Indie Pop video usually delivers to its audience.

The band in this video has managed to also create their individual star iconography through the video being more about the performance than a narrative. This is another of Goodwin’s music video factors. I think that they appear to be fun, energetic lively, down to earth people who enjoy their music. They also include a comedic element to their video which is typical of the Indie Pop video conventions, this is shown just by the fact that they are being held up and moved around by people dressed in black.

Aside from the Goodwin Model, the music video does include its own individual features, such as there is no narrative that links with the song it is purely the band portraying themselves as artists and performing their music. This is highlighted by the fact that they are playing their guitars throughout the video.

Through analysing this music video ‘Two Door Cinema Club - Undercover Martyn’ using Andrew Goodwin’s Model and typical conventions of the Indie Pop genre, I now have a clearer understanding as to what elements will be necessary in our music video. For example how editing matching the images can create entertainment for the audience, and how important it is to find the artist original style and use that to influence the making of the music video.