Michael Shore's music video theory

This blog post is about a theory on music videos which I may refer to through analysing the remainder of the posters that I need to analyse.

Through the understanding of Michael Shore's theory a music video is able to fall into one or more of the following theories:

• Image assaults and outre folks - Over the top characters and artists sometimes form the basis of gaudy (extravagantly bright or showy) imagery.

• Speed, Power, Girls and Wealth - The four things that form the basis of a number of genres, especially hip-hop.

• Information Overload - Too many things happening at once, sometimes causing confusion in the audience.

• Album art come to turgid life - Imagery from other texts related to the band is used in videos as another visual link.

• Surface without substance - The video looks good without having anything meaningful to say.

• Classical storytelling motifs- Recognisable narratives used to allow the audience to relate to the video and song.

• Immediate gratification - The audience being satisfies with what they have straight away.

• Image and style scavengers - The tone and the look of the video has been borrowed from a previously existing text.

• Anesthetisation of violence through chic - Aggressive actions in videos are made to look cool and the audience dont respond negatively.

• Ambivalence - neither being one nor the other - either relates to a character or situation.

• Clichéd imagery - things the audience has seen over and over again.