Conventions of Music Videos: Promotion

Before the birth of modern music videos was around the mid 80's where before hand videos only consisted of band footage. This was just the norm as it ties the music closely to the performers and was the natural state of things.

One of the first 'modern' music videos to be well received by the mainstream public was A-ah's 'Take on Me'. It popularised the trend of a narrative tied together along with the song. It comes with an ambiguous but  simplistic plot which blurs the lines between reality (A feature of Postmodernism) It consisted of a largely animated portion which was very common in the late 80's but still contained classical style of including band footage within the video, perhaps cautious not to step to far away from the norm.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914

Today music videos have become extremely mainstream with traditions like multiple narratives, blurred realities and an ambiguous plot. Taylor Swift's 'Shake it off' is a good example of what a modern music video would be like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM