Diversity of a Music video.

Two music videos that stand out to be diverse are Madonna-frozen and Aphex Twins-window licker. We looked at these videos in class and both demonstrate within the video to be unconventional and break expectations of the industry and are therefore diverse. Chris Cunningham created both of these music videos. He is a music video director that uses diversity as part of his work to enhance sales for the product and make the audience re-watch the videos. He also was nominated for a Grammy in the best short form music video.

Madonna’s song Frozen is slow and connotes loss and despair, which is a harsh opposite to the connotations of happiness and fun found within her other songs, Holiday and Material girl to name a few which have demonstrated the success of Madonna throughout her fans and the industry. The first characteristic that is diverse in this video is the sound. Her singing and the melody of the song has an eerie feel to it, similar to spectral and ghost like sounds within a Hollywood movie. The video is also diverse, as it is comprised of a collection of shots with Madonna singing in an isolated Desert making the video fully performance based. This is an indication to Madonna following Goodwin’s theory of star image motifs, as she is the only character the audience can see an therefore likely o form a better connection and relationship to her. This method also follows Dyer’s theory, paradox two. This is so as she is ever present throughout the music video enhancing her stance with the audience, This could show that whilst Madonna is taking her music into another direction she is still following theories and formulas and therefore not making Madonna as diverse as it first appeared. By Madonna appearing gothically styled within frozen, it is an attempt to attract other audiences from other genres into her music, Madonna’s prominence within the industry allowed this as she knows that she can attempt things like this and still maintain her existing audience, where as a newer artist like ours ‘Justin Oakley’ would not be able to do this. Conventions of Madonna that are diverse to her other songs are that she has black hair in frozen where as she would usually have blonde/brown hair, she wears dark clothes with is contrast to her trendsetting image in other videos and finally the sound of the song is ultimately more gothic compared to the usual pop feel within her songs.

Window licker by Aphex twins is another diverse music video although it is not unconventional to their music genre. I would place them into the alternative category of genre, which enabled the artist, more freedom in their style of music video. Aphex twins, like Madonna, provide a series of diverse music videos an example of this, is their song ‘come to daddy’ which makes me believe that Aphex twins use diverse videos to be their unique selling point. Window licker has the audience in little exposure to the artist, which in other genres will reduce the chance of a relationship being formed, however I believe that it does the opposite and instead of forming a relationship with the artist they form a relationship with the song/band name. As far as limited exposure to the artist I believe that the Aphex twins exploit paradox two of Dyer’s theory well by themselves being often absent making their time on screen more valuable to the audience. Through being diverse and alternative, Aphex twins wouldn’t have only one type of fan/target audience, which makes the potential size of their audience unlimited in theory. This music video again differences itself from frozen as it displayed to be mostly concept based with the imagery connoting break downs in society, e.g. poorer classes – two street gangsters in a car, the girls attracted to money/wealth in the limo and the singular guy in the limo of wealth.  Also another problematic issue connoted within this video could be when the girls take on the face of the guy in the car; this connotes societies susceptibility to internalizing ideas and being controlled. The face in this instant represents the controlling idea.

Being diverse can allow high levels of popularity and fame as the artist becomes unique, this attracts audiences that are tired of consuming products of their genre that are created and not real. But diversity can also lead to negativity, being diverse can also repel audiences as it can be far too extreme for their liking and can be detrimental to the success of an artist.

One could say that being diverse can be used efficiently in big artists such as Madonna and to some extent Aphex twins. However for a new artist like ours is unlikely they would succeed in establishing themselves as an artist, although diverse videos through being excitable and challenging to the audience increase the chance of the audience to re watch the video as they can pick up on elements they may have missed first time round.