Analysing the Key Features of Music Videos

I am going to be analysing three music videos from different genres. The first video is Bad Romance by Lady Gaga, the second is Lust for Life by Girls and the last is Trouble On My Mind by Pusha T ft. Tyler, The Creator.

Lady Gaga's genre is Pop/Dance music and this is clearly displayed in her video Bad Romance. The characteristics of this genre are notion of looking, women in revealing clothes and dance moves. In this video all these characteristics are featured showing its genre obviously to its viewers. There are many shots of Lady Gaga throughout this video, as she's the artist and they want the public to remember her image. There isn't really a relationship between the lyrics and visuals as most of the time she is just shown dancing to a routine. This music video is performance based with a slight narrative which builds up mainly at the end. Her body is on display a lot during the video and there are many shots when she's looking directly into the camera. Lady Gaga has used this video to promote certain brands such as Heartbeats headphones and Beats by Dr. Dre headphones.

Lust for Life by Girls is in the Indie Rock genre. Some characteristics for Indie Rock music videos are the use of a grainy effect, a narrative and performances based video and lots of close-ups of the band. The video is filmed of 8mm film which gives it a grainy effect and an independent feel to the video representing its genre well. However there is only two close up shots of the lead singer in the band as he is hardly featured in the video at all, as well as the band. The video could be described as performance based and concept based because although you don't see the singer singing, the whole video is made up of little shots where people are singing and dancing along to the song. At 1:37 and 1:43 (both on youtube link) the lead singer of the band is shown playing instruments adding to the performance based idea. There isn't many relationships between the lyrics and the video apart from the lyric 'Fucked in the head' where a girl point at her forehead. Also, where clapping is heard in the song, a shot is shown of people clapping. There is no relationship between the pace of the video with the pace of the song.

Both Pusha T and Tyler, The Creator are both in the Hip Hop genre however Tyler, The Creator is classified as Alternative Hip Hop and and you can see this genre portrayed in some parts of the video. The typical Hip Hop characteristics featured in this video are women in skimpy clothing, alcohol, an expensive setting at the start and them driving in a car. Their are other shots in this video which aren't typically Hip Hop like when they're crashing the house and when Tyler's riding around on ----. This music video consists of many close up shots of the artists, this is because they mostly rap about how they see themselves in the industry. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals of the video. For example when the word 'tripped' is featured, someone trips over and falls to the floor. Another example is when Pusha T makes a gesture towards his mind during the second last chorus which features the words 'Trouble on My Mind'. This video is mainly performance based because throughout it they're rapping directly to the cameras. Tyler, The Creator talks a lot about pop culture icons and in this song Sarah Palin's daughter is featured, 'Tripped on Bristol Palin'.