Diversity of Music Videos

Music videos are made up of many elements, the main ones being whether its narrative or performance based, however it is possible to be a mixture of both. Features that are important to consider when creating a music video consist of the mise en scene, camera shots/angles, editing techniques, budget, celebrities involved, behaviour, censorship and so on. Diversity is the understanding of what makes an individual artist unique and how they capture their individual target audience. An artist is often defined by the genre they follow, however in order to stand out and be unique, codes and conventions are challenged and often broken to break the common trend, therefore shocking viewers. An artist does this intentionally to stand out from artists which feature in the same genre, this way getting ahead of current competition and portraying that their different and not comparable to other artists. The fact that an artist will include opposing codes and conventions makes the video more memorable as it is stereotypical to the norm. Miley Cyrus is a prime example of a diverse artist within the music industry; performing songs such as ‘Wrecking Ball’, a song that comes under the synthpop genre, in comparison to her usual dance pop/county genre. Within ‘Wrecking Ball’ she also portrays her diversity by wearing minimal, and at times no clothing which is seen as extremely provocative and shocking to an audience, as they remember Miley as the teenage idol to young children in the Disney channel programme ‘Hannah Montana’.

Within this post I will be analysing and comparing two music video directors to understand what makes them so unique in comparison to others. The two I will be looking at are Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry; two music video directors that are seen as very diverse within the music industry. They create music videos that do not conform to the stereotypical genre characteristics, going against Dyer’s and Goodwin’s theories. I will be analysing the presentation (music genre characteristics), whether it follows Goodwin’s theory in any way or not, the style and structure of the video itself, and lastly the representation of the artist.

Chris Cunningham is a strange but unique director who focuses on giving music videos a very dark and unwelcoming theme. He is in fact well known for directing music videos for ambient music and IDM groups of which are short movie, gothic, thriller-like music videos. Although they are seen as unusual, his videos seem to be extremely effective in the way that a trade-mark is produced which is very memorable to an audience. Examples of artists that he has previously worked with are Autechre and Aphex Twin. Aphex Twin with his song ‘Come to Daddy’ is one video of Chris Cunningham’s I will be looking at, as well as ‘Frozen by Madonna. I will then be comparing Cunningham to Michel Gondry. Michel Gondry is also a unique director that is known for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scene. The few songs he’s directed; ‘Come into My World’ by Kylie Minogue and ‘The Hardest Button to Button’ by the White Strips are the specific songs I will be comparing to Cunningham’s work. By looking at all 4 elements will help to understand what make them so diverse and unique.

To begin with, I will be looking at Chris Cunningham’s and his works with Aphex Twin and Madonna. In the song ‘Come to Daddy’ by Aphex Twin, the music video is represented to be diverse as it doesn’t follow the typical dance conventions and characteristics, considering the fact it’s up-tempo. It is in fact a short film following typical film conventions, but not dance conventions, This is shown in the way the video has no club

setting or strobe lights to suggest any form of a party, instead it portrays strange and freaky characters that are unwelcoming to an audience and almost represents a fantasy nightmare.

The video is set in an estate and shots a vulnerable old lady walking her dog. Some elements of the video however are conventional, such as fast paced editing. When listening and viewing the video, diversity again shines through when the lyrics and visuals are seen not to link, therefore not following Goodwin’s theory, with no artist to even be portrayed. The fact that the video is seen as unsettling, this video would in fact not be shown on TV music channels such as MTV, due to it

being censored. The structure of the music video is 100% narrative based, with no performance from the artist to be included. The narrative is in fact based on a dog activating life when urinating on a televising, unleashing an evil spirit which brings a crowd of children that all of which have James’ grinning face to cause havoc. The video is almost seen as a thriller, creating no relationship between the audience and artist, due to no artist being presented.

The second video of Chris Cunningham’s I looked at was ‘Frozen’ by the artist Madonna. The music video has a very gothic theme, in the way Madonna is dressed in purely black clothing, matching her dyed black hair. This is also evident when she often shape shifts into a crow, a commonly known bird to represent death and evil. The unknown and deserted setting gives an unwelcoming feel to an audience. The conventions portrayed don’t follow Mandonna’s typical pop artist conventions, therefore creating diversity. Although most conventions are unstereotypical, she does however create a relationship between the lyrics and visuals, following characteristics of Goodwin’s theory. The video is in fact 90% performance, show when Madonna sings and 10% narrative, shown when Madonna shape shifts into black animals, creating a dark and unsettling atmosphere. In comparison to her other pop genre

songs a lot of the conventions contrast making her stand out as a unique and diverse artist, which can in fact shock an audience. Throughout the music video Madonna portrays strong emotion and an audience can tell her image change is to keep with younger artists within the industry, therefore rebelling against conventions of typical pop characteristics to do so.

Michel Gondry is a French Academy Award-winning filmmaker that also directs commercials, music videos on top of being a screenwriter. When comparing the two directors

Michel Gondry is extremely talented with the use of editing styles and how much he uses within the music videos he directs. One artist he has worked with is Kylie Minogue and her song ‘Come Into My World’. Generally the characteristics of the video are stereotypical to the typical pop genre, in terms of the location of Paris being realistic, the surrounding extras, all characters dressed in everyday clothing, all of which is image appropriate to the target audience. The song also has a relationship between lyrics and visuals following Goodwin’s theory, this is shown when Kylie sings ‘”Come into my world”’

followed by copies of herself appearing on screen. However only following on dimension of Goodwin’s theory does not match what should to be within the pop genre. The structure of the video is 90% performance and 10% narrative, as the video portrays more of Kylie singing herself and little narrative; walking around in circles which characters duplicating. Kylie herself is represented throughout the whole music video as a normal person that blends in with the crowd, which enable the audience to relate to her. The fact that the location, clothing and the song are conventional to the pop genre, the video itself is not. When comparing to Cunningham, Gondry is a lot more conventional, however they both share the similarity of having limited elements that follow Goodwin’s theory.

Another song of Michel Gondry’s I will be analysing is ‘The Hardest Button to Button’ by the

band The White Stripes. The genre in which they fit into is alternative rock, which was in fact portrayed throughout the music video. This was shown through the use of clothing; the gothic red and black clothing, consisting of skinny jeans and a tight t-shirt, the hair and makeup; 
heavy eye makeup, pale skinned, messy hair, the instruments; drums, an electric guitar, amplifiers and so on, all of which are stereotypical. There were elements of Goodwin’s theory shown with the lyrics matching the songs fast and up-tempo beat; with every beat a duplicate of the instrument would appear. There is also a small relationship between lyrics and visuals; this is evident when for example when he mentions a red box, to which is then appears on screen. The video has a 100% performance structure as there is no recognisable narrative or concept, just pure focus on the music alone.

Within the video there is a clear representation of the artist following typical rock conventions, aside from the artist not performing at a stereotypical gig in front of a live audience. As a result, the focus stays purely on the artist and the song itself, with nothing else around to detract from that. In comparison to Cunningham’s work, Gondry shows variety in the way he
varies from 90% performance and 10% narrative to 100%
performance, and how many dimensions of Goodwin’s theory he should include which contrasts to typical directors, which use a higher narrative percentage and try to follow all the dimensions of Goodwin’s theory.

Diversity is shown through music videos when an artist/ director chooses to not follow stereotypical codes and conventions to their typical music genre, and ‘Come to Daddy’ is a prime example in how the music genre contrasts in comparison to the music video. Within the music industry, the majority of artists follow their genre codes and conventions, they do 

so to try and get into the charts without receiving censorship on their videos and bad reviews in general. However, a lot of artists such as Miley Cyrus and Rihanna like to continue shocking their audience to gain viewers through their music videos, but not all artists are able to pull it off and be successful in the same way. Within the music industry, RnB is an extremely popular genre; a genre in which songs follow the same codes and conventions in most music videos, consisting of materialistic items, a trophy male of female by their side, flashy cars, many friends and so on. Generally artists

within this genre don’t tend to break conventions, as it such a popular genre with songs not going unnoticed. An artist may choose to make a diverse video to either make it more memorable or to make themselves as an artist stand out amongst competition. Making a diverse/ unique video can have many negative effects on the artist and their record label; often artists continue to be slated by the media, the record label can develop a bad reputation, artists become hated from what they used to be, their video is banned from major music channel such as MTV due to censorship and so on. However there are not only negatives, but positives to diversity; a positive being it attracts a large audience, as they enjoy watching rebellious behaviour that captures heavy media attention. Diversity can also create a greater understanding through emotions and builds a better relationship between themselves and their audience, which again benefits the artist.

I feel that different elements of each director will help with my groups’ music video on the song ‘Apple Tree’ by Nina Nesbitt. In terms of Cunningham I like the way he uses a lot of narrative within certain music videos, which is something that my group wish to include a lot of to connote an emotional story. On the other hand I like the element of detail to editing and

mise en scene by Gondy’s music videos, as well as the way they follow more typical codes and conventions to a music genre, in which go by Goodwin’s theory. The similarities within both directors, is that they both are diverse in their different ways. I feel it is important to not follow all codes and conventions as, as a group we want to make something different and unique when it comes to our music video, however finding a balance is important.