Blog 1 What is a music video

The purpose of music video

Promotional:

The main purpose of a music video is to promote and showcase the artist. By releasing a music video it promotes the single used, the newest album, the artist, the record label and any products used as products placement. This in return increases profits for the artists and the record label

Extension of income: Music videos can help promote the artists years after it’s released if it’s valued and memorable enough. They can also help sell merchandise or raise the artists profile to increase tour sales. Royalties are paid to the artist for Music TV Channels airing their music videos or if the song is used in an advertisement. Sales from downloads or physical releases are also counted.

Different types of music video

Performance music videos

A performance-based music video can include dancing, lip-syncing, and band members playing their various instruments. It can even be a recording of them playing live in some cases.

1. Foo Fighters - My Hero

2. Weezer - Buddy Holly

3. Slipknot - Duality

Narrative music videos

It is essentially a short film based on the song. Narrative music videos typically include a structure of a beginning, middle, and end. There are also usually no lip-syncing or musical performances in the video. The band creates a narrative around the lyrics relating to the song's themes.

Illustration, Amplification, and Disjuncture.

If the director uses illustration, they create a music video where the narrative is based purely on the song. The video will usually include a direct reference to the lyrics. The scenes are a more or less direct representation of the meaning of the lyrics.

The director will utilize their creative genes when creating the music video with amplification. Here the lyrics are still closely connected to the music video.

It can have complementary scenes not necessarily in the verses but relate to the themes and amplify the song's meaning.

Lastly, disjuncture is when the narrative becomes detached from the song's meaning. Here the director chooses to create a new meaning or theme through the video.

It is essentially a narrative video that might not make much sense on the first viewing.

Concept music videos

Concept music videos are videos without a storyline and typically have no relevance to the lyrics themselves. The concept music video is usually based on the artist's vision. It can be seen as a way to expand their creative vision with the song. The concept music video typically includes a performance or a narrative, so the audience doesn't get all lost. But while there might be a smaller narrative in the video, there is typically no structure to the video. What makes these types of videos so attractive is their uniqueness which can sear into the audience's brain. Audiences will get fascinated by trying to understand the video, or just because it's so eccentric, they can't forget it.

Animated music videos

Animated music videos mean everything from a simple 2D animation to stop motion or CGI. Animation music videos typically follow the same structure as other music video types.

In some ways, you can see the animated music video as a hybrid.

If we look at famous animated music videos, we can look at Kanye West's Heartless. This video features an animated version of Ye performing while walking around at night in his City.

The music video resembles a live-action video and took inspiration from the 1981 movie American Pop. The footage looks so real because they used a rotoscoping technique, where they shot all of the footage in real life and had a team of animators drawing on top of it.

Members of the production team？

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Hip pop music video

Hip-hop music videos tend to be performance-based; it is common for the artist to be shown performing onstage in front of a large crowd, or performing directly to a camera in a studio. However, some hip-hop music videos convey narratives, which commonly consist of themes of love, ‘the streets’, current events, and lifestyle. This is done to match the song’s themes, and to enable the rapped lyrics to be portrayed visually.

Many hip-hop songs also address important social issues, especially those which involve the black community as hip-hop artists are predominantly African-American. Issues may include police brutality and poor financial situations.

When it comes to camerawork, hip-hop videos often feature low angle, close up shots which present the artist as someone to behold, giving them a sense of power, dominance and recognition. Low angle shots are often used to give the viewer the impression of a concert audience’s perspective; however they are also used to portray that the artist is literally looking down on the audience. Close-ups are used in this genre to show importance. Much like in R&B, camerawork is commonly used to portray men as high-status and powerful, with use of low angles, and women as attractive and appealing.

Pop music video

Pop videos are usually bright and colour, as this is aesthetically pleasing to the audience. As well as this, the fashion in the videos are timely, in order to similarly appeal to a wide and youthful audience. Pop videos usually feature mostly young people, as this relates to the main demographic, and the narrative is often oriented on the theme of love, as this is usually the topic of the song, and will appeal to the widest audience. Pop videos that feature female pop stars often try to appeal to the female gaze by sexualising men, whereas videos that feature male pop stars try to appeal to the male gaze by sexualising women.

911-Lady GAGA

A Billboard article described "911" as "a song about when your brain and your body feel at war with each other." The track details Gaga's relationship to her antipsychotic medication, olanzapine, which she takes for neuropathic pain and regular trauma responses, as she is not permitted to turn to pain medications in fear of addiction. Gaga said: "It's about an antipsychotic that I take. And it's because I can't always control things that my brain does. I know that. And I have to take medication to stop the process that occurs."

Genre:

It is a Eurodisco, synth-pop, and electropop song with influences from techno and funk. Gaga sings in monotonous, robotic vocal effects for most part of the track.

Fruit symbolism:

Hades uses pomegranate seeds to trick Persephone, whose mother is the goddess of agriculture and earth, tethering her to the underworld. Persephone becomes Hades' wife. She's forced to return to the underworld periodically, which causes winter.

Pomegranates have diverse cultural-religious significance, as a symbol of life and fertility owing to their many seeds but also as a symbol of power, blood and death. Pomegranates already symbolized fertility, beauty and eternal life, in Greek and Persian mythology.

Given the myth's themes of emotional trauma and manipulation, Gaga might be expressing her beauty and liveliness falling into death.

Inspirations and analysis

Throughout the video, Singh visually references The Color of Pomegranates (1969), an Armenian Soviet art film by Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov. The more obvious nods to the film include pomegranates scattered around Gaga's damaged bicycle, and the film's poster appearing on the street scene at the end of the video. Gaga's video presents the film's symbols in her own allegory of pain. Some of the outfits are inspired by painter Frida Kahlo's style, and the accident scene is reminiscent of the traumatic bus collision that inspired some of Kahlo's most famous work.Its reminiscent visuals were also inspired by Singh's 2000 film The Cell. Other references include Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) and Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain (1973).

The Color of Pomegranates (1969)

COMPARASION:

ANALYSIS:

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Eminem - The Real Slim Shady

The lyrics of “The Real Slim Shady” are fast-paced and feature Eminem rapping about a variety of topics. One of the most prominent themes of the song is Eminem’s criticism of the mainstream media and its portrayal of him. He also addresses criticism he has faced for his controversial lyrics and persona.

Artist Persona

EMINEM IS THE RAPPER, SLIM SHADY WOULD KILL YOU, AND MARSHALL MATHERS IS THE PERSON BEHIND THE MASK.
                                                 -EMINEM 

WITHOUT ME

The song mocks a number of Eminem's critics, including Vice President Dick Cheney (including his recurring heart problems) and his wife Lynne, the FCC, Chris Kirkpatrick (of NSYNC), Limp Bizkit and Moby, as well as parodying Prince's decision to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol. It also lampoons comparisons of him to Elvis Presley as a white man succeeding commercially in a predominantly black art form. A line also attacks his mother Debbie Mathers for the lawsuit she filed for the lyrics of his breakthrough hit "My Name Is".