The music video demonstrates genre characteristics.
The song "99 problems" is hip hop and features many characteristics you would expect to see in a hip hop music video. Firstly the video is set in the streets of a neighbourhood that looks run down, this is an iconic background for hip hop as it was these kind of settings that the singers grew up in. The music video features mainly black people and some white people, for example the police officers, are there to show how the black community where suppressed by white people. The clothes worn in the video are very hip hop styled, men wearing large jewellery such as gold or silver chains and rings are characteristics expected and common in hip hop videos. Sports clothing and baseball caps are worn with brand logos this is common in hip hop as it shows there wealth and how they had nothing and now they are rich.
3. There is a relationship between the music and visuals
The song has a heavy beat which is fast to medium paced, due to this the video cuts often and occasionally cuts in time with the beat. The video is also in black and white which links to the song being about racial suppression between white and black people, its also dark as hip hop is generally about "what's real" in a neighbourhood and is quite gloomy.
4. Demands of the record label
The record label will want close ups of jay Z in order to publicise him and sell his look, throughout the video jay Z features in close ups and mid shots. He wears sports designer clothing and base ball caps to cement his image in the hip hop genre and is shown in neighbourhood streets, this is to show his roots and for his marketed audience to look up to him and relate.
5. Notion of looking and voyeuristic treatment towards females body
during the music video there are many women wearing little clothing as to be sexualised and act as "eye candy" for the male audiences, this is done by using close ups of body parts in the video.
notions of looking, this is how women are shjown for the pleasure of looking
links between songs lyrics and the visuals in the music video
links between music and visuals
intertextual references, were one media text references another
voyeurism
how the record lable wants the artist represented
performance, narrative and concept based music videos
Lyrics and visuals
According to goodwin the lyrics of a song will have a connection to the visuals shown to an audience. The visuals reinforce what the lyrics say and have a greater impact due to the different types of sensual stimulus eg; soundf and sight.
Genre characteristics
These are characteristics that are expected in a music video based on the genre of music. An example would be a pop music video will show a lot of the singer performing. another example would be R&B you would expect to see lots of jewelry and designer lables.
Narrative based
Narrative gives the song a story and brings more life and emotion into the music video it also makes it more interesting for the audience and can encourage repetitve viewings. A narrative music video can be fragmented, a mixture of band performance and narrative or linear, just a narrative.
Music videos started appearing in the 1920s, they were for many decades just film recordings of a live performance of a singer.
Bob dylan in 1964 created whats credited as the first modern music video but not modern like we see today. The video was the first to include intertextuality where one media text references another media text.
intertextuality is used a lot in music videos, the idea is that people who like one media text will like their music video and watch it because it features in their video. one recent example in a song by taylor swift shown below.
This video is filled with intertextuality as it features 17 other celebrities and many references to other films such as hunger games, tron all these films have a mass fan base who would enjoy the music video because they enjoy the films.
A scene from the 'bad blood' music video.
A scene from the film 'Tron legacy'.
It is clear that these two scenes although from different media texts look very similar this is intertexualisation and someone who like tron will enjoy this scene from the music video thus liking the song.
In the 1970s the record industry sees TV shows as a good way to promote their artists, they begin to create promo videos and these short films begin to replace videos of continuous live performance on a TV stage.
bohemian rhapsody was released in 1975 with a video for their song, this was the beginning of the music video era. The music video featured special effects, editing and a performance the video is also considered as the first to advance into the practice of using visual effects.
Advances in video recording and editing helped the music video industry to develop, new digital and film cameras that where portable made music videos easier and quicker to produce. By the 1980s every popular artists where expected to have a music video to accompany the release of their new singles.
MTV first aired in 1981 and was a channel dedicated to music videos, Video killed the radio star was the first music video shown to viewers and the channel was so relevant in the music industry that is still broadcasts to this day.
By the 90s a number of technical codes became common within music videos which where:
Fast cut montage
multiple viewings, where multiple things would happen in the video and viewers would watch it again to see what happened.
