RESEARCH: Performance Video

It is common for bands in the rock/indie genre to create a music video that is heavily based on clips of the band playing live on stage. As well as this, clips of the band back stage, the crowd reacting to the music and pictures are all added to give the music a personal touch. I like to think of this type of music video as a bands diary.  Personally, when I watch videos like these, it makes me want to see the band live. Here are a few examples of the videos.

Use Somebody is by far the most well known song by The Kings Of Leon. This is partly to do with it's music video, that manages to create a  . The video shows more conventions of a typical music video as it has a performance track that is not filmed to a live audience. This shows how the band is trying to appeal to the masses as the singer is looking into the camera, directly at the audience. The video is synonymous with the sped up car light through the city roads, which is used constantly through the song.

This music video is by 30 Seconds to Mars. The band visited many cities while on tour and recorded many of  their shows along the way. What makes this video different is the interview style clips of fans of the band talking about music. The idea is that fans of the band watching will have similar views or will be able to relate, this creates a bond between the artists and the band.

Last but not least is 'You know you're right' by Nirvana. The band was so influential and managed to obtain a large fan base, as you can tell by the clips in the music video. The video captures the destructive and aggressive nature of the band's members. The video is made up of many short clips, the beginning has an especially 'jumpy' set of clips that illustrates the sparratic nature of the music. At the chorus, there are clips that are lip synced  with the song so it seems like Kurt is actually singing the base track. This is how the audience knows that this is the chorus.

Towards the end of the song, the chorus is prolonged which is when the clips start to show the band members  destroying their surroundings on stage.  The clips all show the same sort of thing on different stages, which illustrates that they do this a lot. After this, clips of the band members saying 'goodbye' to the crowd begin to emerge, which gives the video a parallel structure as the song winds to an end.

All three of these bands are from the rock genre and are trying to get an epic feel from the videos that shows how big and influential they are. My personal favorite is the one by Nirvana, as it is the best at showing the personality of the band members.