The songs I will be analysing are:
1. Rihanna - Umbrella (POP)
Costume: - Roughly, Rihanna changes her costumes 5/6 times in this music video. In every costume change, we can see a lot of skin as she is very revealing. This represents the genre well because pop music tends to show a lot of the woman's body as it is very pleasing to the eye of the male. The costume and make up does link to the lyrics of the song because it is a romantic song about being together forever. The rain adds on to the atmosphere and we see it as a romantic night in. The dark clothing goes well because it is sexy and appealing to the eye in the rainy weather. In the second chorus when she sings, 'These fancy things will never come in-between', she is dancing in a glamorous room with her hair tied very neatly. Her costume is most revealing at this stage. The tied back hair and red lipstick do link to the lyrics of the song but her revealing costume is adding more meaning to the song to create a sexier atmosphere. Finally, there is a base shot where she is wearing no clothes at all and this is a perfect example of a pop video because women's body are a pleasure to watch for their target audience.
Locations and setting: -The video contains 3-4 locations and settings. One of them would be her dancing in the rain in a revealing outfit. The sexy costume does link to the setting because it is adding on more meaning to the song by again creating that sexy atmosphere of a rainy day in. However, it is raining and it does link to the main title of the song which is 'Umbrella'. Another location would be the glamorous room where she dances with her umbrella. It is very fancy and she is again dressed with even less clothing. This suggests she is dancing to a 'cosy night in' theme. The different locations in the video are used well because they are entertaining and they are expensive and fancy. This is stereotypical for the POP genre of music videos.
Props: - Finally, Rihanna only uses one prop in her music video which is an umbrella. She uses it to represent the man she is singing about and dances with it everywhere to link it to the lyrics of the song. She uses her umbrella to show that they do not come apart which is the main story to her song. She even does sexy dancing with the umbrella to also show that it represents the man she is singing about.
2. Queen - Don't Stop Me Now (ROCK)
Costumes: - The costume of the man that sings is very typical for the ROCK genre. We expect to see black leather clothing on rock artists and this is exactly what we see. However on the other band members, some of them are dressed colourful which is un-stereotypical. This may be because the lyrics of the song are not very depressing but rather happy and jolly. For example, the song says 'cause i'm having a good time'. This could be the reason why the song does look colourful in this particular video. There are no costume changes in this music video because they are performing on stage.
Settings and Locations:- The setting of this song is also very stereotypical for a rock band because they always perform on stage. The singer is dressed in black leather clothing singing on the mic which is something we usually see in rock music videos.
Props: - The props used in this music video are the instruments being played. This is stereotypical because in rock music videos, they usually perform on stage with all their instruments and it is not a directed music video. Their band is their music and video all in one.
3. Chamillionaire - Ridin
Costumes:- The costumes in this music video are very stereotypical for the RAP genre. The expensive clothing, hats, bandannas and heavy chains are all elements of costume that make a rap artist give his image as we see in Chamillionaire in this music video. There are about 3-4 costume changes in this music video but all of them use baggy clothing, hats and heavy jewellery. This song also uses ladies wearing cropped tops and revealing tops which is also a feature we usually see in Rap music videos. We do not see it as often in this music video but we do see occasional women dressed in short clothing. The costumes does not really link to the lyrics of the song as he is talking more about cars and police but they do give him a bad boy image which links to the theme of the song of police trying to catch him being bad.
Settings and Locations: - There are 4-5 locations in this music video. One of them is in a car which is typical for a rap artist as they are very into their expensive luxuries. Also there are police patrolling around which indicates a sign of trouble. Usually rap artists rap about a bad lifestyle and police which is another stereotypical feature. At the end he is in a dark corner with his friends and police come through which is again an indicator of bad behaviour. Although the lyrics say that they do not actually catch him, it just suggests that he does have a sly character about him.
Props: - The props used in this video are money, cigars and cars. These are all stereotypical in RAP music videos because we expect to see bad habits and large sums of money to make us wonder where the rapper actually gets it from. It implies dodgy behaviour which we usually see in most RAP videos nowadays.
After analysing all three videos, I realised that the amount of costumes used for the artists of genres such as rap and hip hop, change a lot throughout one video. This makes costume a vital part of a music video if you want to make it interesting. It is also important that you pick costumes carefully to represent the genre well. In umbrella for example, she wore a lot of skimpy clothing which was stereotypical for female artists in the POP industry, whereas in RAP music, they wear a lot of expensive clothing with expensive jewellery to portray a particular image. In ROCK, there was no costume change which is stereotypical because they perform on stage and that is their music video.
The similarities between RAP and POP would be that the settings and locations always change as well as the costumes. ROCK on the other hand stays the same in both locations and costumes because it is a completely different genre and is not as mainstream.
Finally, I think that the use of props are essential in music videos because in the videos I have just analysed, every single one of them had props they used in their music video to give a message or to represent the genre. This has helped me realise that I need to think carefully about the use of costumes, locations and props when it comes to making our own music video.
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