This is "Life is Beautiful" by Sixx: A.M. from the Album "The Heroin Diaries". Sixx: A.M. includes the bassist and lyricist of 80s hard rock band, Motley Crue, Nikki Sixx. He recently published a year of his diaries with the same title as the album. The album features as a soundtrack for the book of his worst time as a heroin addict. "Life is Beautiful" probably evokes the most emotion of all the songs included.
The book, album cover and video all feature the same artwork which was designed, and the video directed, by graphic artist and director PR Brown (who went on to direct the rest of their music videos and their upcoming new ones).
This already makes for strong bonds and themes running throughout the whole of the Sixx: A.M. project.
The video itself comprises of the band playing the song in, what appears to be, a dingy studio setting. This simple setting comes to life as it is converted to a high contrast black and white with the layers of images and brushes placed on top, beneath and, sometimes, interacting with the band.
There is a heavy relationship between the lyrics and visuals right from beginning to end. The first piece of footage features Nikki Sixx quoting from his book, "There's nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home." which later form the first line of the second verse.
The line even appears scrawling across him as he says them on top of layers of rusty coloured stains and red blood splotches forming a "trail of blood". This immediately sets up a very literal connection.
The title of the song, however, at first sight appears to contradict both the song and the video as the images in the video are far from beautiful, as are the lyrics. They are dirty, bloody and dingy but, with the song title and chorus, portray the deeper meaning to it that Nikki Sixx discovered that "life is beautiful" when he was down in the dirt of his sordid life.
There are a lot of close ups and medium close ups used as well as an array of different angles, particularly low angle shots, iconic of rock bands. However, the camera doesn't continuously focus mainly on the singer, which is normal for a rock music video. The bassist, where all the material and emotion originated from, is, in himself, an iconic rock figure. Therefore, he gets a fair bit of camera time as well as the singer.
The editing has been done in a very interesting way. The camera will focus on one member of the band for several seconds but the transitions are sharp and fast making it all seem very disjointed and jerky. To coincide with this, the footage itself is fast-paced but the images on top are animated move at different speeds. Sometimes with the music/footage and sometimes completely independently.
This music video is highly between visuals and lyrics as well as other areas and employs simple techniques to make for a great music video.
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