1. E L L E A H S T A N T O N
CONVENTIONS OF POP
MUSIC VIDEO
2. COSTUME
• The artists or characters in the
narrative are generally clothed in
fashionable outfits. This is unless
the video is more conceptual,
artistic or comedic. For example
in Ellie Goulding’s music video for
On My Mind, she wears very
‘trendy’ clothes that are also
worn by a lot of the public.
• However in Lady Gaga’s video for
Bad Romance, she is dressed in
strange colourful costumes that
you would not see the public
wearing. These types of costumes
tend to appear in videos with
more of an artistic concept or a
more comedic concept.
3. ARTIST/CHARACTER
• They are often shown either really content with life,
or extremely upset/depressed. Depending on the
song, the artists can be shown dancing or in love
like in One Direction’s Drag Me Down, or extremely
sad like in many of Ed Sheeran’s music videos,
notably Give Me Love.
4. AUDIENCE
• They usually try to empathise with teenagers by showing scenes of
things they may find intriguing like the gang scene in David Guetta’s
Play Hard music video. They also do this by including things that
teenagers usually do in their spare time, like dancing. I have noticed
myself that shots of crowds of people dancing and partying is an
extremely common theme among pop music videos.
5. MALE GAZE
• Voyeurism is prominent with artists such as Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and
Nicki Minaj who all fulfil the Male Gaze theory. They often sexualise
themselves in music videos with erotic dance moves and skimpy
outfits.
• However, even though the ‘Female gaze’ isn’t part of this theory, I still
believe that it is a common thing. Males are also made up to look
sexually appealing and may therefore attract a female gaze.
6. AGE AND LOVE
• The characters in the videos are also normally young. This is so that
the video attracts a younger audience as artists and video directors
know that that is where the money is. Young audience members see
these characters and look up to them, creating role models out of
them. They aspire to look like the characters and artists in the music
videos.
• An extremely common theme is also LOVE. Through visuals of a
couple being together, or fighting, there is almost always reference
to love and relationships.
7. ARTISTS NAME
• There is almost always reference to the name of the
artist in the song. This is something that I have
noticed a lot with MAX, especially in his song Mug
Shot. This is then taken into the video too, usually
with graphics or even in a prop, or both!
8. MOTIFS
• An artist usually has a certain something that they
wear or use that gives them a certain identity. An
example of this is James Bay’s hat, which he wears
in live shows, music videos, album art and more.
