Research - Diverse Music Videos

What are diverse music videos?

Diverse music videos are unique music videos which are concept-based like no other, attract niche audiences and don’t represent many genres as its own unique style is very unique and confusing. The majority of diverse music videos don’t even make sense to audiences, but still give off an interesting effect and make the audience think about the concept.

Chris Cunningham.

This Director for diverse music videos has very weird/unique ideas in his videos. He’s worked with big artists like Bjork and created music videos which cost millions to make.

His music video that he created with Bjork was about a robot who is building up itself with machines and then finds her lover and then they make love. The main focus is on Bjork, making the star image visible for the audience, as she is the robot who is seen building up and then falls in love. The relationship between the images and the audiences is that the loyal fans would see her as being herself and would appreciate her work. A mainstream audience wouldn’t watch this on a regular basis out of interest, but if someone who isn’t a fan of Bjork came across this music video whilst streaming YouTube, they would find this very weird and would feel uncomfortable.

Chris Cunningham has worked on two music videos with the Apex Twins, the first video is called ‘Come to Daddy’. It begins in a suburban area, with an old lady walking her dog and she sees a pile of rubbish and a TV. The dog urinates on a puddle next to it and electricity runs through the rubbish and TV and a monster comes on the TV and mayhem begins. Children with a weird male face start running about and wrecking the area. The music video is very weird and uncomfortable to watch because in the end the monster gathers all the children in a paedophilic manner. There was no star image in this video as it was more narrative/concept based than performance based. The images may make the audience feel very uncomfortable and disturbed.

The second music video that he done with the Apex Twins is called ‘Flex’. It begins with a naked man in a fetal position slowly coming towards the eye view of the audience. The audience soon see that there is also a naked woman next to him. They started making love/fighting in a very fast motion with different shots and the lighting switching angles vigorously. Again, there was no star image in this music video.

·         ‘All is full of love’ won multiple awards including on MTV music video awards for breakthrough video and was nominated for a Grammy for best short film music video.

·         First ever music video to win a gold pencil at the D&AD awards.

·         His video for Apex Twins ‘Window Licker’ was nominated for the ‘best video’ award at the brit awards 2000.

·         Madonna’s ‘Frozen’ music video became an international hit and won the award for best special effects at the 1998 MTV music video awards.

·         He’s successful in both music and film industry.

His work shows deformity in humanity and shows individuals as weird and unique. The fact he uses disabled people in the music videos he directs shows he loves to show them in their work to make it unique. My opinion on his work is I find it very unique and interesting because of how he comes up with such messed up ideas and how he works with different people and how he can show a different side to people, for example, Madonna.

Michael Gondry.

Michael comes up with ideas of concept based music videos which help gain interest in big artist’s music videos such as; Kylie Minogue, Gary Jules, Daft Punk, Bjork and many more.

The first music video I watched of Gondry’s work is called ‘The hardest button to button; by the white stripes. This video was very interesting as on every beat an instrument would be added onto the line of instruments in a street and this would carry on in different streets and areas throughout the whole song. Michael puts in time and effort to make these videos very interesting and this music video didn’t even cost a lot to create. This music video shows star image all the way through.

The second music video I watched of his work is called ‘Mad world’ by Gary Jules and this song is very famous across the world. The music video is one shot throughout from a bird’s point of view and it shows people creating shapes on the street with their bodies, for example, they create a dog. Every once in a while you would see the star on the top of the building, as the camera would hover to a long shot of him and then hover back to the people creating shapes. There is a little bit of star image in this music video as he is only seen a few times and he is just looking over from the top of a high building.

The third music video I analysed of his was Daft Punk, called ‘Around the World’. This music video is all in one environment with many different things dancing in a circle such as; skeletons, ladies, and many things. The movements are travelling in a circle form and everything is very diverse and not ordinary.

His work is very repetitive, for example, in Kylie Minogue’s, she is travelling in a street and it’s repeated but every time it’s repeated, a clone of her is added onto the cycle. My opinion is not as interested as I was in Cunningham’s work, weirdly. He has cool ideas but the messed up ideas from Cunningham’s work is more interesting.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Innovative filmmaking style.	Could be offensive.
Intellectual sense.	Damaging/distressing visuals.
Portraying individual style.	Smaller relationship with artist and audience.
Entertaining.	Expose to be censored.
Niche audience.	No attraction from mainstream audiences.
Unique and interesting.	May ruin reputation.
Mentally challenging.	Some people might not get it.
Creates hype.	After the watershed.
Abstract comes to life.
Reinvent star image (Madonna).
Memorable.

Diverse music videos should stay away from mainstream music culture: My Opinion.

I agree with this, because only niche audiences who will understand the concept of diverse music videos won’t be disturbed by the visuals and will appreciate the clever artwork in the videos. Mainstream audiences are used to seeing love, sex and other ideas shown in a completely different way, so they wouldn’t appreciate the work from Cunningham, Gondry and many other diverse directors. No matter how much an artist or diverse director try to give a mainstream audience a diverse music video, the success won’t be great and the publicity won’t be as positive as it would be from an appreciating niche audience.

Conclusion.

Overall, I have learnt that diverse music videos never really want to be understood, but I appreciated. The concept in all of them is not meant to be understood as it never really makes sense to an artist or director in the first place, it’s just art in a weird form. I would love to make a diverse music video for my final product but I believe the genre of music I want to use wouldn’t work. However, I will try and include features of diverse music videos. This is because I find it very unique and interesting for an audience, it also leaves the audience with something to think about and the video won’t be forgotten like typical mainstream music videos will.