Six Conventions of a Music Video

'Ever since the popularisation of music videos with the release of "Video Killed the Radio Star" on the burgeoning MTV, similar themes and conventions have been visible in almost all music videos to follow, This conventions have been summed up by Andrew Goodwin as the six conventions of music videos.

A relationship between lyrics and visuals to illustrate, amplify or contradict the video to the music-As previously stated, most music videos follow at least one of these conventions, so not all music videos follow these conventions. However almost all music videos follow this convention. Either illustrating amplifying or contradicting the music they are set to (more often than not this involves the lyrics). An example of this is Miles Kane's 'Don't Forget who you are' illustrates this within the first few seconds, as Miles visually pulls his clothes as he references them in the lyrics.


Visuals that are edited in time with the lyrics and beats-This is in some ways similar to the first convention in that it is an existing correlation between the music and the visuals. However while the first convention is more contextual this is more about visually matching the video to the music and lyrics directly as apposed to the first convention which could be more symbolic. A good example of this is the music video for 'Do I wanna know?' by the Arctic Monkeys which is animated to the beat and instruments of the music as well as the vocals.


Genre related style and iconography-This is were music videos become distinct and different from one another, as just as different genres of music are recognisable on their own, so are their respective music videos, and each different genre of music's music video follows a different style and its own codes and conventions. For example, while voyeurism is a general trope of music videos, it applies more so to R&B music videos than others as these songs often focus on a sexualised woman, or indie music videos that are often the simplistic performance style of video, reflecting the relative lack of theatrics in the indie genre.


Multiple close ups of the main artist/vocalist-Aside from dance music videos in which the main artist is not often very iconic, this is commonplace in virtually all music videos as the main artist/ vocalist becomes more iconic through media like music videos.


Voyeurism-Voyeurism more so applies to female artists than male ones due to the male gaze theory. It involves an attractive female (often times the artist herself) who is made to be a sexual object as part of the video. An example of this would be the music video for 'Can't Remember to Forget you' by Shakira.


Intertexual references to other media text -This simply means anything within the music video that references another piece of media, like a film, book or even another song. This is found more often than not in music videos with a comedic feel. A good example of this is Bruno Mars' 'Treasure' music video which clearly pays homage to disco, funk and R&B music videos of the 70's