Types of Music Video Research

Types of Music Video

There are many different types of music video, some tell a story and some aim to purely show a performance and some incorporate both aspects. When planning our music video we had to decide what type of video we wanted to create.

Narrative

A narrative music video is based around and tells a story and is sometimes referred to as a cinematic music video. Videos such as Green Day's 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' incorporates both performance and narrative aspects, but overall is based on a story and focuses on connecting with the audience through the narrative. 

Performance 

A performance video is exactly as it sounds, a music video that incorporates a performance aspect. These videos are very prominent in the indie and hip hop music genres, as usually the record labels for these categories dictate that the artist must be present in the video. Many videos in the music industry incorporate performance aspects, such as Arctic Monkeys 'I bet that you look good on the dance floor', which is entirely performance based.

Amplification

Amplification in a video is when the lyrics of meanings in the song link directly to the video. This is more common in pop genres as they tend to have younger audiences, and this video style helps them to understand the lyrical content. This is visible in Taylor Swift's 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together', when she sings "You called me up again last night", and an image of her on the phone appears on the screen.

Disjuncture

A disjuncture music video is a music video in which the lyrical content has no apparent link to the visual aspects on the screen. A good example of this is the band, Peace's, video for 'Lost on me'. Throughout the video the band members are seen dancing a set routine, which carries on throughout the entire video, which has no link to the audio or lyrical content in the song.