Fateh Khaled 8703

1. From the book “Music video and the Politics of Representation – By
Diane Raiton and Paul Watson
Fateh Khaled 8703

2.  The music industry is controlled by so many genres
(which further can be divided into subgenres)
 Some artists claim to have an individual styles that
avoids the classification of music genres.
 However, Joshua Gunn suggests that genre is
inevitable in any discussion of popular music.
 This is because fans and artists negotiate the
boundaries of subcultural identity.
 Music genre is not only understood by as corporate
texts but also as a set of codes and conventions
that governs the actions and behaviours of people
within the music community.

3.  The term ‘boundary disputes’ is used to view
genre, this merely means that it is always in some
sense arbitrary and open to negotiation.
 There are four principle generic configurations of
the music video, these four are pseudo
documentary, art music video, narrative and staged
performance.
 Defining music genres is not so much of a
straightforward task, this is because some genres
in music videos overlap and something considered
as one genre may also be considered within
another genre.

4.  The lack of genre based work in the music video is
entirely predictable for a number of reasons;
 Firstly, academic criticism of music videos has
often been subsumed within accounts of MTV
which stress it’s postmodern formal and aesthetic
properties.
 For instance, John Fiske (media theorist) argues
that the rock video or MTV is only TV’s original art
form.
 In simpler terms, he suggests that now the music
video becomes conflated and confused with it’s
context of it’s distribution.

5.  Carol Vernallis argues that:
 Music video derives from the song they set –
the song is produced before the video is
conceived – and the director normally designs
images with the song as a guide. Moreover, the
video must sell the song; it is therefore
responsible to the song in the eyes of the artist
and the record company.

6.  The videos which accompany the songs
compromising any one musical genre can display
striking formal and aesthetic variation. By the same
token, videos for songs from quite different music
genres often have far more common factors with
each other than those within the same music
genre.
 Imani Perry’s essay on the image and identity of
women in hip hop is a good example of the kind of
work which slips from discussion of musical genres
to genres of video as if the two sets of text
entertain specific and identifiable relationships
with each other causes by the same generic genre.

7.  This genre of music video deploys the aesthetics of documentary
realism to portray the ‘working life’ of the band/artist.
 This therefore functions the legitimate them as artists/role models.
 Whilst videos in this category associate with forms of documentary
film they use aspects such as a grainy colour scheme which is
usually black and white, and a shaky hand held camera to create
the documentary effect.
 This is done by filming the artist in their ‘natural environment’.
 A prime example of this is Toby Keith’s “Get Drunk And Be
Somebody” (2006) which shows his band performing to the song
live on stage in an auditorium in front of a large crowd.
 Techniques of Toby’s music video include; establishing shot of the
crowd to show the significance of the performance, the members
dancing and singing, long shots of the venue including a rear shot,
all these aspects help to maintain the conventions of this particular
style of a music video.

8.  Art video claims the legitimacy by appealing the
notions of art and aesthetics.
 The art music video stands in relationship to video art
just as the pseudo-documentary video stands for it’s
documentary style.
 Therefore the director adopts artistic techniques to
produce an artistic effect.
 The art music video may also be a work of art but it
nevertheless remains the case that it is first and
foremost a promotional video.
 Despite it’s content, visual art music videos tend to be
about the experience of light, colour, movement and
sound, in order to be aesthetically pleasing for it’s
consumers.

9.  As the name suggests, the narrative video is defined by
the fact that it tells a story.
 It can do this in a number of ways such as funtioning
independently but at the same time variously illustrate
the complexity of the lyrical content.
 A useful example of this is Tupac’s “Brenda’s Got A
Baby” – 1991, the lyrics of which tell the story of a 12
year old girl’s pregnancy, abandonment of her baby
whilst sliding into drug taking and prostitution.
 The video which accompanies the song is almost
completely motivated by the desire to illustrate the
visual imagery by the lyrics which is a linear fashion as
it has a beginning, middle and an end.
 In modern day music videos this is not always the case
because disjuncture and amplification can occur.

10.  Unlike the other genre of music videos which tend to be
for commercial purposes, stage performance embraces
is promotional function and turns it into a virtue.
 So these videos do not offer an image of apparently
unfettered reality, neither do they claim aesthetic
legitimacy (art music videos).
 One of the most obvious ways in which a staged
performance music video signals it’s artificiality is by
locating the action in the studio, and more specifically
against either a plain background or a highly stylised
architectural backdrop.
 An example of this would be Destiny Childs’
“Bootylicious” (2001) and Justin Timberlakes “Rock Your
Body” (2003).

11.  The four genres outlined above describe the formal
and aesthetic features of a contemporary music
video.
 However, this is neither to say that they adequately
describe every music video this is because the
styling of the music videos are constantly changing
and new ideas are evolving.
 Many music videos can be considered as ‘generic
hybrids’, which means incorporating two or more
categories in a less self conscious way. An example
of this is Prodigy’s Smack My B**** Up” which uses
restricted narration and a subjective camera.