Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,480
edits
prefix>Import Bot (Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.OtherCommonMusicVideoConcepts 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.OtherCommonMusicVideoConcepts, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (examples template) |
||
(10 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
Many music video ideas are recycled and repeated, some more than others. This is a list of some less common but still recyclable concepts, motifs, visual flourishes, sight gags and camera tricks.
{{examples}}
{{smallcaps|Backstage Pass}}
* [[Def Leppard]], "Pour Some Sugar On Me"
* [[Bon Jovi]], "Livin' On A Prayer"
* [[Phil Collins]] and Philip Bailey, "Easy Lover": shows the two preparing for an appearance on an ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show|Ed Sullivan]]''-type television show.
* [[
* Danger Mouse, "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zJqihkLcGc The Grey Video]": a video for the song Encore off of Danger Mouse's Grey Album.
* Morningwood, "Best of Me"
* [[
{{smallcaps|[[Back to Front|Backwards Action]] }}
* Mute Math, "Typical"
* Jack Johnson, "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing"
Line 18:
* Remy Zero, "Save Me" (yes, the ''[[Smallville]]'' theme song)
* [[Coldplay]], "The Scientist"
* The ending of "[["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s "Amish Paradise"
* [[Nine Inch Nails]], "Deep"
* Theory of a Deadman, "Not Meant To Be"
Line 25:
* Embrace, "Ashes"
* Elio e le Storie Tese, "[http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=AFW81wHXcbE Mio cuggino]". They even acknowledge this in the beginning of the video, by saying it was filmed in "IndietroScope" (''indietro'' means "backwards" in Italian). It is also lip-synched backwards.
* God Lives Underwater, "From Your Mouth": The entire video consists of reversed footage of one man eating.
* The Pharcyde, "Drop". The group performs the entire song backwards, and shows what getting 100 gallons of water dumped on you looks like in reverse.
* David Cook, "Come Back To Me"
Line 37:
* [[Keith Urban]], "Days Go By" (bridge only)
{{smallcaps|Band From Mundania}}
* [[Def Leppard]], "Me And My Wine"
* [[Queen]], "I Want To Break Free" (specifically an homage to ''[[Coronation Street]]'')
* [[Twisted Sister]], "We're Not Gonna Take It"
* Cyndi Lauper, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"
* [[David Bowie]] does this in both videos from 1999's ''hours...'' In "Thursday's Child", he and his current lover are getting ready for bed when in the bathroom mirror he sees a reflection of his younger self and an old lover. In "Survive", he broods alone in a cluttered kitchen, presumably over the breakup described in the
{{smallcaps|Dance Hall Daze}}
* Fittingly, Wang Chung, "Dance Hall Days"
* Paula Abdul, "Cold Hearted Snake"
* Peter Cetera/Amy Grant, "Next Time I Fall"
* [[Kate Bush]], "Rubberband Girl"
* [[David Bowie]], "Never Let Me Down"
* [[One Republic]], "All The Right Moves"
* [[Def Leppard]] (again), "Hysteria"
* Nicola Roberts, "Beat of My Drum"
* [[
* [[
{{smallcaps|[[Dancing Is Serious Business|Dancing In The Street]]}}
* Many, many videos by Janet Jackson.
* Her brother [[Michael Jackson|Michael]] tweaked it a bit; his version featured dancing zombies. Not to mention that one with the gang war.
* The end of Donna Summer's "She Works Hard For The Money" features this as a [[Dream Sequence]].
* Ironically, [[David Bowie]] and [[The Rolling Stones|Mick Jagger's]] video for "Dancing In The Street" featured only the two of them.
* Billy Joel's "A Matter Of Trust" uses the Carnivale approach.
* Parodied in Marianas Trench's "Shaketramp" where the first half is the typical form of this in old musical stlye but after getting hit in the head the lead singer is trasported to a modern times version of the same street where the locals aren't as willing to join in.
* [[Bjork]]'s "It's Oh So Quiet".
* "Dr Love" by Bumblebeez, where the dancers are largely shirtless older men with elaborate magic marker tattoos. Reportedly the band recruited homeless people, who got money and a free meal for their efforts.
* Lionel Richie's "All Night Long." Okay, the "street" was a stage set, but still.
* [[Pat Benatar]]'s "Love Is A Battlefield". What a great way to fight off a pimp!
* Subverted in "Lucky Day" by Nicola Roberts. For most of the video, Nicola is prancing around [[Big Applesauce|New York]] with no real choreography to it, and then for a few inexplicable moments, two dancers pop out of nowhere and begin dancing with her. And then they leave again.
* [[Feist]]'s "Mushaboom" starts with Leslie Feist waking up in her apartment and singing along to the song itself playing on the radio as she prepares for her day (which may or may not raise the [[Celebrity Paradox]] question). Then her toast pops out of the toaster and flies out of the window, she flies out after it, and a parade of people start dancing along behind her as she sings and plays guitar.
{{smallcaps|Garage Rock}}
* [[Metallica]]'s "One", between [[Video Full of Film Clips|clips from the movie]] ''Johnny Got His Gun'', showed the band in a warehouse. An alternate version removed the film clips.
* Trixter, "Give It To Me Good"
* [[The Offspring]], "Can't Repeat"
* Orange, "No Rest For The Weekend"
* [[Bowling for Soup]]'s ''1985'' video is this with [[Shout
* [[Billy Talent]], "River Below"
* The Smithereens, "Blood & Roses"
Line 83:
* [[My Chemical Romance]] did this in "I'm Not Okay" in between clips of high school shenanigans.
{{smallcaps|In The Studio}}
* [[
* [[Def Leppard]] used a fantasy-like, stylized interpretation of this for "Love Bites".
* After years of decrying trite video concepts, and after exactly three original videos of their own, [[Metallica]] quickly fell into this cliche with "Nothing Else Matters".
* Kyle Minogue's video for "Locomotion" included a brief scene In The Studio.
* [[Bon Jovi]]'s "Born To Be My Baby", accentuated by manipulating the soundtrack to actually sound like a mixer changing and testing the various instruments' levels.
* Audioslave's "Like a Stone" and "Revelations"
* [[Nickelback]]'s "If Everyone Cared"
* [[
* [[Rush]]'s studio videos for "Limelight" and "Tom Sawyer".
* Julian Lennon's "Valotte" and "Too Late For Goodbyes." Not only were they essentially the same video with minor variations, they were released one after the other, and they were both directed by Sam Peckinpah.
* [[
* An early example: the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vf26cRtG_w&eurl promo film for "Lady Madonna"] shows [[The Beatles]] in the studio, but we don't actually see them performing the song. That's because it was filmed while they were recording "Hey Bulldog." Several decades later Apple used the same footage and put together [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGrEZH7j1bQ a video for "Hey Bulldog."]
* [[New Order]], "The Perfect Kiss". Interesting because the band prefers their videos to be [[Surreal Music Video|extremely strange and surreal]].
* Arctic Monkeys, "Teddy Picker"
* Parodied in a scene in Ben Folds Five's "Rockin The Suburbs", in which director [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] adjusts the settings in post-production so that the song doesn't suck. (Literally. There's two sets of faders labeled "Suck" and "Rock".)
* A Perfect Circle, "Judith"
* [[Queen]]'s "One Vision"
* Hall & Oates, "Go Solo"
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cem1ME-OvQ The Hold Steady's "Stuck Between Stations"], though it seems to be set in a home recording studio. With bookends showing that apparently they've been re-recording the song over and over again for every cassette copy of it ("I don't understand why we can't just get these dubbed!").
* ''USA (United Support of Artists) for Africa'' in [[We Are the World]], showing the soloists assembling around microphones, and then on the chorus, together with the choir of other big names, all in the studio. Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, it included such names as Diana Ross, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Dionne Warwick, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon. The choir itself also featured the other Jacksons, the Pointer Sisters, and even Dan Aykroyd.
** In the same vein, Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas."
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcTP7YWPayU Sex Crime (1984)]" by [[
* The videos for The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and "Spirits Of The Material World" feature this. "Magic" does cut between "studio" shots and random shots of the band cavorting around Martinique, but everyone who's seen the video chuckles at the sequence in the studio with Andy Sumner mugging for the camera while Sting sings "Must I alllll-waaaaaaays beeeeee aaaaaaaa-LOOOOOOOOOONE...."
* [[Eddie Murphy]]'s "Party All The Time"
* The basic plot of [[Matthew Sweet]]'s [http://youtu.be/gIEUxASauuA "We're the Same"]
* [[Florence
* [[ABBA]]'s "Gimme Gimme Gimme".
{{smallcaps|Junkyard/Construction Site}}
* Tesla, "No Way Out"
* Britny Fox, "Long Way To Love"
* The British-only video for [[Def Leppard]]'s "Pour Some Sugar On Me" featured a house being
* [[Green Day]], "Brainstew".
* Testament, "Trial by Fire"
* "Teutonic Terror" by [[
* [[Slipknot]]'s "Psychosocial"
{{smallcaps|L.A. Rooftop}}
* [[
* Great White, "The Angel Song"
* Jonas Brothers, "L.A. Baby"
* Most of the 2nd video for Hall & Oates' "Say It Isn't So", filmed in New York.
* Hurricane, "Over The Edge"
* [[
** Which they infamously filmed without permits. The LAPD were not amused.
* [[Limp Bizkit]], "Rollin'", though it was actually from atop one of the twin towers. Disturbingly, the band was sent a thank-you letter from the tower on September 10, 2001.
Line 134:
* [[Icehouse]]'s "Crazy" did this on a high-rise in [[Sydney]].
{{smallcaps|The Making Of The Video}}
* [[Genesis (
* Debbie Gibson, "Electric Youth"
* [[Flaming Lips]], "Sponge Bob & Patrick Confront The Psychic Wall Of Energy"
* Parodied in [[Michael Jackson]]'s "Liberian Girl": we are on the set of a video, but instead of Jackson in action a bunch of famous visiting folks (even Weird Al!) are trying to figure out where Michael actually is as the song plays. Turns out he's the one filming them.
* Also parodied in Phil Collins's [http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=LTClsWzUHBo "Don't Lose My Number"], where various possible concepts (and subsequent behind the scenes) for the song video clip are shown; some of them are [[Shout
* Steve Perry's "Oh Sherrie" is supposedly filmed during a break from the filming of a different music video.
* Parodied in Wall of Voodoo's surreal video for "Mexican Radio". A brief long shot of the soundstage, just over two-thirds of the way through, shows the band continuing to play as the dissatisfied director calls 'cut' and orders the crew to break for lunch.
* [[
* Aqua's ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=IT&hl=it&v=taF3YHdomA4 Bumble Bees]'' is another parody. The director with a thick French accent proposes three concepts: an [[Animated Music Video]] with Aqua as CG bugs (obviously inspired by ''[[A
* Parodied in [[Alan Jackson]]'s "That'd Be Alright", where a crew decides to accept Alan's sarcastic suggestion to film a music video without him. Eventually, this leads to them trying to find look-a-likes, [[
{{smallcaps|[[Walking in Rhythm|Marching Band]]}}
* [[Van Halen]], "Best Of Both Worlds"
* Hurricane, "I'm Onto You"
* Non-[[Music Video]] example: in ''[[The Breakfast Club]]'', Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall and Emilio Estevez do this during the "rock out in the library" scene.
* Ok Go's This too Shall Pass Has a Marching band music video, with a Literal Marching band. Even the music is replaced with marching band instruments.
{{smallcaps|Monochrome Backdrop}}
* Paula Abdul uses both versions for "Straight Up".
* Many of Jody Watley's videos.
* An unreleased version of [[
* [[The Police]]'s "Every Breath You Take", spiced up with multiple layers of photography.
** Their video for "Roxanne" is arguably a
* James Blunt's "You're Beautiful", to some degree: the all-white backdrop is actually a cloudy sky, and James is sitting along a tall boardwalk with white floor.
* [[Talking Heads]], "Once In A Lifetime" (a [[Green Screen]] cornucopia)
** Also, the Picture In Picture in "Road To Nowhere"
* One version of the video for REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling" combines this with the "In The Studio" variant.
* Two of the videos [[My Bloody Valentine (
** "To Here Knows When" is largely random blurry and heavily psychedelicized footage (including a person dancing, mirrored on both sides of the screen, lots of pink filters, and close-up shots of Kevin Shields' guitar), but does take place against a [[White Void Room]] backdrop.
** "Soon" is a simple [[Performance Video]], but once again thrown through a ton of blurry filters and taking place in a completely white setting. Also, random shot of Bilinda Butcher dancing.
Line 176:
* Tyler, The Creator's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbZidsgMfw Yonkers]
{{smallcaps|Movie Tie-In Music Video}}
* Robert Englund has appeared in character as [[A Nightmare
* [[Michael Jackson]]'s "Childhood" from ''[[Free Willy]] 2'' features the child actors from the film singing the chorus to the song while Jackson sings in a forest.
* [[
* "The Power Of Love" from ''[[Back to The Future]]'', performed by Huey Lewis and The News. Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) makes a pit stop at a club to see the band, but someone takes the DeLorean on a joyride while he's watching the performance.
* "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" from ''[[Dumb and Dumber]]'', performed by the Crash Test Dummies. Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) foils a robbery while on a trip in [[Canada, Eh?|Toronto, Canada]], and gets a pumpkin stuck on his head in the process.
* Will Smith is a major proponent of this - almost every film he's starred in has an accompanying music video, in which he appears in-character (often with other members of the cast) and directly interacts with the singer (along with clips from the film).
** In Diana King's "Shy Guy" video from 1995's ''[[Bad Boys]]'', Smith and Martin Lawrence appear as the two titular cops of the film, reacting to the singer's presence and trying (miserably) to dance to the music.
** ''[[Wild Wild West]]'' from the 1997 remake of the same name. In the video, Jim West (Smith) pursues a [[Back
** Speaking of Will Smith, his videos for the ''[[Men in Black (
* Due to Mike Myers' role as the film's lead character, many of his appearances in the tie-in videos from the ''[[Austin Powers]]'' Trilogy fall under this:
** Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger" (from ''The Spy Who Shagged Me'') involves Austin going to a British club to see her perform, and driving her back to his place afterwards.
Line 191:
** Britney Spears' "Boys" involves Austin trying to dance with the pop singer at an exclusive party.
* Another Britney Spears one is ''Crazy'', in wich the main couple from the movie ''Drive Me Crazy'' -Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier- have many cameos.
* MC Hammer's "Addams Family Groove" from ''[[
** Had child molestation accusations not derailed it, [[Michael Jackson]] would have done a similar video for the sequel ''Addams Family Values'' ("Is It Scary") in which he would be aided by Wednesday and Pugsley in confronting a mob accusing him of being a freak. He later revived the project as ''Ghosts'' in 1997, but dropped the Addams trappings.
* In El Debarge's "Who's Johnny?" from ''[[
* Both of the ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' films include music videos where members of the cast ham it up for the cameras. Ray Parker Jr.'s title theme song had a music video where the titular team dance in Times Square, while Bobby Brown's "On Our Own" (used in the sequel) had various actors (including Rick Moranis as Louis Tully) reacting to ghosts appearing in New York.
* The end credits for ''[[Down Periscope]]'' include a music video for "In the Navy", with the Village People interacting with the movie's cast, interspersed with some footage from the movie. At various points, star Kelsey Grammer appears in most if not all of the Village People costumes.
Line 199:
* A variant of this appears when a musician (or an actor who sings) who has a starring role in a film performs in a music video "in-character", which makes the video an extension of the film's backstory or plot:
** Beyonce performing as Foxxy Cleopatra in "Work It Out" from ''[[Austin Powers]] In Goldmember''.
** Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks in the song "City of Crime" from 1990's ''Dragnet: The Movie'', where they reprise their roles as Joe Friday and Pep Streebeck. The duo interrogate criminals, explain the plot of the film through verse and perform ridiculous choreographed dance numbers!
** The entire cast of ''[[
** While he played the movie's villain and had top billing, [[David Bowie]] appears as himself in the two videos derived from ''[[Labyrinth]]'' and the interaction with characters seems to be the result of travel between the "real" world and movie world. In "Underground", his trip into a mysterious alley results in an encounter with Hoggle, the Junk Lady, and company. In "As the World Falls Down", Hoggle is witness to Bowie singing to a portrait of a woman who, elsewhere, [[Love Before First Sight|falls for a photograph]] of him.
* In a variant of this, the video for [[Rascal Flatts]]' "Life Is a Highway" (from the ''[[
{{smallcaps|Sending Insightful Messages To Strangers}}
* Rob Thomas' "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh86uSsux1M Ever the Same]." The first video to use this
* [[Nickelback]]'s "If Today Was Your Last Day." The title alone makes this one of the... ''[[Glurge|less]]'' [[Anvilicious|subtle]] [[Tastes Like Diabetes|versions]].
{{smallcaps|Tear Down The Walls}}
* [[
* [[
* In Run DMC's remake of "Walk This Way", Steven Tyler pushed ''himself'' through a wall.
* Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" included a scene where he put his guitar through a bathroom vanity. The reason? He wanted the video to include "an action sequence".
* Switchfoot's "Meant To Live" involved the band using power tools to destroy a room. Depending on how you see it, [[The Power of Rock]] may have caused a minor earthquake near the middle of the song to help them out.
* In [[
* In [[
* At the end of "Into the Void" by [[Nine Inch Nails]]
* A slight variant appears in the (sadly defunct) hardcore band Snapcase's "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXCmFu6JHtE Typecast Modulator]" video.
* [[Scar Symmetry]] has this happen quite a bit in their video for "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mebSi4PDC34 Morphogenesis]."
{{smallcaps|Travelogue Montage}}
* Phil Collins, "Take Me Home"
* [[Huey Lewis and The News]], "Heart Of Rock And Roll" (various U.S. locations as called out in the lyrics)
* Randy Newman, "I Love L.A."
* The Killers, "Read My Mind" (various places in Japan, mostly Tokyo)
* Part of [[Michael Jackson]]'s "Black or White" is a variation where he's clearly on sets but gets down with various dancers of different ethnicities in an "It's a Small World" kind of way.
Line 235:
[[Category:Music Video Tropes]]
[[Category:Other Common Music Video Concepts]]
|