On a Soundstage All Along: Difference between revisions

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If the song you're making a video for ends with a dramatic fade of the instruments and you want a suitably dramatic ending then you could try the good old tactic of having you lead singer bow their head while the lights dim and the camera pulls back to reveal - ah ha! - that the band was [[On a Soundstage All Along]]. Thus you reveal the artificiality of the music video and undermine the video's story with an unsettling note of self-awareness. Or something. Anyway, it looks totally awesome.

If the song you're making a video for ends with a dramatic fade of the instruments and you want a suitably dramatic ending then you could try the good old tactic of having you lead singer bow their head while the lights dim and the camera pulls back to reveal - ah ha! - that the band was '''On a Soundstage All Along'''. Thus you reveal the artificiality of the music video and undermine the video's story with an unsettling note of self-awareness. Or something. Anyway, it looks totally awesome.

There seemed to be a glut of these around 2001-2005.

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* Done in Madonna's video for "Like a Prayer", but with a theatre stage instead of a soundstage.

** Also in "Material Girl", in which the fact that the final shot completely reverses the narrative of the video is actually important.

* The video for Steve Perry's [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFxGtIqqwT4 "Oh Sherrie"] was already playing with this trope in ~~1984 -- it~~ starts with an over-the-top medieval wedding with Perry as the royal groom as the setting for the song, then with the first words of the song we get a slam-cut to Perry in modern clothes sitting in a stairwell. The medieval wedding is not the real video, it's a troubled video production; as the production crew undergoes a meltdown, Perry goofs with the cast to entertain his girlfriend (played by Perry's real girlfriend at the time, Sherrie Swafford, for whom the song was written), who has arrived at the set. In the final moments of the video, the director tries to get everyone back into position for filming.

* The video for Steve Perry's [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFxGtIqqwT4 "Oh Sherrie"] was already playing with this trope in 1984—it starts with an over-the-top medieval wedding with Perry as the royal groom as the setting for the song, then with the first words of the song we get a slam-cut to Perry in modern clothes sitting in a stairwell. The medieval wedding is not the real video, it's a troubled video production; as the production crew undergoes a meltdown, Perry goofs with the cast to entertain his girlfriend (played by Perry's real girlfriend at the time, Sherrie Swafford, for whom the song was written), who has arrived at the set. In the final moments of the video, the director tries to get everyone back into position for filming.

== Pop Rock ==

* The video for Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" is entirely based around this trope. It starts off looking like it's one of those vids where it cuts between lip syncing and a one-dimensional love ~~story--then~~ about thirty seconds in the director steps in and tells them to do certain things differently, and for the rest of the video people are dismantling the soundstage.

* The video for Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" is entirely based around this trope. It starts off looking like it's one of those vids where it cuts between lip syncing and a one-dimensional love story—then about thirty seconds in the director steps in and tells them to do certain things differently, and for the rest of the video people are dismantling the soundstage.

== [[Post-Punk]] ==