Key features of pop music videos

Pop genre music videos always highlight the youthfulness, attractiveness and what an ideal person is supposed to look like in the artist. Bright lighting is used in the videos to highlight the artist’s facial features and to make them look more attractive by removing blemishes etc. Look at my post on lighting in pop music videos for more information at http://hattiesmusicvideo.blogspot.com/2011/12/lighting-of-music-videos.html

Pop artists usually wear tight, revealing and provocative clothing in their music videos to gain male attention as well as still appealing to their target audience. The music videos focus heavily on the singers and their performance compared to the rock genre which tends to focus on the instruments played.

Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:

·         an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology.

·         an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal artistic qualities.

·         an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance.

·         a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments.

·         much pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or it uses dance-oriented beats or rhythms.

The shots of the pop music videos tend to be quick and sharp usually to fit the beat of the music. They don’t tend to use continues shots as the large range of angles and shot differences tends to suit the audience and music better.