People choose music that reflects their emotions, personality, and social identity. Music preference can parallel a person's mood, with unhappy people liking sad songs. Musical tastes also reflect traits like aggression. The social groups someone identifies with influence the genres they enjoy. Music videos can shape an artist's public image and promote their songs through controversy that generates online attention. Relatable plots and characters also attract viewers, while offensive, confusing, or slow videos tend to put people off.

1. Why do people choose the music they do?
There are a number of theories explaining an individual’s music preference:
-According to research, people will choose music that parallels their emotions (i.e people who
are upset will listen to sad music) as the genre of song reflects something akin to an
empathetic friend; they can relate to the lyrics within. By listening to songs that reflect their
mood, the listener feels like the song understands them, through the events and/or emotions
that described in it.
-A person’s musical preference can be a reflection on their personality. For example, aggressive
people like heavy metal and rock whilst rebellious people like hip hop and rap.
- The choice of a particular music genre is driven mostly by our social identity (e.g if you see
yourself as intellectual you will prefer Jazz or Classical, if you are a rebel you will have a
preference for Rock and Heavy Metal), with external influences like social groups and
mainstream listening also affecting what an individual will listen to.

2. Do music videos make a difference to a song’s
success?
• Music videos allow the artist to present themselves in a particular way (whilst
Rihanna portrays herself provocatively, Adele is seen as more sophisticated),
manipulating the audiences preconception and impression to what the artist
desires.
• Videos that are seen controversial are successful in exposing a song to the wider
population as it generates hype. Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball is a good example of
using controversy to gain hits on media platforms such as YouTube.
• They are a great way to expose the band/artist universally due to the internet
being able to be accessed from across the globe. It is also an easy way to
encourage word of mouth as music videos are able to be distributed and shared
on social media platforms.

3. What attracts people to music videos?
• Controversial videos are very tempting to the public, with people
wanting to view the video to simply find out why it has caused a hype
and controversy.
• People watch music videos if they can relate to the character or plot,
with the video making the viewer feel better as they feel as though
the video can understand them and/or their situation. Music videos
can also covertly advise the viewer of how to handle their situation.
• People may watch videos just because they are entertaining or to
simply view their favourite artist.

4. What puts people off music videos?
• Videos that the viewer may consider offensive are unlikely to
attract a large quantity of viewership as people will be put off it
due to the negative message it sends out on ethnicity, gender, age
etc.
• Disjuncture music videos are very rare as viewership is often low.
This is because the audience simply do not understand the video
or/and become confused by it.
• Music videos that do not have enough action, are slow paced or
just don’t go anywhere in terms of plot are off putting to an
audience as they simply become bored by it.

5. Why would people expect in my music video?
• People would expect a variety of clips or movement of the
plot/ story, otherwise the music video will be dull and people
will not be entertained by it.
• They will also want it to remain unambiguous and easy to
understand.
• To prevent my music video from becoming tedious, I will use a
variety of camera shots and different settings to portray
emotions, state of mind etc.