What Makes a Good Music Video?

Music Videos often create a visual form of entertainment to match a song performed by an artist. They can be used to create stories, concepts or just visuals for an artist's audience. They are used to promote a song and entice people in.

Different people find entertainment in different ways, therefore an artist has to keep to either a niche audience, or keep varying their music videos to match the "trending" theme or style.

NARRATIVE

A Narrative music video is one that tells a story, involving usually a protagonist that is followed while the song plays. Some music videos are longer than the song to extend the narrative and create almost a film-like experience for the viewer. These don't always necessarily match up with the lyrics of the song, however more often than not, they help to understand what message the lyrics are portraying.

This type of music video can effectively be shot and produced just like a film, with an artist or actor starring in it, and most times mouthing the lyrics along with the music being played.

Examples of Narrative music videos:

PERFORMANCE

A Performance music video is one that visualises the music being played in the song. These are used often by bands, with the members showing off their individual contributions to the music, for example the singer is stood behind a microphone singing the lyrics, or the drummer is playing along in the background. This type of music video is popular with artists as their audience may see this as "eye-candy" or would rather just watch the bad perform than be lost in a plot line. Though it is still used fairly frequently, it is more often than not injected into a Narrative style music video to add an aspect of realism and remind the audience of the lyrics that usually help to tell the story.

Examples of Performance music videos: