Music Videos Purpose And Styles

Purpose of music videos

• Music videos are an important promotional tool for marketing performers and their music.
• They help to create the 'star image' for a new performance (e.g. Lana Del Rey)
• They adapt or develop the image of a more established artist (Rihanna)
• Music videos are used to interpret and anchor the meaning of a song and to entertain the audience.
• Iconography indicates the genre of music and the style of the performer.

Different Styles

Performance: One Direction - what makes you beautiful. - Close ups of the performer, direct address to engage the audience, different outfits.

  This music video would be performance based because the whole video is just of them singing putting on a performance with all the spotlight on them. There are loads of close ups of the performer with them looking at the camera which is direct address to the audience. There was also an outfit change towards the end when they all put on a jumper.

Narrative: Katy Perry - Thinking of you. David Guetta- Titanium. - A story is created, sometimes the lyrics don't match the visuals at all. Sometimes the artist doesnt feature at all and are just actors. Enigma codes.

This is a narrative music video because it tells a story and the artists don't feature at all.


Conceptual: They are based around an idea or image. E.g. Lady Gaga "Bloody Mary", REM "Everybody Hurts" and OkGo "Here it goes again"

This is a conceptual music video as it is all based around one message which is everybody hurts no matter who you are.

There can be a combination of more than one of the above