Mayday Parade Bio & Music Videos

Branding of my text:

Mayday Parade is an American rock band from Tallahassee, Florida. For the past four years, Mayday Parade have currently released 4 albums so far including:

• Tales Told by Dead Friends
• A Lesson in Romantics and Lancaster's departure
• Anywhere But Here
• Valdosta

There are 5 members who make up this band; main vocalist/keyboardist Derek Sanders, bassist Jeremy Lenzo, guitarists Alex Garcia and Brooks Betts and drummer Jake Bundrick. At first the band went into a studio to record their first EP "Tales Told by Dead Friends" with producer Lee Dyess. During the week they spent recording in the studio, they decided on the name Mayday Parade. The band went on their first U.S. tour with Brandtson and Mêlée, then on another tour with Plain White T's shortly after the release of the EP. Since the past 5 years they've worked with 3 labels before including Fearless (2006–present), Atlantic (2009–2011) and ILG (2011–present). They currently have a website http://www.maydayparade.com where fans can view any updates, see when they are touring and any releases of singles or albums by the artist etc. They also have a facebook page where people can share their views on anything on the page and the band themselves update statuses on their for their fans to keep posted on any news about the band.

............................................................................................................

Music Videos

The song is about the progression of a failed relationship. In the beginning the singer is thinking about his love, essentially asking her if she still thinks of him and the love they shared but subsequently threw out. He realises its the end and he reluctantly lets it die, although he still hopes for a bright future. Overall, this song shows that not all relationships do have a happy ending and sometimes they have to go their own way.

 

This song feels like this guy had a long commitment with a girl, but now he's having a hard time getting over her, so he shuts off his feelings until he has more control of them. When he does manage to gain control, he finds relief, but then his sadness comes up again and he misses her. He states that he's willing to take her back if she is willing as well, but instead she tells him she's cutting off contact. Next he explains how he felt he was getting better and her actions are threatening to dampen his mood. He still loves her but has no outlet and regrets the original reason they broke up, and then he restates he'd take her back and explains what's become of him and remembers their time together.

This music video is about two teenagers falling in love during the summer time. Although it wasn't a perfect relationship, he truly loved her. Once the summer ended, they separated and didn't keep in touch. Now the protagonist is thinking back to all of the memories and wants to be with her again. One of the main thing he wonders is why the first time they kissed it was magical and they were so in love, compared to the last where it was a goodbye and they wouldn't see each other again. I like the idea of the music video reminiscing on the memories they once had and would like to use this idea somewhere in my creation.

This music video goes against conventions by not actually including any lip syncing or having the actual band featuring in the video. 

.............................................................................................................................

Conclusion:

After researching the band Mayday Parade, I only came across a few of their songs actually having music videos, which in a way does make it relatively hard for me to find specific conventions that the band seem to follow. From the songs that I found, they were all rather different, as above you can see the first music video is animated, the second one is a hybrid performance and narrative based video and the last one is a cameo (which is where the band doesn't actually feature in it) but follows a narrative instead. I quite like the idea of having a narrative music video where the footage attempts to tell a story through the moving image, as I believe it tells the story better than just the band themselves performing the song in front of the camera.

 As I have come across both hybrid performances and narrative, as well as cameo videos by Mayday Parade, I think i should stick to one of these styles to fit in with their existing creations. Due to the fact they haven't created a performed based video, I think I would go against conventions if I made one in this style and therefore, I will aim to produce a video with a storyline. This could come in handy though, especially if my talent prefers to act rather than sing the whole way through my music video. This will save them getting embarrassed by constantly lip syncing as well as ensuring I stick to the band's conventions at the same time.

 Overall, after listening to the song I have chosen, I would say that the main voice you hear from it is the lead singer. In a way you could say that is rather odd as most bands usually sing parts of the song together, however, in this song the audience are unable to differentiate between each band member, as the same guys seems to sing it all the way through. Therefore, I may decide not to include the band performing in this song, as it seems to be sung from a man's point of view, which I believe will make the video more effective if there is only one person who sings in it. With this in mind, this could persuade me more to produce a cameo video, with a narrative throughout the song (rather than a hybrid performance and narrative) as I feel this style will make it more poignant and effective in conveying the message within the lyrics.