Artist: Fall Out Boy
Year: 2005
Audience: 15-24
Audience: 15-24
"Sugar, We're Goin Down" is a song by American rock band Fall Out Boy, and the lead single from their third album, From Under the Cork Tree. In the United States, the single reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Fall Out Boy's first top 10 and exploding the band into the mainstream, exposing them to a new mainstream audience. Two different CDs were released with different B-sides, Part I with a green cover and Part II with a red cover. Blender ranked "Sugar, We're Goin Down" #4 their "The 100 Greatest Songs of 2005" and About.com listed the song at #3 on their "Top 100 Pop Songs of 2005". The song has so far sold more than 2,000,000 digital downloads in the United States, becoming the band's first two-million seller and is certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of two-million units. The song appears on the karaoke games Lips and in Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol, and is also a playable song on Band Hero. It was included as a soundtrack in the 2005 film The Fog. American country pop artist Taylor Swift covered "Sugar, We're Goin Down" at a concert on her Spear Now Tour in Chicago. (Source: Wikipedia)
Fall Out Boy's Sugar,We're Goin Down is a mixture of both a performance based and a concept based music video. The performnce element features all of the way through the music video as it contains footage of the band playing their instruments and the bands frontman, Patrick Stump, lip-syncing the lyrics to the song. However some of the music video is a concept based idea as the video establishes the life of a socially outcast boy with antlers and his feelings for a neighborhood girl. It is made clear that the girl's father disapproves. Distraught, the boy tries to cut his antlers off, but is stopped by the girl. Later on, the father attempts to shoot the boy with an arrow, but is hit by a car. When he rushes to the man's aid, the boy finds that the father has hooves. They connect, and the father accepts him, allowing him to date his daughter. What tells us that it is not a narrative music video and it is a concept idea is that the lyrics do not fit in with what the actors are doing. It is a completely random idea that they have though of.
The opening shots of the music video is of the town Margaretville, New York found in the Catskill Mountains. These are very much establishing shots. It shows us the setting of the music video and obviously it is in America. It very much reminds me of last year, the AS coursework, when we studied film opening. In every single film i deconstructed i foun the opening shot was usually an establishing shot. However Fall Out Boy have used it for their music video and i suppose in a way it is a very short film. There is no music playing over these couple of opening establishing shots. It is just quiet and then after a couple of seconds the music starts playing. It is a picturesque village and it is a sunny day which sets a good mood at the start of the music video. However when it starts the mood is dampened somewhat.
The whole video is featured around this socially outcast boy with antlers. Straight away we know that this boy is an outcast as he is on his own walking along a road when a little boy runs up to him and throws somwthing at him. This shows us he has no power or autority at all. This sets the tone for the whole music video as we know that the people of Margaretville in New York look down on him because he is different. It also shows us something about the people in this village and how they treat people who arent the same as them. The boy who is walking about earlier is just sat by the road with another girl who is either his friend or his girlfriend. We dont know if the boy is doing it to impress her or it is just the way the people in the Catskill Mountains treat him. The boy sticks his middle finger at the outcast man who just keeps walking on and then goes somewhere to sit by himself where he meets a girl of his dream. feelings for a neighborhood girl. It is made clear that the girl's father disapproves though. The man is so distraught that the only person who accepts him in the village is being taken away from him by her father. This results in the outcast trying to cut his antlers off, but is stopped by the girl. The romance is reignited.
Throughout the whole video there are alot of shots of the band playing their instruments but mainly of the frontman lip-syncing. There are single shots of Patrick Stump lip-syncing but also single shots of the drummer and guitarist. These are all examples of the performance elements of the music video. The majoriy of the shots used for these performance sections of the music video are medium shots and close ups. This is because they want a variety of shots throughout the whole video and the concept sections mainly use more extreme long shots and long shots for example. More is happeining in the concept sections so they need to be using more unorthordox shots rather than close ups. Its not just shot variation that is a common code and convention in music videos it is also fast paced editing and this is the case in parts but in others it certainly isnt the case. This is because in some parts the song is quicker than in others. This affects the pace of editing in this music video. 
The majority of the narrative sections of the music video are abit negative. This carries on when the father attempts to shoot the boy with an arrow. However he is hit by a car. When the outcast rushes to the man's aid, the boy finds that the father has hooves just like him. This is the spark that brings positivity to the music video. They connect, and the father accepts him, allowing him to date his daughter. This is the happy ending to end the video. The boy and the girl can be together, the man can get it off his chest that he has hooves, but the main thing is the boy is now accepted in the village. It is sort of like a fairytail as it always end up alright in the end.
Here is the music video Sugar, We're Goin Down by Fall Out Boy
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