Song Research

  This post is made by my teammate Sharon, here we will look in detail at our song choice : 'High School in Jakarta, NIKI' 2022

"High School in Jakarta" is a song by Indonesian singer-songwriter Niki. It was released by 88rising as the third and final single from her second studio album, Nicole (2022), on 5 August 2022. “High School in Jakarta” revisits Indonesian singer-songwriter NIKI’s high school years. After revealing the challenge of maintaining a long-distance relationship and the end of this relationship in the videos of “Before” and “Oceans & Engines,” the video of the third and final single off NIKI’s sophomore album depicts how the young couple fell in love in high school. As a prequel to the previous music videos, from a nostalgic lens, we see how NIKI and her ex-lover met in the drama club, how they fell in love, and how they came up with their couple handshake, which also appeared in the previous videos. 

The reason we choose this music video is as high school in Jakarta music video is representing our daily life as a high school student. The themes, mis en scenes, events in the music video represents us as high school students which makes us relate to it better. Moreover, the scenes locating at school would be easier for us to film as we have access to the location. 

Our music video will subvert from the conventions in high school in Jakarta. This is as the music video has connotations has typical high school vibes such as love, friendship and school dramas. However, my team would like to show the darker side of high school which is usually overlooked by people such as in academics, breakups, friendships and navigating throughout our high school years. By showing the darker side of highschool we are able to show a more raw, honest and relatable perspective which goes above the idealized image of highschool videos represented in media. 

Self Reflection:

Sharon did the song research, as this was her song choice after all. She is a huge fan of the music artis "Niki" who made High School in Jakarta and just had overall better knowledge on music compared to me, so she took over the song research.