What is a concept based music video? A concept based music video is a music video which has no structured narrative, where the lyrics don't match what's being shown on the screen at all. It can be a song about love and randomly have a music video that doesn't match with what we're hearing. EXAMPLE Alex Clare - Too Close
I have absolutely no idea why Alex Clare chose to do a concept based music video that has nothing to do with what he's talking about. Maybe it's because the two sword fighters represent his feelings toward love as a battle or a conflict in his mind about whether breaking up with someone is the right thing to do. It's an ordinary and strange idea which is rare to have considering other music videos have the bands/artists/actors telling some sort of story along with the lyrics to match. The music video is effective in a way, I've noticed that whenever the music gets louder the swordsman start hitting each other. The music video isn't memorable because it doesn't work alongside the lyrics, so how are people going to remember it? Listeners know the song because of the Internet Explorer 9 advert and the song became a huge it, not because of the music video.
What is a performance music video? A performance based music video focuses on a band or singer performing their song. This could be in front of a camera or a concert in front of an audience. EXAMPLE One Direction - Little Things
I think a performance music video was chosen to set the mood, filming it in a studio. Throughout the whole video it's just filming the artists sing the song with no other acting involved, just focusing on the song alone. How they filmed and thought carefully about how to do this song with a music video is really effective, they could have decided to have each one with a girl and explaining to her what they love but instead they just sat in a studio and sang. It's simple yet effective. One Direction always have memorable videos but this is the first they haven't acted or had any of their fans in one of their videos since becoming the most popular boyband worldwide. Whenever this song is playing the listener will always remember that they sang it in a studio just because it hasn't got an upbeat vibe to it, it's slow and mellow.
What is a narrative music video? A music video that tells a story, usually has the singer or an actor playing the protagonist (main character) and the characters are muted so that there is more focus on the song and not the video alone. The protagonist usually has a dilemma or problem they face throughout the video or they would have a 'story arc' that the lyrics are sung by the singer or band that represent how the protagonist is feeling or their situation. EXAMPLE Bruno Mars - Grenade.
The video consists of Bruno Mars as the protagonist pulling a piano through the streets of Los Angeles to play a love song to his girlfriend. He carries the piano as a metaphor of how he's feeling and the heavy weight that's around his heart about his feelings for his girlfriend. Once he gets to her house he soon realises that she's with another man, he then continues to drag the piano and himself onto a train track which finally symbolizes the end of the relationship and he's hoping his feelings. I think this particular music video is effective at promoting the artist and song because the audience watching this would feel some similarity about their feelings towards their loved one, maybe they didn't drag around a heavy piano to their front door and hope to serenade them with a love song but they may feel a heavy burden around their heart. Although i think the music video isn't that memorable, the fact Bruno Mars is shown throughout the video dragging a piano is the only reason people would remember it. Excluding the fact when this song was popular everyone would be singing the chorus as it's catchy.
