- A market tool to promote an artist/song
- A short narrative or representation of the artist
- To attract a particular target audience
- To identify an artist/group
- To buy into the artist’s lifestyle
- To show the different generic conventions of a genre/music video
- For the audience to remember the music video
- To make a song available to a wide audience
- To show more about the artist
- The audience request music videos
- To build a relationship with the artist
- For
the audience to understand more about a song
Music videos are split into 3 different categories:
1)
Performance - (singing/dancing)
2)
Narrative - (telling the audience a story)
3)
Concept - (selling the audience an idea/theme or ideology)
Some
music videos contain a mixture of the different styles and some contain only
one style. The music video I analysed was 'Antidote' by Swedish House Mafia vs Knife Party, this is from the dance genre. This video includes two styles of a music video and these are a narrative and concept style- the narrative is one which shows the audience people partying in a club this then unfolds into a robbery inside the club and the concept of the video is one of partying and alcohol- both these styles help promote a certain life style about the artists to their target audience. A major purpose of a music video is to promote the artist and song, this music video does both and helps express and make the song more interesting and appealing to the audience. The artists are not present in the music video and this is because the music video is mainly about promoting the song, this is commonly found within the dance genre as DJ's want the focus to be on the songs and themselves. This music video has many purposes these are to promote the song, and also buy into the artists lifestyles. Many dance artists are associated with living a party lifestyle and this music video helps promote this stereotype, this will attract an audience who would want to live a similar lifestyle being portrayed of having money, girls and partying, this will also help build a relationship with both the artist and their fans, as they are being promoted in the video to live a life of partying, which many of their fans can relate to or look up to as their fans will be going clubs and partying or hoping to live a lifestyle like this being portrayed. The music video helps promote the song as well with the video being very entertaining and appealing to watch, this is done through the narrative and the codes and conventions used within the music video such as flashing lights and fast editing, this will make the song gain more attention and could lead to more people watching or listening to the song. The song does not have any lyrics so the music video helps add to the effect of the song, with the narrative matching the beat and tempo of the song, this is done as the beat gets quicker the narrative starts to pick up and more action happens such as the robbery, which helps make a greater impact on the audience.
This music video is very conventional to the dance genre and follows almost all codes and conventions of the dance genre. Typically in dance videos the video is themed around partying and clubbing scenes where dance music is often played and in this music videos it follows these conventions with the setting of the whole video being inside a club, using a club helps promote a party lifestyle and clearly show the audience the music video is from the dance genre, this is aided by all the girls dancing and jumping around with alcohol. By using the location of a club it also helps audiences to relate to the artists as this lifestyle is achievable of partying and going to clubs, i feel using a location of a club is more relatable than using a location of big expensive mansions as this would be an unrealistic lifestyle for many viewers to achieve. Through Mise-en scene this music video is conventional to the dance genre as the clothing used is stereotypical with shorts skirts and heels this is typical clothes worn for nights out in clubs also it helps make the girls look like sex objects which is commonly found used in dance videos, this makes the video more appealing as it promotes a lifestyle full of girls. The iconography used is conventional to the dance genre as we can see alcohol and money being thrown out which helps promote a certain lifestyle which attracts to many or the target audience, by using this type of iconography it helps enhance the artists image of living this kind of lifestyle. Through cinematography, there is the use of a variety of shots accompanied by fast editing this helps makes the video more entertaining to watch as the fast editing matches the fast beat and temp of the song. All these miro-elements help promote the artists image of living a lifestyle full of partying and girls. The use of flashing and bright lights and lens flares along with blurry editing all are found in the dance genre, The music video for 'Antidote' heavily uses these which makes it conventional to a dance genre, the use of all these effects help give an image of drunkenness as the blurriness symbolizes the actors in the music video being drunk, the use of this also helps make the music video more entertaining and visually more attractive to watch. The only part of the music video which goes against the codes and conventions of the music video is the narrative as this shows a robbery, a narrative of a robbery is not commonly found in dance music videos but by using this it makes the music video have another dynamic and make its more entertaining to watch. By using all these codes and conventions typically found in other dance music videos it helps make the video more appealing for the audience as the music video is much more entertaining to watch with these codes and conventions being used.
