Categories of Music Videos

By Jumana Ismail

Three main categories:

When producing music videos, it is important to know that there are three different categories in which music videos fit in to and some may vary depending on the genre of the song. Each of the three categories are significant in music videos and are used for a vital purpose.

The three main categories are: Performance based videosNarrative based videosConcept based

Performance based videosPerformance based videos are typical within many music videos, in which the artist simply performs their song in a studio or at a concert, portraying the fact that they are the ones singing the song. Performance based songs may impact the audience massively as they may focus more on the lyrics of the song rather than the actual music video. In addition, this may connect the audience to the artist more, as they are watching the artist singing the actual lyrics and therefore the artist may be implying that the lyrics are directly coming from the artist within. Performance based videos are popular within the Indie Folk genre as the artist would rather be more intimate with the lyrics in order to captivate the audience with meaning behind the song. Additionally, performance based videos tend to be used a lot with rock bands, because rock bands tend to perform at really energetic and lively concerts , in which their demographic would be more interested in watching the concert in addition to listening to their songs.

Examples of performance based videos:

30 seconds to Mars- ‘Closer to the Edge’ Beyonce – ‘Listen’ Daughter- ‘Youth’ Green day – ‘American Idiot’ Saving Aimee – ‘Fresh since’88’

The song ‘Youth’ by Daughter is the song that me and my group decided to produce a music video to. We thought that it would be good idea to create a music video to it due to the fact that it is a performance based video and

by doing so, we will have an original idea added towards it. The audience may also be

excited and attracted to watch out music video as they may be enticed to know if their imagination of the lyrics was similar or not.

Example of a performance based music video

Green day – ‘American Idiot’

Green day is an American rock band that have a performance based music video based on their song, ‘American Idiot’. The whole video is performance based in which their a various amount of camera shots that illustrate the band performing the song and one of the band members (Billie Joe) singing directly into the camera. By doing this, the audience pay more attention to the actual band and enabling the audience to feel part of the performance and more attached. Furthermore, this song is very political, indirectly informing their audience about disorder and chaos that occurs in America today , so by making this song a performance based video, they are implying to their audience that this is directly how they feel. They may believe that they do not need an ‘acted out’ narrative to portray the meaning behind the song as they strongly believe in what they are singing.

Narrative based videosNarrative based videos consist of music videos with a story line throughout that mainly relates to the lyrics of the song and its genre. By adding a story line to a music video, it enables the audience to become more hooked and interested to watch the music video. Narrative based music videos tend to rely on the visuals and the imagery in order to produce a captivating story for the audience to follow. A narrative based music video may be performed by the actual artists who sing the song, or from other actors/dancers that perform in the music video. In addition, a narrative added in a music video will allow the audience to be able to interact with the video and include their thoughts in how they imagined the video to be. Narrative based music videos also boost the viewers experience when watching the video as it allows them to see the artists visual illustration of what they thought the lyrics meant.Furthermore, it is very common for many narrative based music videos to use part of the film that the song has been featured in. For example, this is present in the song ‘Decode’ by Paramore that have been taken from the movie Twilight.

Examples of Narrative based music videos: Bruno Mars- ‘Grenade’ Jay z ft Kanye West ‘ No church in Wild’

Example of a Narrative based music video

An example of a music video that is a narrative based music video would be ‘Take on Me’ by A-ha. The music video has a theme of a romantic fantasy narrative in which the story line consists of a tableau of pencil drawings in a comic book that represents competitive motorcycle sidecar racing. The story in the comic book portrays the hero pursued by two enemies. Subsequently , with the use of editing techniques , the scene cuts to a woman sitting in a cafe drinking coffee. After asking the waitress for her bill, the comic hero winks at the girl from the comic book and reaches out his pencil drawn hand to invite the woman into the comic book. As her pencil form self goes into the comic book, the hero sings to the woman as he introduces her to his own animated world. Eventually and throughout the music video, the hero flashes between the real life version of himself and the animated one.Although this is mainly narrative based, there are scenes in

the music video where the artist is lip syncing into the camera, and therefore this adds a slight performance to the music video.