Hey Everybody Music Video Analysis

The 5 Seconds of Summer music video for their song ‘Hey Everybody’. There is a strong narrative throughout this video and it is obvious that the singers are stuck in jobs that they

don’t want to do and so they dream about a perfect life living in a big house with lots of money. The beginning scene shows the artists in jobs that they are clearly unhappy with because their facial expressions look fed up, it represents a stereotypical attitude that everyone in working class jobs have, the audience can possibly relate to this because

as their audience are young people and teenagers, they too may also be stuck in a job. It seems to be the dream of almost everyone to have lots of money and live in a big house with your friends and 5 Seconds of Summer’s audience can live this dream through the Hey Everybody music video. At the end of the music video, the band members go back to their jobs and they seem to be in a better place at work; Each person has become successful, it could be a message to their audience that they should keep trying.

The characters in this music video are primarily wearing black. Three of the band members are playing guitars and one is playing a drum which is conventional for a band. During the performance part of the video, the boy in the middle is always in the centre of the shots which establishes the role of the lead singer. When the scene changes to when they are all in the big house with lots of money, they seem to wear white bath robes. It highlights that in their dream world, they wouldn’t even have to bother getting dressed properly. Also, the fact that they are all on Segways suggests that they are free to do what they want and they can do what they want in their dream world.

Furthermore, in some of the shots in the video, the group wear a lot of ‘gold’ chains. It symbolises wealth, the fact that they have a couple of chains around their necks suggests that they are really wealthy. Also, in this particular shot, one of them is wearing a ‘fur’ coat which connotes wealth. Many fur coats are expensive and this also connotes wealth as

people who wear fur tend to obtain more money than other people. A butler in the music video highlights their wealth again, the fact that they have a butler working for them suggests that they have money and power.