Music Video Styles- Narrative

A 'Narrative' style music video is the mix of a 'Performance' styled video where the band/ artist is focused on however a mix of this along with a basic story line is portrayed in time with the music. This style of music video helps portray a message/ story behind music lyrics and tone to the audience. This style of video is seen within many music genres but often seen in pop, hip hop and dance music as the lyrics in pop and hip hop are often deep and about life lessons/experiences and the visuals help portray, whereas dance music can have no lyrics at all yet the emotion behind the visuals of the narrative can match the tone of the music.

Some Examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M97vR2V4vTs Rudimental- Waiting All Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JjqTinl-VI N.W.A- Straight Outta Compton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zR6ROjoOX0 Iggy Azalea- Work

Rudimentals video of 'waiting all night' was pieced together from footage of Bmx Champion Kurt Yaeger and his accident making him an amputee and his journey of recovery ending the video with him back on his bike with his friends and he is happy. Emotion plays a big part to the connection between the music itself and the visuals of Kurt and is seen when there is the middle section through to the ending where there is a build up in the music towards a loud expressive finish. This build up in music from the middle to the end then matches Kurt training to build up strength after his accident and his attempt of riding his bike again in which there is a peak and he is able to ride with his friends again which matches the musics tone and pace build up which then creates emotion as the audience and empathise and there is a relief in the audiences mind that the struggle is finished for Kurt. This then makes this style of 'Narrative' music video very effective and is personally my favourite music video of all time.