The Rock/Indie Genre

A typical Indie/rock music video is all about the image, while having a certain theme running throughout the music video. Commonly the image of the artist and the theme of the video are related; enhancing the overall product. In comparison to pop music videos, the indie/rock genre predominately features less of a narrative as they use a lot of performance shots instead. Pop artists like Miley Cyrus play for an industry and her image is treated like a product to sell the music to a big target audience. Whereas a lot of artists who feature in the rock/indie genre play music for themselves and not the industry.

This is the music video to pop song ‘We Can’t Stop’ by Miley Cyrus. During this video a lot of it is built up on the narrative and we don’t actually see the character singing a lot of the time.

Contrasting with the rock/indie genre of The Kooks – Forgive & Forget. The whole music video features the band playing, and we Clearly see the performance. This conforms to the convention that most videos in this genre focus more on the performance than a narrative.

The Rock/Indie Genre Despite most music videos of this genre opting out of a narrative, it is an effective way at allowing the audience to understand what the band and the artists are all about.

Here are some examples of narratives found during two Arctic Monkey’s songs… •  ‘Arctic Monkeys (AM album) – R U mine?’

Tattoos ‘Bad boy image’ – black shades Set inside a fast car Feet up on the seats - rebellious

•  ‘Ar$c  Monkeys  (AM  album)  –  Why’d  you  only  call  me  when  you’re  high?’    

Set in a bar Drinking alcohol Fighting scene Sets the tone

Within these two arctic monkeys songs from the album ‘AM’ we can confer a lot about the band and the narrative involved with their songs. They portray of a ‘lad’ representation with the elements shown in their songs. For example, tattoos, fast cars, alcohol, fighting ect. This allows us to get a deeper understanding of the band and where they come from, furthermore the songs and the lyrics reflect the youth of the band who create their own sound and style, something extremely effective to portray through a music video.

The Rock/Indie Genre

Predominately, the setting of a music video from the Indie/rock genre is low budget. They shoot in areas that wouldn’t cost a lot/any money at all.

For example…

‘The Ting Tings – Hang It Up’

Filmed in a skate park.

‘The Paper Kites – Bloom’ Filmed in a field.

‘Bombay Bicycle Club – Always Like This’ Filmed on a street.

Settings can also include areas like – Underground stations, Parks, iconic cities and tunnels. These are places which can be easily accessed and can create a unique feel to the band/artists music video. The settings are kept simple as the aim of the music video is to focus more on the artist/performance.

The Rock/Indie Genre Mise En Scene plays a very important part in the Rock/Indie genres. This is because it helps to portray the meaning behind the music video.

An example of this is shown during the music video of ‘Bombay Bicycle Club – Carry me’ Whereby the artists have normal clothes to reflect their true personality's and where they are from.

Contrasting to this, Pop video ‘Wrecking Ball’ sung by Miley Cyrus focuses a great deal on her minimal costume. This is to reflect the music video and the provocative nature of the artist herself. If she wore a similar costume that is shown in the rock/indie genre, her music video wouldn’t elevate the

same effect. Also in the same way as if a rock/indie music video put great efforts into costume choices; the true personality's of the artists wouldn’t be shown.

Finally, pop band ‘One Direction’ show the artists wearing suits in the music video ‘Kiss You’ which is not a true picture of their personalities, instead they have chosen to wear suits to help sell their video, contrasting again with the Indie/Rock genre.

Indie artists often have a retro look about them, which is created solely through the use of their choice of makeup and costume. For example, their clothing choice is simple, usually dark colours but they don’t put in a lot of effort into costume choice. This is to reflect how the music video is all about the artist/artists true performance.

The Rock/Indie Genre Props are also an important element to the Mise-en-scene of a music video.

‘The kooks – She moves in her own way’

‘Foster The People – Pumped up kicks’

‘Bombay Bicycle Club – Always like this’

‘Artic Monkeys – Arabella’

‘The neighborhood – Sweater Weather’

‘The 1975 – Girls’

These 6 music videos each present props throughout, which is very important in making the music video appear realistic to the audience. The key props in the Rock/Indie genre are mainly guitars and drum kits. Seeing these features in music videos shows the audience that the artists are the one actually playing the instruments. – extremely beneficial in making an effective music video.