Michael Shore's Music Video Theory

Michael Shore believes that a music video can fall into one or more of his different categories, which are:

·         Image assaults and outré folks- this means they use over the top characters and artists sometimes form the basis of extravagant imagery.

·         Speed, power, girls and wealth- these are the four factors which form the basis of some music video genres (e.g. Hip-Hop).

·         Information overload- this is when there are too many things happening at once, which sometimes can confuse the audience.

·         Album art come to turgid life- this is imagery from other texts related to the band used in the video as a visual link for the audience to pick up.

·         Surface without substance- this is when the video looks good enough without having anything meaningful to say.

·         Classic storytelling’s motifs- these are more recognisable n narrative videos, and they are used to allow the audience to relate the video and the song.

·         Immediate gratification- this is when the audience is being satisfied with what they have straight away.

·         Image and style scavengers- this is when the tone and the look of the video has been borrowed from an existing text.

·         Anesthetisation of violence through chic- these are aggressive actions in videos which are made to look cool to ensure the audience don’t respond negatively.

·         Ambivalence- this either relates to a character or a situation, and it means that the audience can have mixed feelings about something.

·         Clichéd imagery- these are things that the audience has seen over and over again.