Music video diversity Miss Miller

Music Video Diversity 

Creating a diverse music video can have both negative and positive effects upon an artist. One evident positive effect is that it allows a song or video to stand out from other music. This creates publicity for artists and allows them to gain recognition. This may have positive effects as often music fans prefer originality from artists, showing their personality. Also, the extra publicity would mean that more people would watch the video, meaning that more people may want to listen to the artists music and buy records. In contrast to this, diversity within music videos may also have a negative effect upon an artist. The media and public may find videos hard to understand, this could result in confusion for viewers as they lose interest in the music. Also, fans for a certain artist might enjoy their music videos; by changing the video and adding diversity, artists could lose their original fan base. 

What makes a video diverse or unique?

Various directors aim to make their videos unique or diverse in order to make in stand out and become memorable to an audience. This is mainly achieved through deifying the conventions of both society and the genre itself. Directors may distort conventions of music videos and the genre of the specific music through mixing or ignoring various music video styles and altering the Goodwin's theory. They are also often seen to focus on deranged or weird concepts; they can vary from being humorous or having more darker themes. Two directors who are generally seen to produce diverse, unconventional video consists of both Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry. 

Chris Cunningham

Chris Cunningham is a renowned music video director who is specifically known for creating deranged and unconventional videos that stand out from other videos becoming memorable and interesting. He has worked with various genres and artists such as Madonna, Apex Twin, Bjork and other works made for The horrors. However, two specific videos that clearly show two separate genres of which he has worked on consist of 'Window Licker' by Aphex Twin and the well known song 'Frozen' by Madonna.

Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy

Aphex Twin's music is seen to belong to the electronic dance genre. This video is very unconventional to the genre. The main convention within dance music is dancing and bright colours; it also often includes a lot of performance within the video. This is made to be very subversive in relation to the genres conventions; it is solely narrative based and has no examples of performance or bright colours. This unconventional presentation of the genre makes it stand out against other artists videos, this emphasises Aphex Twin's originality. The music video 'Come to daddy' by Aphex Twin is directed by Chris Cunningham. This music video can be seen as very unusual and unconventional. One example of this is seen from the editing of the artists face onto the bodies of the school girls, is evidently going to be very memorable to the audience which would then create word of moth publicity for the artist. This could result in being positive; presenting him as unique, or, in this specific case, could present him negatively; as could be seen as going too far through making the audience uncomfortable or offended. The title 'Come to daddy' itself could be seen as inappropriate for an audience as the video includes young children who the  older artist seems to control in a dark and twisted manner; it can easily create a negative message for the artist. However darker themes within the video made are all diverse as they are things that are unconventional to the house/electro genre; usually videos within this genre consist of scenes set in clubs, bars or parties. This shows the music video to contrast to the music genre as it shows scary disturbing images which are more linked to the horror genre and heavy rock music rather than electro music.

The advantages of this music video include:

• The diversity makes it highly memorable.
• The individuality promotes the artist as being unique and different which often appeals to a niche target audience
• The use of the artists face throughout will keep them in the audiences mind, this may increase awareness for the artist

The disadvantages of this music video consist of:

• Giving the artist a negative reputation through a disturbing concept and narrative
• Losing fans for house/electro music due to the music video not matching the stereotypes for the genre.
• It may offend the audience with the disturbing images and the use of explicit lyrics.

Madonna - Frozen 

 Madonna is often seen to produce music that belongs to the pop genre; this song in particular was made to blend dance and pop genres. The video itself, created by Chris Cunningham, is evidently unconventional to these genres. The pop genre mainly aims to convey positive, happy emotions with a vast amount of dancing and pace to the videos. This video is made to be totally against these conventions; it includes a lack of movement from the artist with a lack of pace in the video. This builds upon a sense of isolation, creating a deeper meaning to the song; it may mean that the audience has to think about the themes and concepts within the video.The music video portrays a sense of isolation which is strange for Madonna as she is often seen with an extensive amount of back up dances or interesting scenery in her videos. Also, usually her videos consist of bright colours to tie in with the upbeat pop genre, however this contradicts with this as the colours and lighting are dark and dull in order to match the low beat, deep music. This all gives clear evidence of Madonna attempting to reinvent herself during through the video as she goes against all her usual conventions. Reasons as to why Madonna chose to reinvent herself through this song could be  to gain a wider, more varied target audience, to change her genre of music giving evidence of her talents and to publicity and awareness for her music. The change of conventions could be seen to get the audience talking and through word of mouth publicity, Madonna herself can gain more attention and increase popularity.

Advantages of diversity for Madonna:

• new genre and concepts create a wider target audience, gaining a larger fan base
• publicity through controversial press
• she is able to portray her emotions and a deeper meaning to her music

Disadvantages:

• could gain too much bad press
• loss of fans who may prefer her old image 
• the reformed genre may only have a small audience

 

Michel Gondry 

Michel Gondry is another diverse and unconventional music director who has worked with popular artists such Kylie Minogue and The White Stripes who both created obscure and unusual music videos. The music videos are made to be diverse which makes them memorable ; this is often achieved through Gondry by the use of repetition of the artists/characters within the videos. Gondry's success was achieved by the use of mise-en-scene in his videos. The other micro elements he incorporated into his videos are also very unique, and helped to attract and engage the viewers.

Kylie Minogue - Come into my World 

Kylie Minogue's music video 'Come into my world' is from the pop genre which is typically associated with flamboyant iconography, setting and dance routines which the audience would expect from Kylie Minogue. However, in contrast, for her music video 'Come into my world' the artist is the only sole focus within with bland, less extravagant setting and iconography she is repetitively shown throughout. The repetition of the artist is unconventional for the pop genre as this often consists of videos with a lot happening consisting of dancing and partying; however the effect of this viewer/artist connection could consist of the audience becoming more engaged, making them want to watch further. Another factor that makes the music video so diverse is the fact that Kylie Minogue is wearing casual clothing which again subverts to the typical pop genre; the video itself also has a normal everyday setting. In addition to this, the videos style is narrative and performance based; this is seen when Kylie sings to the camera whilst walking through her home city, this links in with the title of the song as it shows a day to day routine and the artist going through her own 'world' doing the same repetitive routine. The representation of Kylie within this music video shows pure focus on her as well as clones of herself which is self promotion. Overall the video is done in order to promote Kylie as being a relatable, ordinary person. This is achieved through focusing upon her all times and showing her as going through a repetitive normal lifestyle through the use of mise en scene.

Advantages:

• Artist becomes memorable through the use of cloning
• Makes Kylie different to other artists from the same genre due to her being presented as being normal and relatable.
• The relatable plot appeals to a wider target audience - globalisation.
• She reinvents herself, again helping her appeal to a more varied audience and showing her versatility.

Disadvantages:

• Negative publicity due to her showing what could be considered as a 'fake' lifestyle and personality
• Could lose existing target audience due to large change to styles of the video.

The White Stripes - Hardest button to button 

The White Stripes are a duo from the Rock genre, they have created a diverse music video called 'The hardest button to button'. Within this music video you would expect the artists to be playing instruments as this is a key accessory for rock artists due to their large amount of usage in their songs, this is used therefore actually making the music video partially conventional to the rock genre. This ironic conventional use of music is repeated to exaggerate their use within the rock genre, the use of these instruments may be appealing for their target audience as often rock fans aim to recreate the music itself. There is also repetition of the artists themselves throughout the music video which, much like Kylie Minogue's video, is seen self promotion. They are represented as stereotypical rock artists through black leather costumes and the iconography of rock instruments. The setting is constantly changing due to the constant movements of the artists which would put different images in the audiences mind, making it more entertaining and memorable for them. The constant repetition of the conventional rock artists running throughout an average urban city could be seen to be ironic and comical. This is very unconventional to the rock genre, videos within this genre are often seen as being deep and serious with explicit references to drugs or alcohol. The artists may have done this in order to again appeal to a wider audience who can relate to repetitive urban settings.

Advantages

• relatable for the a wider, mainstream audience.
• Unusual - may attract people outside of the rock genre.
• Could attract publicity for its light hearted connotations 

Disadvantages:

• may lose fans from the rock genre
• Won't appeal to a wide variety of the rock audience.
• The use of repetition may be boring for the audience.
• Hard to build a relationship with the audience with a lack of narrative 

There is an evident contrast between Chris Cunningham's use of diversity and Michel Gonry's. Chris Cunningham is seen to develop upon unusual concepts through multiple connotations; this created a deeper meaning to the music that may be seen to contradict conventional aspects of various genres whilst also engaging audiences. Michel Gonry, however, uses original editing techniques to develop yet challenge conventions of various genres in order to create a comical and relatable artist presentation; this light hearted presentation could help artist appeal to mainstream audiences. 

To conclude, the music industry nowadays is a very hard industry to build reputation in and stand out from the large amount of artists within it. Therefore, an artist may feel the need to create a diverse music video in order to be memorable and gain fans. Gondry's idea would be less suitable for my potential genre due to the use of repetition because as an artist within the house/dance genre the music is already repetitive and you wouldn't want to bore the audience, you would want to be creative and vary the plot. A lack of audience means a lack of profit and publicity. As well as this, Cunningham’s style would also be unsuitable for my genre due to the use of explicit scenes and narrative used within the music videos he directs. The house/pop genre often has a large widespread, mainstream target audience and may lose viewings with an explicit video.