Music Video Styles.

The three music video styles are

• Performance based video
• Concept based video
• Narrative based video

Performance based video either means the artist/band can be performing throughout the video or somebody else is playing out a performance in the video. They could even be singing in role of the band artist. This has been done before in the video below.

Above is the video for The Vaccines - Teenage Icon. As you can see this is a performance based video as the band themself are performing their song. However it's not just them, so it makes the audience follow the video instead of just them performing on their own. The people doing the same as the actual band in the video are on their album cover, Come of Age. So their fans will see a definite link. The video focuses entirely on the band singing and playing their instruments as they're performing in a lift so it's a very closed in environment. The video is very fast paced and by changed shots from the actual Vaccines and the role playing one's I think this keeps people interested.


Narrative based music videos have a storyline and tend to follow it throughout the video. An example of this is below.

A-ha Take on Me is a massive narrative video. It starts with the woman in the coffee shop reading a comic book about two 'villains' having a race chasing the 'hero'. The hero then comes to life and follows the woman around. We then see the coffee shop waitress throw her comic in the bin and then in the animation in the video we see two people trying to chase the animated man. When they catch him the video then shows us the woman on the floor next to the comic what's in the bin. She then takes it home and the animated man turns into a real person. For me, personally this video is really interesting as because it's a mixture of animation and real life, it keeps your attention. A-ha themselves feature in this video and at the end it shows their name on the front of the comic. This video is the kind that sticks in your mind.


A concept based video don't tend to have any storyline at all, and sometimes the theme doesn't even go with the song. It's completely random. By doing a concept based music video sometimes it stands out alot more than others. I think if the video is in time with the music then it's a good idea. It will keep the audiences attention. It can sometimes be very simple but extremely effective. With concept based music videos you can go either way, it can be a humorous video or quite serious, most go with humorous.


An example of a concept based music video is something that is quite unusual and not necessarily much to do with the song. This is a style of music video that is based a single concept or idea.