Styles of Music Videos - Performance, Narrative and Concept

There are 3 types of music videos, these are often used to promote the artist and convey meaning of the song. For example, 'Love Story' by Taylor Swift is a narrative video and conveys a message about a boy and a girl falling in love. Many videos combine different styles into their videos such as 'Superheroes' by The Script, this video is a combination of performance and narrative style.

Performance Videos
Many performance videos are associated with the rock genre of music, this is often the style that rock videos will use. For example, 'We Will Rock You' by Queen and 'Livin on a Prayer' by Bon Jovi.
I have looked at a range of performance videos and found an iconic song 'Mamma Mia' by Abba; which uses a performance style video; when I looked further into their work, I found that a majority of their music videos use a performance style. This breaks the stereotype of performance videos mainly being used by rock bands, as Abba is a pop/disco style band. I analysed this video and found that many of the key features of performance videos are used in 'Mamma Mia'. For example, there are many close ups of the band; in particular the lead singers. In some cases, extreme close ups are used of the two lead female singers when they are singing the chorus. There are also close ups of instruments being played; such as the guitar on the guitar solo and piano on the piano solo. Also, the clothing that they are wearing is very unusual and certainly not everyday clothing; they are wearing very disco style all in one outfits that are often associated with 'Abba'. This is one of their 'motifs' that they used in a lot of their performances. Another way in which this is a performance video is that the band is performing throughout the whole video, there aren't any narrative scenes that could make the video combined with any other styles. Finally, the band is performing in a unusual place, the setting is what seems to be a white room, which contains only a piano and the band themselves. This is another way the video is performance style. The only feature that makes this video not performance style is the fact that there is not an audience watching them perform; although this is common and not vital in all performance videos.

Narrative Videos
Narrative Style is used in many different genres and videos, and their is not really one particular genre which is typical to use narrative style. A few examples of videos that use this style are 'You Belong With Me' by Taylor Swift, 'Lego House' by Ed Sheeran and 'Hero' by Enrique Iglesias. I chose to look at 'Everything has Changed' by Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Both of these artists are well known for using narrative style in their videos. Some of the key features of narrative style videos is that their is a plot or storyline that typically ties in with the lyrics of the song. The storyline in Swift and Sheeran's video is about a young boy and girl that like each other. Throughout the video the audience is led to believe that the two children who like each other, are younger versions of Taylor and Ed. However, this turns out not to be the case when Swift and Sheeran are seen right at the end of the video picking up these children from school. It is then evident that they are the parents of the children in the video. There are also signs that there is a 'beginning, middle and end' to this story, which is another feature of narrative videos. The beginning shows the start of the school day when the children are getting on the bus, the middle shows them playing together and spending time together whilst at school and end shows them saying goodbye to one another at the end of the school day. So the plot is much like a 'mini-film' that has been based around the events of one day. There are links to stories such as 'Romeo and Juliet' for example, and we know that Taylor Swift sings a lot about this particular story as seen in her other video 'Love Story'. Therefore, this video can link to a different story, which is another feature of narrative style. The artists themselves are not seen at all throughout the video until the very end and very briefly. Therefore this is also a feature of narrative style, although this is not vital and in many narrative videos the artist is actually playing the character, as seen in 'You Belong With Me' by Taylor Swift.

Concept Videos
There are three types of concept videos, symbolic, thematic and idea based.

Thematic
Thematic Videos are videos where there are normally lots of different themes within a video. This often depends on the genre of the music. For example rap songs and rap music videos may feature lots of scenes and images of streets and gang culture. For example 'Not Afraid' by Eminem features lots of different scenes involving being on the streets and living in a run down, broken down house in the city. There are themes of violence, gangs and city life within the video.



Symbolic

This style of video is often used when a band or songwriter wants to portray a strong meaning to their song. For example, there are lots of symbols within the video that will represent different things e.g. a graveyard will represent death. These videos are often symbolising quite serious meaning and are trying to give a particular message to their audiences. I looked at 'Otherside' by Red Hot Chilli Peppers. This song tells the audience about the bands battles with addiction in their pasts. This is shown through the use of symbolism such as hallucinogenic images and fast paced editing. For example, there are images of the band on turn tables and surrounded by ladders, in what seems to be quite a cartoon like setting. This is how the band are trying to portray the effects of drugs to the audience. Some other features of symbolic videos are that lighting suggests the mood. In my example, the lighting is very dark, which links with the meaning of the video and song.

Idea Based

Idea Based videos are usually videos that display an 'interesting idea' or an unusual/artistic way of presenting music videos. Mise en Scene is a really important part of these videos as they normally need to be aesthetically pleasing and stylish. I looked at 'Lollipop' by Mika, as this is a very artistic video and is based around cartoon animation and the video has very little link to the song. The song is quite a fun song anyway, just like the video; so I don't feel like they had to have much meaning at all. The editing is quite fast paced, which is a key feature of these style of videos. There is also little continuous editing, although some; this is another feature and this is seen when the 'Lollipop Girl' goes rapidly from one scene to another. The video itself is very random and reminds me of children's programmes which I used to watch, which may be the link Mika wants to make. It is a very artistic video and certainly fun to watch.