3. What is a Music Video?
• My definition of a music video – a music video is what accompanies the
music giving imagery or showing/telling a story.
• The actual definition - A music video or song video is a short film
integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic
purposes.
4. Narrative Music Videos
Examples:
• Britney Spears – Everytime: In this video she is finding it hard being famous and
she has a boyfriend that has anger management issues. Britney tries to end her life
when she wakes up in hospital to a baby being born.
• Gwen Stefani – Cool: In this video Gwen meets her ex boyfriends new girlfriend
for the first time.
• Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun: In this video Cyndi’s dad won’t let her
have fun so she goes out and brings back a lot of people to her house.
• Bruno Mars – Grenade: In this video he is desperate to impress his hard to get girl
in this song, that he assures her he would catch a grenade for her, along with other
assorted foolhardy acts in order to prove his love for her. Basically he would risk his
life for her.
Definition - This style relies on imagery to produce a story for the audience to follow
and some narrative videos include clips from films that the song has been featured
in. This seems to be used a lot in slower songs, and often tend to be love stories.
5. Performance Music Video
Definition - This style focuses on showing footage of the artist or band either in a
casual environment. It uses the band/artist/group throughout the majority of the
production and the artist, band members are often miming the words to the song.
Examples:
• Foo Fighters – My Hero: In this video the concept itself is surprisingly simple, but
powerful and effective. The house fire provides an urgency to the performance
that matches the song itself.
6. Successful Music Video
Definition – Successful music videos exceed over 100 thousand views.
Examples:
• PSY – Gangnam Style: This music video has 2,444,336,534 views on YouTube.
• Taylor Swift – Blank Space: This music video has 1,254,007,011 views on YouTube.
• Justin Bieber – Baby: This music video has 1,231,640,347 views on YouTube.
• Katy Perry – Dark Horse: This music video has 1,157,247,867 views on YouTube.
• Taylor Swift – Shake It Off: This music video has 1,131,360,627 views on YouTube.
• Katy Perry – Roar: This music video has 1,123,040,509 views on YouTube.
• Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars – Uptown Funk: This music video has 1,121,383,803
views on YouTube.
• Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth – See You Again: This music video has 1,111,658,322
views on YouTube.
7. What is the purpose of
Music Videos?
• The purpose of music videos is to sell the song and invoke a
reaction so it leaves you remembering the song to give the
listener a better understanding of the song (if the video is
narrative). It is to entertain the audience and to show of
the other talents that the musician may have (for example
acting or dancing). It is to sell CDs, DVDs and MP3s to
viewers. It creates a memorable visual for the song helping
with its increase to sell. It creates marketing purposes of
exposure and expansion of the artists profile.
• The music video is a promotional tool for the artist. It
sometime serves as a platform to attention from a label,
but more often is a catalyst for sale or song downloads.
