What is a Music Video? - Miss Miller

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music. It gives a song a visual aspect and as a result can create a narrative behind the song as well as advertising the artists performance skills. It often shows the musicians performing or shows images that illustrate the lyrics/mood of the song. Some purposes of creating a music video include providing a short narrative to tell a story to the target audience in order to entertain them. They can also help the audience understand the meaning or purpose of the song. It can be used as a marketing tool to provide more publicity for the artist and song. There are three different styles of a music video: narrative, performance and concept. A performance music video entails of the artist singing, dancing or performing in some way. A music video with a narrative style tells a story behind the song usually using actors to portray events. A concept music video sells the audience an idea or theme which usually advises or teaches them in some way. A music video can use as many of these styles or only one but I think a music video is most effective when it uses as many as possible.

I will be analysing a song from the dance music genre,  'My Love' by Route 94 featuring Jess Glynne. There are a couple of purposes of this music video, such as telling a story about a boy and girl who have met at a club or party. The story is told from the boys point of view and shows him looking around the scene of a lot of young people drinking, partying and dancing. He then sees and focuses on one particular girl. He follows her to the dance floor and throughout the music video they dance together.

The music video will help the artist to attract a particular target audience and help them to understand the real meaning behind the lyrics as they may have previously heard the song but not understood the purpose of it before the music video made it clearer for them. Furthermore, understanding the meaning of the song allows the audience to remember the lyrics better. The music video also helps the audience to build a relationship with Route 94 and/or Jess Glynne as artists. This is because the song could be about personal experiences which creates the idea that they are happy to share their personal life and stories with the audience. As a result this encourages the target audience to buy into the artists lifestyle. Creating a music video means the song would be aired on television and therefore available to a wider audience as more people would watch television compared to a perhaps niche audience that would listen to the song  alone. A final purpose of the music video to show the different generic conventions in the dance music genre.


This music video features several codes and conventions of the dance music genre. In terms of mise-en-scene and character positioning, you could say that the music video adapts to the generic conventions of the dance genre as there were a large number of people all close together and dancing, looking like they were having fun. This is typical of the genre because dance music is often set in a club setting whereby there are lots of young people dancing and drinking and having fun. This is because dance music is often played in this setting and it wants to encourage and promote this lifestyle so more music consumers would want to go to clubs and listen to dance music more regularly. 

This supports the iconography used in the video; several characters were drinking, smoking or pouring drinks. Most characters were energetically dancing. This body language is typical in this music genre due to the setting it is taking place in, a club setting. Overall the club setting is conventional to this genre as that is often where this type of music is played and it allows the artist to associate their music with people having fun which would have positive connotations for the audience.

The editing techniques were also reflective of conventions in this genre. A thermal filter was used throughout the majority of the music video. This is conventional to the dance genre because a dance music video often uses bright a vibrant colours with a high contrast and in this video the background is rather dark while the people and some objects are bright in colour. Again, this is due to the fact dance music is often played at club settings whereby bright strobe lights and vibrant colours are used so the people will have a good time. Therefore using them in this music video will prove that the dancers in the video are having fun and suggests that if you listened to this song you would have fun.


A common camera angle used in dance music videos is a close up. This is evident several times, for example when the characters drink, do drugs or smoke and when a bartender pours drinks. This is used to focus the audiences attention on the dance conventions of the party lifestyle and having a good time. This will nag age the target audience who are of a similar age to those in the video as they would want to go out and have fun by investing in the party lifestyle and some may already relate to it. 

The style of this music video is narrative. This is because there is no main concept or idea that is presented to the audience. Neither artist is present and performing in some way and the video tells the audience a story about a boy and his night in a particular club. This music video appeals to its target audience of teenagers-young adults by showing people of their age having fun and partying. This makes the audience want to have fun and they believe they can do so if they listen to this genre of music.

I have learnt about the several conventions in this music genre and how they are adapted. I have also learned how an artist makes their music video appeal to their target audience. I think music videos are very effective because they expand the audience of a song and interpret it in a certain way while also providing entertainment for the target audience. I am now considering creating a music video in the dance genre as I feel the conventions will be easier to create as I and my peers are in the target audience and will therefore be able to stare in the video. However, I would like to create a music video with more than one style such as performance and narrative as I think I would obtain a wider audience by taking on more than one style.