Lately, in my music video class, style has been a very important subject. We have observed different styles of music and video such as: gothic, hard rock, classic rock, rap, and country. Each style determines the structure, content, and audience of the music video.
Perhaps the most important function of a music video is the commercial aspect. Music videos, like much other things, are a way to advertise and make money. Therefore, the commercial aspect of the video reflects very much on the style. Some important artists that take advantage of this aspect are: Morse, Jhally, Levy, and Aufderhide; and each artist has an intention to publicize their music video.
While all these artists have the same overall purpose, their approach is slightly different. Morse and Jhally see music television as a perfect medium to advertise and boost sales. Moreover, Levy seems to have the same approach; however, Levy seems to focus on demographics to advertise the most effective product and to attract the particular demographic to that item. For example, if Dove was advertising soap in a rap music video, Dove would not advertise their product with an elderly man or woman, for this would be ineffective to the certain demographic, which is typically late teen and young adult man and women. However, Dove would use the same age group as the music video’s watching demographics. These aspects of advertising make the music video different, thus determining the video’s style.
Another form of style in relation to advertising in music videos comes from Adferhide. Aufderhide seems to follow the style of Levy. However, Aufderhide seems to target his audience based on political values. This seems perfect because the audience of music television seems to be young and new voters. This is why the “Choose or Lose” campaign has started.
Overall, style is based on “the aesthetic, generative process”. Mostly, the aesthetic fields which are:
-Light and Color
-Two-dimensional space
-Three-dimensional space
-Time & motion
-Sound
These aspects determine the style of the video and duplicate a style, one must follow the fields in their style above by: Repeating, Amplifying, and repudiating. If one follows this process, their music video should be effective and original even though most aspects are repeated.
