The Last Shadow Puppets - Everything You've Come to Expect

Today the new music video for The Last Shadow Puppets' 'Everything You've Come to Expect' was released. I found it particularly interesting as there are 9 different versions that were uploaded to YouTube, 1 listed and the remaining 8 only accessible by following the link in the description box. This led to a lot of confusion amongst fans when the music video seemed to change with each viewing, some videos being shot at different times of the day and others containing different costumes. The result of these slight changes is an eerie atmosphere created by the familiarity of each video but with hard-to-determine changes.

I think that having multiple videos is very fitting for the song as it is fairly repetitive with its melodies and lyrics, particularly the repetition of the lyric 'everything that you've come to expect'. This line fits perfectly with the effect of multiple videos as the viewer 'comes to expect' certain elements in the video only for them to change, for example, two videos contain a woman playing a violin in the background and one video even cutting to black halfway through, shocking the audience.

Below is a video showing all versions simultaneously:



The music video conforms to Andrew Goodwin's music video theory. There is a clear link between the lyrics and the visuals, the lyric 'coastal air gets a girl to reflect' is shown through the beach setting and the lyric 'dirtbag ballet' is shown through the ballet-like dance of the woman in the video. The lyric 'I just can't get the thought of you and him out of my head' is also shown as the woman flitters between the two men (the artists) that are buried back-to-back in the sand. There is also a link between the music and the visuals due to the calm, slow-motion movements matching the slow paced song, this calming element is enforced by the beach location and the single, smooth take.

'Everything You've Come to Expect' conforms to the conventions of a performance video, with lip-synching and close-ups of the artists being included. However, unlike many performance videos, the artists play a secondary role here, with the woman being the main focus, many sections of the video not even showing the artists' faces clearly, if at all.

Overall, I think that the concept of these videos is extremely interesting as they have challenged the format of the music video whilst also generating publicity and 'hype' for the band's upcoming release of their album, also titled 'Everything You've Come to Expect', due to fan speculation on the 'meaning' of the videos. This shows how creative decisions and challenging conventions can have an impact on audiences and therefore publicity and future sales.