Music videos analysis

This is the music video for Enter Shikari's "No Sleep Tonight" released in August 2010. The song is about how big business men are using oil companies to make money when actually the world has sufficient technology to carry on without it. Therefor they are just using them to make money when they causing a ridiculous amount of pollution. The band is questioning how these business men can sleep at night; hence the title "No Sleep Tonight". This is just my opinion but it is widely shared when the song uses lyrics such as "The sun and see could power us, no longer cowled in oil lust."

The video shows mostly the narrative of a big important oil baron who is being followed by the lead singer. By the end of the video, the whole band plus a lot of extras are outside the business mans house and keeping awake by shouting the chorus at him.

At the start we see the lead singer walking past the business man and he barges past to display his importance and lack of respect for other people. This sets up the characteristics of this character for the audience; the probably have taken a disliking to him already. It is this man that is going to be the main source of attraction through out the video.

A little while later during the first chorus, amongst the band playing live, there is a scene where the business man pushes his wife away because he is on the phone making "an important call". This shows he's extreme selfishness and his ignorance to what really matters. He would rather make an extra pound than have the love of his wife. Another example of his self centered ego is when he is working out in front of the mirror and smiles at himself.

The next message given through the video is when the man is walking down the corridor in his house. He has various canvas photos on his wall of disasters over the world caused by his actions. He looks at at them and smiles as if to say he is proud of what he has done; but the song is asking him how on earth can you sleep at night? He then turns round to see hundreds of people outside his house asking him the same question. It gradually turns him insane as he realises that he in fact isn't getting any sleep. The band are definitely having a go at big oil companies who only think about short term profit, and how they are basically paying scientists to speak out and say that climate change and global warming isn't really and it isn't happening and that we should just carry on as we are. Thus they wonder how these people sleep at night. Personally i agree with the band; it is behavior like that that has caused the current state of our planet.