What is a music video?

What is a music video?

Definition: A filmed or videotaped rendition of a recorded song, often portraying musicians performing the song or including visual images interpreting the lyrics.

There are four things that you must look at when trying to analyse a music video:

 1) The purpose of the video

2) The style of the video

3) The codes & conventions of the video

4) The target audience of the video

PURPOSE

The purpose is all about what the artist is trying to achieve with making and distributing the video. The main purposes for most artists are the following:

• A market tool to promote a artist/song – this is the obvious purpose as releasing a video will help the artist to gain publicity and attention from the public and this will promote both them and whatever is in the video, i.e. song, actors, dances, the video itself.
• A short narrative or representation of the artist – An artist’s music video lets the audience find out more about the artist and their style of music.
• To buy into the audience’s lifestyle – This is where advertising and endorsement deals come into a video. If a fan sees their favourite artist with a certain set of headphones, then they are more likely to go buy it as they will believe they will be more like the artist if they own the same product.
• To show the generic conventions of a genre/music video – this gives the audience a view of what kind of music the artist does without even hearing or having to go and search about it.
• For the audience to remember the music video – no artist wants to make a music video that everyone will forget in a day. They want it to be memorable as the more memorable it is, the more people will go and talk about the video and bring more attention and viewers to it.
• To build a relationship with the artist – The music video helps the audience to create a connection with the artist and find out more about them on a personal level. Even though artists have social networking sites where they can communicate with fans, a video reveals more about their actions and their musicality.
• For the audience to understand more about a song – The music video is basically a extension of the song itself. Without the song, it would just be another video and not a music video. 

Looking at Justin Bieber’s, Beauty And A Beat video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys7-6_t7OEQ), there are many different purposes in it.

There is an advertisement, which falls under the buy into an artist’s lifestyle. 

There is the publicity stunt of the stolen footage, which shows clips of Justin as a child and stuff from his everyday life, which goes building a relationship with the artist. 

The fact that the artist has directed, written & shot the video makes it memorable for the fans as they will believe that the video is what he wants it to be and will include what he will like, which makes Beauty And A Beauty fall under making the audience understand the song and artist more.

STYLE

There are 3 different styles that a music video can be,

• Performance – This is when the artist is singing or dancing.
• Narrative – This is when the music video tells the audience a story
• Concept – This is when the music video sells an idea or theme to the audience.

Christina Aguilera’s music video for Beautiful (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAfyFTzZDMMM) has all three types of style in it. 

It has the performance side when Christina is singing in the room by herself.

It has the narrative side when the audience see the difference lives of the different people and what they go through in a day.

It has the concept side, though the song trying to sell the idea that being difference is good and that you shouldn’t feel bad or insecure about it. The concept is shown to be successful due to the people in the video being happy and showing that they don’t care what other people think.

CODES & CONVENTIONS

All music videos are made to present an artist’s song and every single song will fit into a music genre. Each genre has different codes & conventions that will help the audience to recognise which style of music they are watching and listening to. 

Looking at Trey Songz’s music video, Heart Attack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r3MZNCGzVY), we can see that his music videos has certain codes & conventions that fit in with the R’n’B genre. 

Both his and the actress wear clothes that fit into the genre, i.e. he wears a snapback cap, a diamond earring & he wears gold chains. The women is seen to be carrying a designer bag, which shows off her wealth and this is a convention in an R’n’B video.

 Also the actress is Kelly Rowland, who is a famous singer too and this shows off the artist’s connections & this can be used as an example of a purpose of a video.

Another video that uses the right codes and conventions would be Sean Paul’s music video for Got 2 Luv U (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDq3fNew1rU). 

This is a dance song and this is shown through the use of the bright lights in the club in the video. This connotes that the song fits in the dance genre as it shows a place that you would expect the song to be played. 

Also, the suite that the artist appears to be staying in shows off his wealth and this helps to show that the song is also an R’n’B song too. 

MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS
I looked at Calvin Harris’s song “I need your love” feat Ellie Goulding (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtKZKl7Bgu0).

Purpose:

• A short narrative of the artist – The video is showing what seems to be a normal day for the artist. This shows a story and also lets the audience see that the artist is normal despite his fame and fortunes.

• To buy into his lifestyle – One of the actresses is shown to be wearing a brand of headphones when she is on the boat ride. Many fans will go and buy the headphones as they believe that Calvin is associated with them and that they will be more like him or would be closer to him if they use the same items as him.

• To remember a music video – When Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding were filming this music video, many gossip blogs and newspapers speculated whether they were really as close as they were for their filming and this caused publicity for the song and music video as people wrote that the reason why they were together was because of it. 

• Build a relationship with the artist – The audience gets to see how the artist is when he isn’t working and what he likes to do. This means that the audience will feel more connected to the artist and they will become more invested into what he does next.

Style:

I would say that this music video is a narrative and a performance music video. I believe that it is a narrative one due to the clips of the different people lives when they take the camera after finding it. The performance side of the video is shown when Ellie Goulding is lying on the bed & singing the song as she is performing and singing to the camera. 

Codes & Conventions:

“I need your love” goes under the dance genre and this is apparent throughout the music video. 
One of the locations for the filming for the music video is in a nightclub when the artist, Calvin Harris is dj-ing for the partygoers. This is conventional for a dance music video as there will most probably always have a night club setting in their video. 

In one of the scenes, there are some girls in bikinis relaxing on a boat and this is conventional for the dance genre as women are normally seen to be scantily dressed and seen as sexual objects in dance songs.

Near the end of the music video, the artist Calvin Harris appears to take the camera off the women in the club and he turns the view into the crowd where all the people are holding glowsticks. This is done to show some bright different coloured lights which is also conventional for a dance music video as bright lights connote energy and this is one adjective that would be under a dance music video genre.