Hard Fi - Cash Machine

'Cash Machine' is the debut single by English indie rock band Hard-Fi, taken from their debut album Stars of CCTV. It was originally released on 24 January 2005 and there have been different music videos, produced for the song, one of which was a low-budget video for the original release, and an official version for the re-release.

Original Music Video:

The original video has Hard-Fi's boss "Mr. Big" telling the band that "the reason you boys are so skint is the record company hasn't paid us". "Mr Big" is very similar to Guy Ritchie's mobster character in the British gangster film, 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'. He orders them to steal the tapes from a courier at Heathrow Airport. The band, wearing masks of political figures such as the Queen and Tony Blair, end up mostly fighting each other, while lead singer Archer discovers the case, believed to hold the tapes.

The video is interspersed with shots of the band playing in a field near an airport as large planes fly overhead. It contains a sly reference to their idols 'The Clash', as during the performance in the field, Archer pulls a mask off of Stephens' face, similarly to the video for "Rock the Casbah", when Joe Strummer reveals guitarist Mick Jones' face. I will look at the locations that I will use within my own music video, to ensure that they are accessible and interesting.

Archer explains that "The budget was less than £1,000. The whole budget was pizza, beer and world leader masks. The rest was favours from friends, but for the second one we had much more money. When we made that single we weren't signed to a major label yet but a small independent. So we had no money, we'd made this little mini-album for just £300 in a lock-up in Staines on a mouldy old laptop that kept crashing. And we thought we needed a single and a video for it. But we had no money. A mate of mine was pretty good with a camera, and we decided to make a Heist movie, because we'd seen a documentary about a heist and the U2 "Beautiful Day" video - obviously that was done with CGI graphics and hundreds of thousands of pounds, but we thought 'Let's use our brains, our resources, what's round us. We live right underneath Heathrow Airport, let's go and do it for real'. So, we scouted the area, worked out which way the planes were flying, and got up early one morning, got the gear over the fence, set up and assessed the risks."

Official Music Video:

The second video that was made is known as the official music video for the song. It shows the interior of a cash machine staffed by miniature humans, including the four band members, who are working in conditions similar to coal mines. The images are similar to the Fire planet from season 3 of the science fantasy television series Lexx. The video shows these people involved in all steps of making the money, from cutting down the trees used for the paper, to painting the money, to pushing it through the slot when someone requires it. The workers finally rebel, and destroy the interior of the machine in a series of explosions. Life-sized Archer comes to the machine shortly after these events and, finding a message declaring the machine out of service, again proclaiming, "Oh knickers!" just like in the original music video.

There is typically a relationship between the song lyrics, the music, and the visuals in a music video. Most songs are about a certain item, act, or emotion, and this is normally portrayed by the visuals of the video, but in other cases the lyrics can contradict what is in the video, or have no correlation what so ever. Also, in music videos the lyrics and video can combine to portray and repeat a message to manipulate the audience. All four of these points are described and named by Andrew Goodwin,

Disjuncture: The video and the lyrics have no correlation to each other.

Contradict: The visuals of the video contradict with the song lyrics.

Illustrate: The visuals have some literal representation of the songs lyrics.

Amplify: Repetition of the key meaning to manipulate an audience. The visuals may be exaggerated.

The song Cash Machine, shows the image of a cash machine and them working in a cash machine, as the song repeats “working for the cash machine”, illustrating the message, and amplifying the message. This video is a more literal interpretation of the lyrics of the song than the original music video. Another example being when, Archer is using a mobile phone while singing "I try to phone a friend". I will look at how I use different shots and images, to represent the lyrics in the song that I choose, to use for my own music video.