The music video for Lana Del Rey's song 'West Coast' was released on youtube on May 7th 2014 and is a narrative video shot on location, but is also performance based.
The video for the song definitely illustrates the lyrics. An example of this is when Lana sings 'Down on the West Coast' and the visual that accompanies it is her stood on a beach, suggesting that she is on the West Coast. Then there is a tracking shot of palm trees, echoing the idea of the beach environment.
Sound beats - don't always match the visuals - disjointed
Lana Del Rey, the star, is the main focus for the record label, and therefore there are lots of shots of her. She appears as the protagonist in the narrative of the video, and is also seen performing (lip syncing) the song, which is common in pop videos. Her 'look' is very important in regards to her star image, which Andrew Goodwin talks about in 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'. She is a very recognisable figure, and there are certain aspects about her/her videos that are very unique to her, which fans use to relate to her or associate with her, for example: her moody, grunge/hollywood glamour look, black and white imagery, palm trees, cigarettes, home video-esque filming etc. This iconography recurs throughout all of her videos, her concerts, her interviews etc and therefore, fans associate them with her whenever they see them. Obviously, with her voice being so unique, this adds to her star image also - people identify her voice with her image automatically.
An interesting aspect of the music video is that some of the footage appears as though it is home video footage.
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