The purpose of Music Video's

What are the Purpose of Music Videos?

·       To sell the song through visuals

·       To make it easier for the listener to understand the song through the narration

·       To help identify the artist and to gain an identity about them

·       To promote the music and artist either viral marketing

·       To entertain the audience

There are different types of music videos

Narrative Based Videos

Narrative based videos contain mostly footage that tells the story through moving imagery as it plays along to the lyrics.  This is supported through the actors and mise-en-scene like the props and location.

Typical narrative for music videos usually has a subjective character (wide range of character stories) or an objective character (one character’s story is shown.) The artist or an actor usually plays the fictional protagonist.

Beyoncé-Irreplaceable

Performance based videos

Performance based videos are generally of the artist/artists performing their track, commonly over different backgrounds. This can produce low budgets.

Bruno Mars- Locked Out of Heaven

Concept based videos

Concept based music videos are generally ideas that have been developed and have no connection to the song. They need to rely on the mise-en-scene and camera angles in order to create the video. Although some concept based videos have some aspect of performance where it would cut away back and fourth from the artist to the concept ideas. Overall if there is no performance at all then they don’t have any relation to the music and make no sense.

Aphex Twin – Monkey Drummer