Rollercoaster – Luke Bryan

Annabel Street

• Luke Bryan is an American country music star and ‘Roller Coaster’ was his fifth single from his fourth album ‘Crash My Party’.

• Released in 2014, this song is part of the country genre and follows many of the expected conventions.

• It opens with a couple of extreme long shots of beautiful, sunny locations. Along with the high key, natural lighting, these are positive images, setting the tone of the video. It is also clear that the setting is America, showing a global audience where Bryan is from, and keeping with the traditional county star theme (county music was developed in the southern states of USA).

• It is conventional for country videos to feature natural locations and use soft lighting, which is seen throughout this music video.

• Because this video follows many expected conventions, it also reflects Andrew Goodwin’s theory of different genres having their own conventions.

• Throughout the video, we only see Luke Bryan in one location - a beach. The beach is very natural, again following the conventions of this genre and linking to the lyrics ‘beside the ocean’ – this shows Goodwin’s theory of lyrics matching the visuals. It is also a very calming location, following the tone of the video and adding to audience pleasure.

• He is wearing very conventional country star clothes with flared blue jeans and a chequered shirt with the top buttons undone. The way he stands also reflects stereotypes of country stars (with his legs apart and hands in his back pockets) and cowboys. Traditional southern American cowboys are linked with country music and so Luke Bryan is following our expectations here.

• In some of the shots, he is not looking into the camera, making direct contact with the audience, which is unconventional. This also distances him from the audience.

• It’s conventional for country songs to follow a narrative and so we wonder what the storyline could be if he’s just standing on a beach alone.

• The colour remains the same throughout the majority of the video – soft, natural colours (yellow, white, beige). This shows the natural, calm and innocent theme of the song and also again reflects the traditional country music locations of sunny southern America, where there are large areas of dry land. This is also enhanced by the use of sun flares, also showing conventional weather in southern America.

• We then understand that Luke Bryan is not part of the storyline, which is unconventional. Instead, we follow the story of two younger people.

• They are also dressed conventionally for the country genre, very casually. The girl wears simple but girly clothing and the boy wears simple, summery clothing.

• As the narrative of the video turns to evening time, the lighting changes from bright natural sunshine to dark, lower key lighting, going with the lyrics ‘long, crazy nights’. Usually this reflects negative emotions, however the use of this technique in this video makes it seem more romantic, showing the theme of love in the song.