Music video analysis - part one

Indie Rock: From watching Catfish and the Bottlemen's video for 'Pacifier' I have found several codes and conventions for the genre. Firstly, it was clear to see that the genre is very much fixed on following similar costume types to that of the clothing they wear in live shows. In this case. Catfish and the Bottlemen wear black clothing to further their identity of a band who do not use their fashion sense to stand out. Instead, the opposite most likely happens in the sense that their clothes are one of the last aspects you are likely to notice from the film. Next, their use of a working class location works in line with many codes and conventions of indie music. This is true in that indie bands are often made up of young adults. Therefore, their location as a student type of age might be unknown and they are therefore resigned to the warehouse in this video to make the music video. At the same time, the narrative to the video can also convey that their young age leaves them vulnerable to situations in life that could compromise their danger.

Pop: In contrast to Pacifier, James Bay's 'let it go' offers many different aspects to his music video that lend themselves to the codes and conventions of pop music videos. For example, his video has a clear presentation of a narrative surrounding love. From this, it is fair to say that his music appeals to a much wider demographic than Catfish and the Bottlemen. As well as this, the video contains many areas that focus on himself singing (performance). This is a key convention of pop videos that shows just how competitive the industry of pop is - i.e. he has to show himself singing as a marketing tool. Finally, his video primarily contains low-key lighting, this is also shown in the aforementioned indie video. More than just the codes and conventions, videos can often relate to each other in the way that it wants to create a certain mood and atmosphere to the video and song.

Grime: Perhaps the most recent music genre to exist is grime. Having only been around for 15 years or so, the genre is largely unknown by many people. However, Kano adheres to many codes and conventions shown in grime music. For example, the location of a working class background shows just how poor his life used to be. In doing this, Kano represents himself as very humble. Another main convention of grime is the way they look. He is often depicted in a full tracksuit or branded clothing - both of which are fashionable in their society.

Dance: With arguably the widest bracket of codes and conventions comes dance. The genre is almost always upbeat and fast in tempo but the narrative of dance is very rarely followed to any sort of trend. Nevertheless, Sigma follow the genre's codes and conventions throughout the video when they use two attractive female actors in their music video. This works in line with Shuker's male gaze theory which suggests that women are depicted as objects in media to attract a heterosexual male audience. Overall, then, the dance genre is one that aims to please a largely male demographic which is clearly present in this music video.