SATV: What can REM's UBerlin tell us about the art of the music video?

This article was first written for my own music video and review website "Shame About The Video" in March 2011. It remains one of the most read articles on the website, with over twice as many page views as the average article. The piece combines some of the more traditional SATV tropes, with direct comparisons to other, similar music videos - which I believe has helped it become one of the more interesting articles on the site. 
The original publication can be found here.

Hangin' out

When writing an article for this site it's often hard to find a suitable video to analyse. A lot of videos simply don't offer enough of a substantial story or message to look at. In general I've found that anything that just features the band playing doesn't work. Anything too self-aware doesn't work as there's very little extraneous information you can take from them without basically ruining the point of the thing itself. And anything that just features one simple idea throughout generally doesn't work. 

This last point is the most difficult to deal with because these are often the most interesting videos. But how are you supposed to look for deeper meaning or hidden messages in the most minimalistic videos? 

Well let's have a go...

New Beats Media: Review of the album "Exitudes" by Saso

This article was first written for the music news and review website New Beats Media in October 2011. It was the first piece I wrote for this website, and the first time I'd written a full length review. 
The original publication can be found here.

After a five year hiatus, Irish band Saso, known best to some as “those guys from the Coors Light advert*”return to their dark musical roots with their fourth album Exitudes.

A slow, languishing album, it never reaches the particular heights that would highlight any one song as a potential single, instead weaving between styles to present an album that is vaguely haunting and supremely powerful.

BSP: The Importance of Commentary in a Fair Trial

These piece was written for my blog in November 2011. One of the more serious pieces I have written, it was based on what was, at the time of writing, a big news story. In it I observe a current story, come to my own conclusions about the topic at hand and formulate a reasoned, coherent argument that can be shared with the reader. 
The original article can by found here. 

According to news reports, the jury responsible for the outcome of the trial of two men accused of murdering teenager Stephen Lawrence have been told by the judge to stay away from social media sites Twitter and Facebook, in case they include "commentary" of the trial. This is supposedly done in the interest of a fair trial.

This, to me, doesn't quite make sense. I'm not saying I'm against the prospect of a fair trial - far from it - but I'm not sure that isolating the jury from the opinions of the masses is the way to go about it.

SATV: World's First Review For The World's First Live Broadcast Music Video By Death Cab For Cutie

This article was originally written for my own music video analysis and review website "Shame About The Video". It remains one of the more ambitious pieces I have tried to write, in that it was written with the aim of being the first review of this video to be posted online, without sacrificing any of the thoroughness and quality that the piece would normally have. I am pleased to say that this experiment was a success - the article went live before any other review of this video, beating MTV by around 9 minutes. 
I have included this piece in my portfolio to highlight my enthusiasm to try out new and experimental ways of writing an article, and my ability to write well under severe time constraints and pressure.
The original article can be found here.

This review was written less than 45 minutes after the broadcast of Death Cab For Cutie's video for "You Are A Tourist" - the world's first live broadcast music video. This therefore makes this the world's first review of the world's first live broadcast music video. 


It’s always exciting to see a “world’s first” event, especially when it involves matching up art and technology in a way that gets people interested in both, and opens the door for similar ventures in the near future. In some ways it’s surprising that no-one’s thought of doing something like this before, but while a live Lady Gaga or Britney Spears video may have received more attention and more views it would have lost something in the process. With a band like Death Cab for Cutie the focus is always on the bands output, rather than the band themselves and that’s why the focus was never going to be on what happens in the video, more on the production of the video itself. This is simultaneously good and bad for Death Cab. Yes, we all got excited about the new video for their new album – something that I don’t think has ever happened for a Death Cab song before – and it was very cool to watch it and know it was live. But after that it just becomes another music video on TV and it has to be able to compete with all other videos. And unfortunately I really don’t think this one does.

The Phonograph: One Heck of a Supergroup

This article was first written for the daily music blog "The Phonograph" in August 2010 when I was asked to write a guest article. It shows off my ability to come up with an idea that would fit in with other articles being published on the site, and adjust my writing style to match another websites voice.
The original publication of this article can be found here.

We currently live in an age with so many bands and musicians that it gets harder and harder to sift through them all and find the most skilled, most proficient players among them. Wouldn’t it be easier if all of the most talented musicians just joined each other in one band? If they can make some of the best songs in the world separately, what could they do together?

With that in mind I present to you my initial fantasy line-up for the greatest supergroup of the 21^st century:

SATV: Summer in the City - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

This post was first written for my own music video analysis and review website "Shame About The Video" in September 2011, after a brief hiatus for the website. The observation of symbolism and application of ideas in the video to real world news stories immediately makes it one of the classic SATV pieces - fulfilling exactly the ideas that the website tries to promote. 
The original publication can be found here.

Spoiler: This article's mostly about Oasis.

Holy unsubtle symbolism, Batman. Shame About The Video finally returns after a much too prolonged absence with an analysis of the music video for Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds debut song. Here's the Death of You and Me:

BSP: Play The Game

The following article is an old blog post that was first written in November 2008 and published on my blog in March 2009. It was also considered as a possible guest post to the website "Overthinking It", but ultimately was not picked up due to a previous article of theirs taking on a similar topic. 
The piece highlights my ability to come up with something imaginative and original, even when based upon an old, seemingly uninteresting topic. It may seem a little longer than it perhaps should be, but I have included it in my portfolio to demonstrate that my passion for writing has not wavered for a good many years. 
The original publication can be found here.



After recently purchasing a Playstation 3, I have begun looking through several sites to find the best games for this device. Since these games all seem to be rather expensive, it makes sense to only get the good ones. Unfortunately it seems that no-one can agree on what the best game is.
However, due to some extraordinary reaches of boredom, I have come to a conclusion of what I believe should officially hold the title of "Greatest Game Ever™."* It is challenging, infuriating, replayable and involves numbers.
"What is this exciting, spectacular, magnificent game?" I hear you type in to your comment boxes. Well delete that sentence, because I'll tell you. And when you hear the answer you'll realise how obvious and simple it is.
The game is Minesweeper®.

SATV: Promise tonight not to do you no harm - Brandon Flowers

This piece was one of the earliest articles for my music analysis and review website "Shame About The Video" and demonstrates some of the earliest ideas that the site was trying to promote. Despite being written so early in the websites history it still stands up as one of the most comprehensive, informative and entertaining articles I believe I have written for the website and demonstrates my ability to analyse a piece of work and produce an engaging article that relates to it.
The original publication can be found here. 

Hey everyone, Brandon Flowers of The Killers has made a solo album! He's taking a chance to break away from the band a bit and do something more creative, more experimental more...oh no wait it just sounds exactly like The Killers. Except he doesn't have to put the other three on the album cover. Here's the first single, "Crossfire":

BSP: Untitled Story - Chapter 1 - Jake.

This is the first chapter of an online novel I began writing on my blog in early 2009. 
I have included it in this collection to demonstrate my ability and willingness to adapt to different styles of writing and to always try new formats. It is here to show that I can write in different ways for different audiences, which I have always believed is an extremely important trait in any kind of journalist or creative writer. 
The original publication can be found here. 


I stared at the water. For hours I'd just been sitting, watching it. It was almost hypnotic - at least to me. Twice a week I'd come down here and just watch it flow across the fringe of the land before retreating back to its depths. Back and forth, back and forth. The deep blue of the water contrasting with the pale brown of the shore, the soft invitation its gentle waving was offering to come and walk through it, letting it envelope me with its cooling embrace. Looking further across it I see children playing in its depths, hear their laughter and their playful screams as they race each other and duck each others heads below the surface. I see the serious swimmers determined to push themselves as hard as they can so they can feel that sense of accomplishment that comes with the burning muscles and tired lungs. Everyone is so full of energy here. Everyone is so alive. Everyone :-

"HELP!"

Shit.