Research: Diverse music videos

What are diverse music videos?

Diverse music videos are videos in which content isn’t quite mainstream or common, and fits into a category where it may only be aimed at a niche audience and those who can keep up with subliminal messages being thrown here and there.  The conventions within diverse music videos have led to critics infusing that they will always have a concept based approach. There will always be a contrasting difference between performance, narrative and concept based music videos, and with directors pulling the strings to make sure concept based videos make huge statements in the music video industry, diverse music videos will continue to thrive. The types of genres that fit into the diverse music video industry are House, Indie, Indie Pop and Soft Rock besides various other unidentified subgenres, yet these genres have artists who constantly include diverse music videos within their work. 

Cunningham

Chris Cunningham is a British video artist and is one of many directors in the media industry highly notable for his work on Bjorks ‘All is Full of Love’, a music video which won multiple awards, including an MTV music video for a Breakthrough Video and a nomination for a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video. He has worked with a wide range of other artists like Madonna, Aphex Twins and Gene, and even came out of a seven-year hiatus to do video work for The Horrors. Adding to the earlier recognition he received for his work, Madonna's "Frozen", in which he was director, became an international hit and went on to win the award for 'Best Special Effects', as well as the video for Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker", being nominated for the 'Best Video Award' at the 09' Brit Awards. He has been so influential in the industry he has switched between the film, TV and art industry, this has allowed him to gain notable popularity. Cunningham has a wider mind with a lot of creativity, allowing his music videos to reflect his beliefs and further appeal to a niche audience. Below are various examples of videos that he has directed and stood out from the audience due to its nature, content and diversity.

Bjork - All is Full of Love

Cunningham was the director for the music video that entices two robots being slowly built throughout the course of the film and end up falling in love. It displays two robots enraptured in their surroundings, embracing the only their counterpart as they are magically being put together by the machines around them yet not taking into account that they are not finished pieces. It is love between the opposite sex without using a man and a woman, the robots are a delicate design implemented by the creativity and imagination of Cunningham at a time when diversity was still an unknown subject matter. The genius of Cunningham to have the music video directed to suit the unique lyrics of Bjork created a masterpiece and allowed for the audience to subtly engage with the message endorsed by Bjork. Cunningham did state that he was he was ready to quit recording due to a lack of clear structure in terms of the video, yet he wanted to wait and see how it looked at the end after further pushing to complete the production, expanding his creative ideas to generate the music video to what it is now. The video does lack common conventions of a normal music video in which the topic is love, as the main characters would usually be human characters and not an animal or a robot, it would be an easy understanding as we see robots as machines and that they do not embrace love or feel any emotions, allowing for the diversity of this and its standout from other videos. 

Aphex Twins - Windowlicker

Cunningham directed this video for Richard. D. James, released under his pseudonym, Aphex Twins. Released on 22 March 1999, it peaked at number 16 on the UK Singles Chart. The artwork and music video was created by Chris Cunningham, in which the video was then nomiated at the Brit Awards for 'Best British Video'. It is a ten-minute long parody of contemporary American gangsta Hip-Hop music videos and involved several sections where it openly criticised the common format of these videos. According to analytical research, there are 127 uses of profanity within the dialogue section, this also includes the word "fuck" used a record 44 times. This was another video directed by Cunningham in which it was nominated at the Brit Awards for Best Video Award, and was restricted to only being aired after 9pm due to its graphic content and explicit dialogue. The video was created as a way for Cunningham to express his dislike for the context and messages displayed in American gangsta Hip-Hop music videos. The video featured several different characters, and mainly the stereotypical black and hispanics who made gangsta hip-hop what it was at the time, it then dived into other common aspects of gangsta hip-hop with James appearing in the video dressed like a 'Pimp', to show the audience the type of messages they aim to convey to the audience. 

Madonna - Frozen

Cunningham was also cast as a director for the video to Madonna's "Frozen", this was just as successful as his other works and won the "Best Special Effects" award at the MTV Video Music Award the same year of its release. The video consisted of Madonna in the desert, portrayed by Cunningham as this dark, witch-like character, of which she then transforms or shapeshifts into several different obscurities, the video may have a deeper message for the audience to concur amongst themselves, however the mood of the video sets an unanswerable tone to which we see Madonna as a lonely figure with the lyrics aiding Cunningham in delivering this intense message to the audience. This is not common within music videos cornered around romance and love, it is unconventional for music videos in which the theme is love to be quite dark and broad rather than bright, colourful and eccentric. However the audience can take from this that the music video has gone for a more diverse approach, a contrasting difference in comparison to other less diverse music videos, yet the direction of the video doesn't come as a surprise due to the name of the director, evidently showing that there are links within all of Cunningham's ideas.

Gondry

Michel Gondry, once a young director in the process of making a name for himself, born in 1963 in French city of Versailles, he directed his first music video 25 years later in 1988, in the form of a video for the French band 'Oui Oui', for their song "Junior Et Sa Voix D'or". He then carried on to make a further two videos for the same band, all within the same year and then set his directing career off from then. He has been noted several times for his inventive style in a visual sense a clear distinctive influencing of mise en scene. Along with Cunningham he has won an award, an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for his work on 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as one of the writers, he is also notable for directing the American superhero comedy, The Green Hornet. 

The White Stripes - The Hardest Button to Button

Gondry was cast as the general director for the music video for The White Stripes, and made it a masterpiece. Even leading to a reference of their music video appearing in The Simpsons on Sky 1, in September 2006, the song also appears as a playable track in Rock Band 3 on seventh gen consoles. It was the third music video, out of four, that Gondry directed for them. As someone known for using pixilation animation in their music videos, Gondry brought that same habit to produce the diverse video for The White Stripes. It was a long process for Gondry and the band, which included 32 identical drum kits, 32 identical amplifiers and 16 identical microphone stands, with the equipment being donated to a music school after the entire process. It escapes conventional features of most modern music videos by its diverse editing techniques and lower budget in terms of effects and elements, moreover a branch of unlimited imagination, creativity and diversity, something Gondry was well known for.

Bjork - Crystalline 

As well as working with Chris Cunningham, Bjork also worked Michel Gondry, and it was just as special as her work Cunningham. Michel Gondry was enlisted by Bjork to direct the video for her 2011 song, 'Crystalline', he came up with the idea with Bjork and developed it to create a concept video with brilliant techniques, the use of colour in the video atones for mass diversity of this video. The first scene is introduced with a moon, and somewhat a meteor shower forming on its surface, generating various different forms and crystal type objects. Gondry decided to place Bjork in the video by making it seem Godlike, looking over the goings on that befell her. Concept videos often use a mass amount of computer generated images and animations to create the 'concept' idea, creating what makes it so diverse, stop-motion animation as well as pixilation animation, something Bjork enjoys using in his videos, is common in this video, with stop-motion being used for this. Gondry stated that in terms of directing the video, and the ideas that were brought up for this, "All resulted from several conversations we had, (Bjork and Gondry), about these matters". 

Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You

Gondry was once again enlisted to direct a massive hit and this time by fellow French house band Stardust, for their 1998 smash 'Music Sounds Better With You'. A collaborative effort by two French producers and one vocalist including Thomas Bangalter, now formerly known as one half of Daft Punk. Gondry took on the task of directing the video for this song, which from what I have researched, is a different genre from his past work. Gondry depicted the story of a boy building a model plane over several days, with the implication that the boy was using it to get away from an argument between his parents over what seemed to be his father spoiling him. The boy then completes his plane and throws it into the skies only for it to land on a cloud, which is a major step away from the realistic emphasis that clouds aren't solid and more into the imaginative vicinity that they are. As the video carries on it becomes clear that Stardust, the performing band, are on top of the cloud, in which they then throw his plane back to him, allowing for the boy to carry on with his day. Somewhat a change with music videos as it has no links whatsoever to the song, yet it still draws you in, Gondry had created a video that draws an audience by leaving them curious as to if the boy gets his plane back, if the parents stop arguing, if he finishes his plane, all of these questions asked whilst watching the video, although it had no links to the song, it didn't really matter as that is what Michel Gondry was aiming for. 

Advantages

An artist may have the agenda of reaching out to smaller, more niche audiences, therefore the quality of their product will be of a standard that appeals more to their expectations. This can be exempt from mainstream audiences as their music may contain features and conventions that are uncommon and rare. 

Diverse music videos from an artist have the ability to recreate the artists image towards the audience and media. The artist could be seen as a modern day protagonist aiming to relieve society of mainstream music videos and common conventions within the mainstream scene by the audience and media. 

A diverse music video may be quite difficult to understand but they are said to be more of a psychological engagement, than a challenge. This allows niche audiences to be categorised as those with a tendency to be engaged with the video and its links with the song, rather than be easily let into the message portrayed by music video of a song.

They can also be a visual appeasement for the audience and set a tone for competitors with the music video industry, as the artist has enlisted a director to better the features within the video, as seen with Gondry and Bjork.

Disadvantages 

It is common for the content of diverse music videos to be controversial. As with diversity, the content usually comes from real-life events which may stimulate the judgement of the viewer and media. 

This can increase the risk of censorship to the video as disagreements with the content shown is possible. And can also increase the risk of heavy backlash from audiences and the media, this can lead to the artists image being tarnished by the image they have attempted to push through and failed.

It also may be difficult for mainstream audiences to understand the video as they are used to videos being rather easy to read and simple, and with diverse videos it means that the video will be of a higher quality standard than most. Deep messages will scour throughout the video in the hope that audiences will be able to understand what the artist is trying to convey.

Diverse music videos should stay away from the mainstream 

Some may agree and disagree on this case, but I personally think diverse music videos should stay away from the mainstream music videos. This is down to the point that diverse music videos have a niche audience, and appeal to the lesser minority of society, this should be kept the way it is to ensure that they receive the critical acclaim they get upon release. However difficult it may be to achieve full support from the music industry, diverse music videos are highly recognised at award ceremonies with artists being awarded awards for, 'Best special effects' and 'Video of the Year', amongst many other special awards for a directors work on a songs music video. Artists like Gondry and Cunningham get recognition from directing videos and departing them away from the mainstream scene, rather allowing them to take their own shine and create a vibe that only a diverse, concept music video can create, allows the audience to engage their mind still within the universe of the diverse video rather than be able to relate, configures a sense of escapism for the audience/ viewer. 

Conclusion

In my music video, with my group I will take a look at the storyboard and final idea and generate an insight into whether a diverse music video will be the result. We may create a diverse music video on a performance and concept scale, rather than the common narrative platform they take. This is down to the expectations of the audience and media to produce something appealing, yet be different, diverse and sundry. This is something we will attempt to aim at in order to receive positive feedback and effective views, diverse music videos are often praised for its increasing support of diversity rather than being abject and recurrent of the mainstream expectation and representation.