Exploring Music Videos

In this blog I am going to be analysing four different music videos, ones that show and have changed the image of videos throughout the world for different reasons.

The first one I will be looking at is Run-D.M.C. ft Aerosmith ‘Walk This Way’ a revolutionized the new hybrid musical genre of Rap and Rock. This was credited as a song that helped break rap into mainstream popular music. The narrative for this song is that there is a difference between the two genres which is shown through the banging on the wall at the beginning of the video. This shows that there is a difference within the tastes of each genre but the fact that there is literally a breakdown of the wall in the video shows that the genres have merged together to bring this new hybrid musical genre. At the end of this song they are together, this represents the fact that two genres can come together and it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I feel this pushed the idea of creating hybrid genres.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIbHPs_M55Q&ob=av2n


I feel this music video started out the real invention of true music videos with Michael Jackson ‘Thriller’ in 1984, a pop/rock genre of music. An iconic video that transformed the importance of music videos and brought the new television show MTV to fame. The genre of this music video is quite clearly shown as horror and was inspired by the horror films of the 50s. The narrative to this video is hard to understand, we see Michael and his girlfriend in the video Ola Ray discussing their feelings and Michael saying he is different to a view of them in the cinema watching themselves or it is meant to seem that way. This then leads to them leaving the cinema and walking through a graveyard where Michael turns into a zombie and leads the dance. After that it leads to the girl being asleep where she acts as though it is all a dream. Within this video it creates the impression that you can’t know what is true and false, an idea of the reality and fantasy. It has been a huge influence in the making of stories for a song and therefore making the idea of image more important.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_MuUcxHATo


Another song that has had an impact is Madonna with ‘Like a Prayer’ a powerful Pop song that features gospel too with the choir in the chorus. This is a music video that is trying to push the boundaries of music videos at the time and created some uproar with some people about its controversial aspects to do with religion. In this video some areas are interpreting life differently, making Christ black, testifying for the black man’s innocence with him eventually being released creating a stronger relationship with black people at the time who were still not being treated with equal rights as whites. The use of burning crosses and Madonna getting a stigma adds to the controversy of this video and shows that Madonna believes in the truth and that she also believes in the equality of life. There was a lot of uncertainty with this video as it did challenge the ideas and judgements of people and was something that could have crashed and burned in the media. Luckily it became an iconic music video.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA983t3Rdzs&ob=av2e


In 2003, Outkast with their song ‘Hey Ya!’ took influences from funk and rock music and Andre 3000 was plays eight members in this video, this was something new and different that hadn’t been shown before in this manner. The way this video is shown is quite like the old videos before the invention of music videos with a story began to be created. However, with its modern twist it creates something truly exciting which the use of fanatics in the crowd going wild. The narrative showing that they are loved by everyone with all these screaming girls that seem to fall at their knees, taken in a cheeky, laughable way. This idea is simplistic but brilliant.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wl6R8u6Zus&ob=av2n

By watching these videos I have gained the knowledge that to create a music video that is going to become very popular I will have to create something quite imaginative or unique, something that hasn't necessarily been thought of before. Breaking boundaries is something that seems to be done in a few of these videos which tests their audience. This means that I need to start thinking of ideas already about what my music video should consist of to gain that extra time of planning. Thinking along the lines of Michael Jackson's video (spoken about above) I want to create a video which tells a story, maybe in a non-linear way to get the audience's attention and make them question the video slightly. Another thing is that Michael Jackson's video is quite dreamy in a way that we cannot tell what is real. This is something I would like to persue as I think it could add more fun and imagination into my video.