Analysis of Music Videos: Rock Genre

History of Rock Music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the 1950's, and developed into a range of different styles in the 1960's and later, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States.The rock genre has roots from the 1940's and 1950's and is heavily influenced by a number of other genres such as the blues and country music. 

By the late 1960's, sub genres of rock music had emerged which had all showed their own take on the rock genre. Some of these being progressive rock, psychedelic rock and country rock. 

During the late 1970's punk rock emerged and began to manifest a stripped-down, energetic form of rock where social and political critiques often dominated the lyrics. 

Rock Music Conventions 

Most musicians within the rock genre release music as bands due to the raw material use of instruments being a heavy influence on the style of music. A rock band is typically made up of 3-5 members with their roles typically being a vocalist, guitarist, bassist and drummer. 

However not all musicians within this genre follow expectations, an example being David Bowie.

With looking at the audio, music videos of the rock genre tend to have long instrumentals mostly focusing on (electric) guitars and is quite fast paced and loud. Most rock music is made up of vocals, guitar, bass and drums. With different sub categories of rock music, some vocalists tend to focus on screaming vocals instead. 

The visual side of rock music videos tend to focus on bright flashing lights with a lot of quick shots edited together. Rock videos tend to focus on close up of the instruments being used within the song due to the long instrumentals. Due to rock artists focusing on a more alternative style, the artists tend to be seen wearing more dark clothing such as leather jackets and ripped jeans. The idea of going against society's norms and expectations are often reflected in their music alongside their costumes which help express their views and personality. This differs from many of the earlier phases of rock music in the 1950's and 60's. Before the 80's, many rock musicians such as The Beatles founded their identities in rock based on the musical differences rather than their "rebellious" portrayals in the media and their shows which came with the later phases of rock music.Some artists tend to be more extravagant with the use of make up such as KISS. 

Queen (1970's)

They are a British Rock Band that formed in London in 1970. Their line up was Freddie Mercury (singer/piano), Brian May (lead guitar/vocals), Roger Taylor (drums/vocals) & John Deacon (bass guitar). Their earlier music was influenced by progressive rock, hard rock and heavy metal but over the years they ventured into more conventional and radio friendly works by incorporating other styles like arena rock and pop rock - to include a larger range of audience. 

Their lead singer was claimed to hide his sexuality while other claimed that he was openly gay. During his career, Mercury's flamboyant stage performances sometimes led journalists to allude to his sexuality. Dave Dickson, reviewing Queen's performance at Wembley Arena in 1984 for Kerrang!, noted Mercury's "camp" addresses to the audience and even described him as a "posing, pouting, posturing tart." 
In 1992, John Marshall of Gay Times expressed the following opinion: "Mercury was a 'scene-queen,' not afraid to publicly express his gayness, but unwilling to analyse or justify his 'lifestyle'... It was as if Freddie Mercury was saying to the world, 'I am what I am. So what?' And that in itself for some was a statement."
Some of Queen's music videos are known to be unite controversial for their time period. One clear example of this is the music video for the song 'I Want to Break Free'. 

'I Want to Break Free' (1984)

 I Want To Break Free is a single from Queen's eleventh studio album, The Works, and was written by bassist John Deacon. The song is largely known for its music video for which all the band members dressed in women's clothes, a concept proposed by Roger Taylor, which parodied the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street. Whereas the parody was acclaimed in the United Kingdom, it was considered controversial in the United States and banned by MTV and other stations. 

It would appear that the music video as a whole subverts the typical conventions of rock music videos as it's a narrative rather than a performance based. Despite this, different aspects of the video both adhere and subvert typical conventions of the rock genre.

The 80's were a time were homosexuality and being transgender were still deemed as quite taboo subjects with how society saw them. The costumes within I Want to Break Free can be seen to adhere to the idea of a rebellious outlook within the rock genre as the video shows the band dressed in drag (specifically female characters from Coronation Street). 

This can be seen as an extremely rebellious and controversial act, as known to be seen within the rock genre. It could be said that Queen were "before their time"in this aspect as they were beginning to push the boundaries through approaching sensitive topics.

PVRIS (2012)

PVRIS is an American rock band from Massachusetts, consisting of Lynn Gunn, Alex Babinski and Brian Macdonald. When the band originally formed in 2012 they went by the name Paris, however due to legal reasons, they later changed their name to PVRIS.

Throughout their career, PVRIS have exhibited many conventions of the modern rock genre. From being a female led band (which has become increasingly more common over the last 10 years) to their look as a band. 

With not only having a female front for the band, Lynn Gunn is also very open about her sexuality as a lesbian:

"I used to want to be private about it. But I think it's something that needs to be shared publicly." She then added: "I think a lot of people are trying to accept themselves and come to terms with it because it's still a pretty big thing right now. I never had someone to look up to and be like 'oh that person is OK and they're gay.’ If I can be that for someone then it's why I'm open about it.”

PVRIS can be seen to adhere to the typical stereotype of wearing dark clothing within a rock band as most of their look is seen to be all black and white - which is similar to how their music videos are viewed as. The theme of their debut album is seen to be in black and white, from the cover art to all the music videos for each song on the album. Some examples being Eyelids and White Noise.

Eyelids (2016)

Alongside adhering to many of the modern conventions, PVRIS have also managed to subvert many of the original rock genre conventions, A prime example of this is Eyelids from their 2014 album White Noise. The video shows an interpretive dance by an actress who is shown to have some kind of struggled relationship with singer Lynn Gunn as shown when they embrace at the end of the video. With using this, the band adheres to a rebellious and controversial idea similar to Queen with the ideas of focusing on the representation of homosexuality within music and the media. The video is also partly conceptual and partly performance based. The video does not focus on instruments at all and none are seen which can be viewed as subverting rock music video stereotypes of what people expect to see. The video doesn't follow any particular narrative from the lyrics, and instead uses the conceptual ideas of contrasting black and white together alongside a choreographed dance performed by the single female dancer. This alone subverts rock conventions as there is no emphasis on instruments- there is however, lip syncing performed by  Lynn, so it could be argued that the music video doesn't completely subvert the conventions.

The Smiths (1980's)

The Smiths were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1982. The band consisted of vocalist Morrissey, guitarist Johnny Marr, bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce. Critics have called them the most important alternative rock band to emerge from the British independent music scene of the 1980s. Qmagazine's Simon Goddard argued in 2007 that The Smiths were "the one truly vital voice of the '80s", "the most influential British guitar group of the decade" and the "first indie outsiders to achieve mainstream success on their own terms".


Stop Me If You Think Youve Heard This One Before (1987)

This video can be seen to go against the typical stereotypes of a rock video due to only focusing on the location of the video which seems to be a small town London based. This is usually seen as  a stereotype of an RnB or rap video due to the artists showing either where they grew up or their background.