There are 3 type of music videos; performance, narrative and conceptual. The types of music video a band or artist choose depend upon their image, the genre of their music and the meaning behind the song. Artist can have music videos which are hybrids of the different type of music videos for example fall out boy ‘this ain’t a scene it’s an arm race’.

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Performance videos are very much like they say on the tin; it’s mainly the band or artist performing the track to the camera. In this type of music video there is normally many close up shots of the band/artist along with some mid shots. It’s very common for artists within the alternative or rock genre to use performance videos to help present them to the audience as ‘organic’ artists; it also helps them showcase their talent. An example is The Strokes - 'Reptilla’ it includes shots of thebands playing the electric guitars and some shots of the vocals.

 

Narrative is very different to performance, it often doesn’t have any shots that refers to the artist/band and normally doesn’t show their faces/image at all.  It’s normal for narrative music videos to follow a certain storyline, with actors/ characters taking part in a plot which may be related to the lyrics in the song. An example of this type of music video is Mike Posner – ‘I took a pill in Ibiza'

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Lastly there is conceptual, which is often very abstract and rarely make any sense. Majority of time it doesn’t include any shots of the band/artist performing and doesn’t follow a storyline.  Conceptual videos rarely make any sense and are quite abstract but normally they have a deeper meaning for the artist/ band.  The example I have chosen is Sia – ‘Chandelier’