Perspective on Music Video Analysis by Sven E Carlsson

Sven E Carlsson has looked and commented on the way music videos are analysed and broken down (http://filmsound.org/what_is_music_video/).

He said that videos are broken down into two categories - performance clips and conceptual clips.
Performance clips show the artist(s) singing/dancing/miming, but conceptual clips are mainly clips which show a narrative.

For example... (taken from She Looks So Perfect by 5 Seconds Of Summer)

This is a performance clip

These are conceptual clips from the video

Music video artist as a "modern mythic embodiment"

Carlsson said that there are 3 different types of music video artists representing different types of performance in their videos:


1. The Commercial Exhibitionist

This is when an artist 'sells themselves' rather than the song. It is typically R&B artists who do this (mainly females, and in a provocative way).
An example of a 'commercial exhibitionist' is Rihanna. Below are screenshots from her 'Rude Boy' video:

She is covering her exposed body with the title of the song, so you are immediately drawn to look at her naked body. Her arms cover the letter 'E' on the title which implies that she is wanting you to look at her rather than the song title - therefore, promoting herself rather than the song itself.

Another example of a 'commerical exhibitionist' is Robin Thicke. In his video for 'Blurred Lines', he constantly promotes himself and his image, and the song comes second to, and is less important to him than, his own self image.

2. The Televised Bard

A televised bard music video is a 'spiritual journey' taken by the singer(s) expressing awareness about a certain issue.

For example, Linkin Park's video for 'What I've Done' shows images and clips from disasters and crises' happening around the world:

Throughout the video, we are shown televised imagery of crisis' around the world, in order for the audience to feel sympathy towards the people being shown.

Another video which uses outside images is Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful'.

The images used in the above video trigger sympathy and empathy from the audience towards the people being shown in the clip, and every so often we see Christina singing, but she is indirectly talking to every person we see in the clips.

3. The Electronic Shaman

This is when the artist is never actually shown in the video but often shown through a cartoon character etc., but the music video usually represents a hidden meaning.

One example of an 'electric shaman' are the Gorrilaz. They appear in animated form in all of their videos and rarely appear in public, apart from live gigs and a small number of music awards, and even then they sometimes appear in animated form. They do this for a similar reason as The Neighbourhood - they want their music to come before their own personal fame.