Types of music videos

There are many types of music videos that can be listed down to 3 categories:

(i) Performance (ii) Narrative

(iii) Concept

Performance based:

Performance based music videos primarily serve the purpose of highlighting the artist . With elements like musicians lip-syncing, dancing, playing various instruments, etc, performance-based music videos are perhaps the oldest and most common form of music videos. It creates a feel of live performances adding meaning to the lyrics. Keeping in mind that these music videos often often overlap with other types of music videos, the filmed performances may be instrumental, live, incorporating dance, etc.

Visiting hours~ Ed Sheeran

This is a great example of a performance based music video. Ed Sheeran is an internationally acclaimed, award winning singer and a song writer. This type of performance is called singing performance giving touch of live music and shows what instruments were used and how the song was produced.

Tajdare haram~ Atif Aslam

This music video is pure live and instrumental music video by coke studio featuring the Great Pakistani singer Atif Aslam.

Narrative based:

These videos are the professional version of the fake scenarios your brain makes when listening to music while looking out of the car window and imagining a dramatic visual stories . They can be considered as shirt movies with a musical background. These videos always have a story to tell. They usually feature models actors or even the artist themselves takes part. Through these videos the artist is trying to give a message to the audience making them focus on the lyrics making the story being told seem important.

a narrative music video’s visuals may be linked with the song in one of the following ways:

(i) literal — directly bases visuals on the lyrics

(ii) amplified — enhances the meaning of a song by creating close links between a music video and the lyrics

(iii) oppositional — unrelated to the song, i.e. demonstrates a disjuncture b/w the meaning of the music video and the lyrics

Animals~ Maroon5

One of my favourite songs by Maroon5 makes the listener focus on the video and the lyrics both lyrics and the video add up to create a story.

Wake me up~ avicii

Conceptual:

these videos are based around a concept or an idea. They can be atristic or abstract and don't always need to make sense. They contain no visual narrative no lip-synchronized singing leaving the audience in question. They often use symbols to describe the meaning. They could be abstract or irrelevant to the music in an artistic way too and often give an artist the freedom to show his creativity and know his own genre and create a new style aka signature style.

Glimpse of us ~joji

This music video is a great idea of conceptional video a rather sad slow song showing a life of joji living that doesn't matches with the video at all. Symbols pf mental health are shown in the video that sync with the song making an artist make up a story between the lyrics and the video shown.