CONVENTIONS Links - points - playlist: videos I've blogged on

NB: Some highly controversial videos are listed, including 'explicit' versions; some descriptions also contain some strong language.

See this post for some quick links on useful videos to consider.

As I've discussed analysed a great many videos, the list below is partial. The initial order reflects the order from the video below, with the 1st 20 selected to highlight some of the very, very many themes when considering not just conventions of but also reception for music videos. Most can be found in a playlist too - a great way to expose yourself to a wider range of videos than you are likely to be familiar with!!!

More details after the list, but the 20 videos featured in the video (several times more in the playlist) are:

1. Morbid Angel - Existo Vulgore (2012) 
2. Sepultura - Ratamahatta (1996) 
3. PIXIES - Velouria (1990) 
4. Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares to You (1990) 
5. Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball (Terry Richardson, 2013)
6. Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball (ChatRoulette, 2013)
7. Baauer - Harlem Shake (2012) [this is a '10 best of' montage] 
8. Depeche Mode - It's No Good (Anton Corbijn, 1997)
9. Weezer - Buddy Holly (Spike Jonze, 1994)
10. Guns n'Roses - November Rain (1992)
11. Bjork - Crystalline (Anton Corbijn, 2013)
12. Sepultura - Refuse, Resist (1994)
13. Megadeth - Wake Up Dead (1986)
14. Pixies - Bagboy (Lamar + Nik, 2013) 
15. Daft Punk - Da Funk (Spike Jonze, 1995)
16. Rihanna - Pour It Up (Vincent Haycock, 2013) (EXPLICIT tag)
17. Fragma - You Are Alive (2001)
18. Guns n'Roses - Welcome to the Jungle (1987)
19. Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines (Diane Martel, 2013) [parody]
20. Lily Allen - Hard Out Here (Christopher Sweeney, 2013) 

Morbid Angel - Existo Vulgore (2012) [post]
You do need to know the conventions ... but there is much more scope to challenge them than with, say, film, as videos like this, and the following Sepultura example, demonstrate. Rammstein and Rage Against the Machine have also produced examples I've blogged on, bringing Snow White and the Beach Boys into the extreme metal genre.


Sepultura - Ratamahatta (1996) [animated] [post]
A great example of turning conventions and expectations on their heads, this is an animated video by the Brazilian hardcore thrashers! You should also take from this that inspiration can come from anywhere, including music genres (and other media, as with Morbid Angel) you may not be a fan of! [Wiki]

Here's a bonus, highly countertypical further example: old-school (these guys were well established pioneers when I was still at school!) death metallers Obituary, who for their latest single have turned to Flash-animation and a Scooby-Doo style cartoon ... be advised though: it is, nonetheless, gory. You can read about it and watch it here.

PIXIES - Velouria (1990) (one-take video) See Wiki and my posts on this.

UGC FAN-MADE VIDEOS Sepultura use fan vid

I've mentioned this in another (under construction) post, but it merits singling out.
Before I give the actual example, here's what you can learn from this:

• don't restrict yourself to your preferred genre/s! the odds are that few of you are Sepultura fans, but you can pick up great ideas and examples by looking beyond the obvious (take the Morbid Angel [silent movies?!] or Rammstein [Snow White?!] or Rage Against the Machine [Beach Boys?!] examples...)
• embrace the random chances that web 2.0 throws up; I came across this only because I scrolled further into a lengthy web page, despite having found the information I was looking for. I didn't know these Brazilian thrashers had commissioned a competition for a fan-made video until I spotted it here! Some of the examples above come from videos I've spotted in e-zine articles I 'subscribe' to through FB
• when Gillmor writes of the 'former audience', Gauntlett of 'the end of audience studies' and Jenkins of 'convergence culture', these are not hazy ivory tower academics, but active researchers reflecting on clear contemporary trends; you need clear-cut examples to help illustrate such ideas and arguments in the context of the format you're working in
• examples such as this also help to justify any work you do on viral-style/UGC productions, evidencing that it is a very much real phenomenon
• could there be a better illustration of the concept of the 'prosumer'?

The actual video, and further details, are below the line...

Politics in Music Video

A simple post, for now at least: a few examples of music videos which have incorporated strong, explicit political themes (depending on how you read a video, any video can be seen as having implied political themes, and certainly ideological messages), following on from a student pitch centred on Muse's Assassin, a politically-charged track.

War is overdue
The time has come for you
To shoot your leaders down
Join forces underground
[sample lyric from Muse's Assassin]

First up, a band with a long history of tracks and videos taking up explicit, and generally controversial, counter-hegemonic, themes and positions: Megadeth. They were one of the very, very few bands to venture to my home town back in Northern Ireland in the midst of 'The Troubles' (an absurdly reductive label if ever there was one. Frontman Dave Mustaine naively took the advice of a friendly face just before going onstage, and, in a fairly Loyalist (pro-UK) town, pronounced his support for Irish Republicanism ... causing a fierce riot.
NB: The video below contains hyper-fast editing, coming close to a flashing light effect. (View in higher quality 720p here)


There are many metal bands that incorporate rebellious, counter-hegemonic messages, with the popular campaign to get Rage Against the Machine's totemic Killing in the Name Of [a performance video only; includes strong language] an example of how audiences' response to, or uses of, such material doesn't necessarily reflect the full political message as intended.

Next, a Brazilian thrash band well known for their explicitly political lyrics, Sepultura; songs such as Polozia are straightforward in their condemnation of excessive state force. They've used news footage of riots and civil uprisings in their videos (including, from memory, either Inner Self or Beneath the Remains), such as here, with Refuse/Resist - not just employing a political theme but actually a call to arms and action:


There are many more examples out there; punk lyrics were often highly political and so to many of the proto-videos produced around that time - Green Day's American Idiot is a good contemporary example of this.


Maggie Thatcher inspired many (mostly) hostile tracks over the years, continuing when she died in 2013 and any attempted debate over the rights/wrongs of her receiving a state funeral was swiftly shot down by most of the mainstream media. The Huffington Post also did an interesting post on this.

Any more suggestions? Add below as a comment, and I'll add to the post.