Norah Jones - Dont Know Why

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO4dxvguQDk

Charlotte Hall Video Analysis
Norah Jones- Don’t Know Why

Norah Jones was born March 30, 1979 and is an American singer songwriter, pianist, keyboardist and guitarist. Her career began with her 2002 debut album Come away with me an contemporary vocal jazz album received five Grammy Awards, including "Record of the Year" and "Best New Artist". This was followed by her second album, Feels Like Home which has the song Don’t Know why on, which was released in 2004. She is a very successful and has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 2000s.

Looking at Norah Jones Success, she is a thriving singer songwriter who has released albums and right from the beginning has been popular and has attracted a big audience which has given her support and help which has also made her become a well known artist. Norah focuses on her genre being pop and jazz as she likes the idea of showing romance in her songs. She began her career with creating her own my space page and became flourishing when audiences took an interest in her music shown on her my space page. Then as Norah swiftly created an impact on her audiences the big record label Blue Note Records signed her up and wanted her to be a part of their record label as they are a massive American label releasing jazz artists since the 1950s.


There are many other bands represented by Blue Note Records including Tina Brooks, Kenny Drew, Bobby Darrin and many more. There videos are not big budget extravaganzas they are more high quality visual videos at a lower cost, that are still popular with there attended audiences.

The genre of Don’t Know Why is jazz/pop and this is shown through the video as Norah is a girly girl and this is shown through her video. There are lots of shots that indicate that the videos musical genre is jazz and pop. There is a low angle shot at the beginning of the music if Norah, showing cutaways of her face, which emphasizes her facial expressions through out the video. The slow camera movements reflect the pace of the music which is effective in the video, as it helps attract her audience. Also due to Don’t Know Why being this genre of music you expect to see this style of camera movements in the video.

The target audience for this music video, is teenage females, however I think that some of her videos appeal to older females as Norah tends to have a wide range of songs, and her lyrics generally represent something that means importance to her, or an experience she has had that her audiences could be able to relate to. In this particular video she is dressed casual however we see a lot of close ups of her on the beach, so that the audeince she her beauty. Norah may not have an amazing costume but the use of close ups of her face sells her video as she is an attractive girl.


Norah likes to create her music videos through, her locations and props being simple and not really glamorous, as looking at a few of her videos she likes to be the centre of attention so that all focus is on her, therefore if she had big glamorous locations that focus could be taken away from her. Don’t Know why only has a couple of locations in the music video, however it is still effective as the beach is really calm and relaxed which relects on the mood of the song.

The editing of the music is slow paced as well. All of this is done to put emphasis on the lyrics as they are quite strong. There are also lots of close-ups and cutaways to show this effect, which are generally shown at the start, middle and end of the music video, so that it keeps your attention.
The idea of the song is that Norah has struggled in a relationship and you can see this through her style to her lyrics. For example ‘when I saw the break of day’ I wished that I could fly away’, shows that she is in a relationship where things are not going the way she wants them to, and wants to get away however her love for him is stopping her from doing this. Also ‘your be on my mind forever’ shows her emotions are making the song. This is also part of the chorus so it is repeated, meaning that she wants this to stand out, as it shows how she feels. Also the fact that Norah doesnt sing in all of the verses is effective as we see some shots of her walking away from the camera and we see closeups of the sand and pebbles. By doing this we get a feel for the location, which helps us interact with the lyrics. Which therefore makes this an effective music video, as the audience are pulled in to the song, to relate to the situation.