Adele - Someone Like You

Genre

•            Pop – focuses on the simple theme of love and romantic relationships.
•            Soul and Jazz – heavy use of piano

Relationship between lyrics and visuals

•         The relationship isn’t highly distinctive, but it’s still apparent that the overall meaning of lost love and heartache reflects in the visuals in black and grey – suggesting a haunting and emotional state of mind to those who watch it.
•         Adele’s expression also portrays the face of a broken hearted woman, looking back at her old love and reminiscing at the love she lost.
•         During the end of two of the chorus’, the camera moves off into a 360 rotation of the surrounding area as if to emphasize Adele’s lyrics – Don’t forget me, I beg’ – this enhances the idea that despite the world and everything going on in the other person’s life, she doesn’t want them to forget her.

Relationship between music and visuals

•        The video rarely strays from its tracking shot of Adele walking along the Parisian bridge.
•        The arrangements of the lingering shots and camera movements correspond well with the beat of the song as it’s slow.

Close-ups of the artist and their star image motifs

•        Adele is known for writing and singing songs about her past experiences with love and relationships.  So the image of her being offered is one that reflects this, by using lingering shots, distant expressions and slow camera movements.
•        This video relates to the rest of her videos like Make You Feel My Love and Rolling In The Deep, where despite the different genres, all seem to have similar cinematography.
•        The video has serious elements towards the video, suggesting that Adele is serious about her music and writes about real things that affect a person.

Reference to the notion of looking:

•        There aren’t any notions of looking as the camera is solely focused on Adele, and she’s the only one that stars in her video.
•        However, this suggests how she’s feeling whilst she’s singing this song, like she’s alone.
•        She doesn’t need any back-up singers/dancers or special effects to steal the limelight, because her voice and the lyrics make her a true artist.

Intertextual references

•        There aren't any intertextual references.

Performance-based, narrative-based or concept-based?

•        It’s mostly performance based as it features Adele performing the song for the majority of the video.
•        It also has elements of a narrative based video, as it shows the story behind her song. The whole store isn't elaborated, but judging by her ability to stir heartstrings in this simplistic video, and the shot of a man walking away from her at the end – it sort of gives the tale of the video away.