Music Videos

I think Charlene Kaye's music videos are some of my favorite music videos...

There's loads of things that appeal to me with music videos;

• on the one hand there are some which focus only on the music, and the video doesn't appear to have any meaning behind it except someone thought it might look cool- which is fine, its a perfectly valid way of creating a piece of work.
• others have a general overall theme that they adhere to, something simple like a color, adding a little more depth to the previous style.
• There are music videos that have a visible story/situation which the audience can read without tuning out of the song- the video enriches the song and the song enriches the video
• And there are the music videos that take it a step further and make, in effect, a short film- almost rock-operatic in style- as, at least the ones I can think of, the character(s) within the videos either monologue or duet with each other in much the same way a character would in a film.

To me, the perfect music video compliments the song, but can stand up on its own without. But the song is very important too- if I don't like the song, I am far less likely to like the video, obviously. And, so it is known- it is difficult to get me to actively not like a song- I like most music well enough- but an extraordinary song, technically, vocally or lyrically is hard to find- and to find songs which do all three...

I now want to give examples of five of my favorite music videos (in no particular order)

Magnolia Wine- Charlene Kaye
I really love the symmetry within this video- and how many different meanings you could interpret from it; And I like that it all takes place in a small space- when the band is on whichever side she happens to be singing from they barely fit into the space bringing this feeling of claustrophobia... Also- the way that this video, and indeed this song, is so precise and yet seems to be slightly wonky or off- it gives the whole thing such a wonderful character!



Skin and Bones- Charlene Kaye ft. Darren Criss
As with Magnolia Wine, I love the higgledy-piggledy-preciseness of the song and the video- although the video also has a totally different feel to it. Instead of the claustrophobic nature of the affair in Magnolia Wine, in which three is most definitely a crowd- this song/video highlights how much space can come between people. I love the childish school-play look to the video, in which you can see the stage hands doing their thing and everything is just a little bit cardboard, again, many different interpretations could be gleaned from this :)



Weatherman- Captive State
This is one of those videos that I just love. I couldn't necessarily tell you why I love it- beyond its merits as a song, I love the way this is almost like a black comedy in the way that things often make you smile, but you then feel guilty for smiling because of the underlying meanings behind the actions that led to it... 



love love- Take That
This video I love- I'm not normally all too keen on Take That, but this sound and look, I love. I love how precise this video is- with every drive in the music comes a very precise change in the video which I love. This particular video is the official X Men First Class video and contains clips from the movie- there is another version, but I prefer this one because I feel like the context is better when related to the movie and evolution. The way they performed it as well- was like there was something off kilter about them- like a tape that has tracking issues- but at very specific points



Bilbo Baggins- Leonard Nimoy
I don't think I really need to explain why I love this video so much... 




Written badly by Naomi Wong