Research - Diversity Of Music Videos

Diversity Of Music Videos...

What are diverse music videos?

Diverse music videos are usually videos with a more distinctive narrative or concept which separates itself from the mainstream productions although these type of videos tend to be more concept based. Diverse music videos being so unique would then tend to attract more of the niche audiences and would be neglected from the mainstream audiences. The videos can also be misunderstanding in which the idea of the music video could be mistaken as offensive leading on to being a controversial music video.  

What types of genres usually go for this?

The music genres that tend to create more distinctive music videos are genres such as Rock, Alternative and Dance because these genres are very diverse in which they don't relate to mainstream audiences therefore these genres would suit a diverse music video as their music would match the visuals.

Chris Cunningham:

Cunningham made his directional debut in the music industry in 1997 with the music video 'Come to Daddy' by Aphex Twin which was immediately banned in some countries due to the controversial content and also hyped about in the industry and by the audiences.
He won the award for Prix Ars Electronica - Digital Music
Bjork - All is Full of Love

• Bjorks ''All is full of love'' won multiple awards, including MTV Music Video Award for Breakthrough Video and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video.
• This was also the first ever music video to win a Gold Pencil at the D&AD awards
• The distinctiveness narrative and visuals of this video had caught many audiences attention due to the unusual love story between robots.
• There is some star image of the female robot as the camera consistently focuses on the female robot with various close ups and different angled shots.

Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy

• Aphex Twin - 'Come To Daddy' is said to be his directional debut due to the instant hype and success around the music industry.
• This song itself is also said to be Aphex Twin's top tracks which the addition of a great music video increased the success of this music video.
• This made mainstream artists recognize the potential in his work which was very distinctive.
• There is no star star image here as this video was more concept/narrative based than performance based.

Aphex Twin - FLEX

• Cunningham's work for Aphex Twin's  'FLEX' exaggerates his style of work due to the very distinctive visuals of a naked man and woman embracing and cuddling each other, then attacking each other with the result of ending in sex.
• This very unusual music video which the lyrics are not relative to the visuals although the music sometimes matches the visuals with the fast edits combining with the up tempo music
• There is star image here equal to both male and female as the performance based video focus' on the narrative of the two characters relationship.

Michel Gondry:  

Michel Gondry is known for his work being mainly of a concept base with the use of some performance but never narrative. His work, much like Cunningham, is very distinctive but his visuals are more attractive to the mainstream audiences whereas Cunningham's work is distinctive to the extent that it only attracts niche artist and audiences of the less mainstream genres of music.
Gondry has helped gain interest in both mainstream and niche artist such as Kylie Minogue, Gary Jules, Daft Punk, Paul McCartney, Kanye West and even Bjork, who is known for her collaborations with Cunningham as well as Gondry.

The White Stripes - Hardest Button to Button

• The first video i have seen from Gondry's work is 'Hardest Button to Button' by The White Stripes in which throughout the video consisted mainly of one point of Goodwin's theory of the relationship between music and visuals. This song consists mainly of a basic drumbeat in which Gondry uses to adapt to his style of visuals with the edits of adding a drum to the visuals, 'hitting the beat' every time.
• This has no narrative and no star image which is expected from Gondrys work although it is very concept heavy.

Gary Jules - Mad World

• The next Gondry music video i looked at was Mad World by Gary Jules which was very successful and hyped about instantly, both song and video.
• In this video we mainly see an aerial shot from a rooftop where Gary Jules is standing and the camera shows his point of view watching an in sync performance of what seems to be children, creating animated figures on the sidewalk below.
• This video contains mainly a performance base with the children creating animated figures relate to the lyrics of the song.
• The video has no star image and also has a clear relation between music and visuals with the calm tempo of the song and slow movement of the performance.

Daft Punk - Around The World

• This song was instantly hyped about and was said to be one of Daft Punks best tracks. This music video gained even more success to Daft Punk after the release of this music video.
• This was very low budget and as we can see from the use of one background set with dancers in cheap costume with the addition to the set of stairs and a podium.
• The dancing is very basic and performance is nothing spectacular which is very unusual due to the convention of music video dancing is always 'trying to impress'.
• This distinctiveness in bright scenery and basic performance is one great aspect to Gondry's style as even though the use of dancers were poor, and basic cinematography, Gondry is still able to catch the audiences attention and give them an attracting viewing.

''Diverse music videos should stay away from mainstream music culture''

The audience and institutions of the music industry argue if diverse music videos should avoid the mainstream genre. This is evident in the feedback from the audiences of mainstream artists trying to experiment with diverse music videos e.g. Kylie Minogue - Come Into My World; was very distant from the expected conventions in mainstream music videos which was risky in expecting the usual successful feedback from the audience. 

I believe that diverse music videos should maintain within the mainstream music culture due to artists may wanting to experiment with a different style to their own persona and also try to create another image of themselves. Diverse videos can be used to help gain hype due to the unusual and distinctive visuals that most audiences are not used to seeing.

Gathering all this research on 'diversity in music videos'; i have been able to identify the generic conventions and distinctive components used in the examples of Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry's music videos. It seems that diverse music videos tend to have a very different set of visuals every time with many differences and not much similarities to other diverse videos. I can also now identify what differentiates a diverse music video to the expected, conventional mainstream music video.