narratives in music videos

Songs rarely tell a complete narrative. Usually music videos are studied like a film in order to see what the narrative is, like the plot of a movie. The narrative fuzz in songs will affect the way in which a story is used to represent a song's meaning. Music videos should avoid a classic realist narrative due to their role in advertising. Music videos need to have repeatability built-in, people need to be able to watch them over and over in a casual way. The performance used in a video is sometimes more important that the narrative. Music videos often cut between the narrative and the performance of the song. Sometimes the artist will act as a narrator and participant at the same time. The aesthetics of the performance are what make the narrative appear more real and authentic.