Research into the diversity of a music video - Miss Miller

A diverse music video is one that is different from a normal stereotypical music video and may contain scenes of strange characters or scenes with obscure costumes and narratives. This can be seen in a positive or negative light towards the audience; they uniqueness of the video can appeal to the audience and make the video more memorable, or it could be to strange and cause fans to stop liking that artist for that reason.

Chris Cunningham made first music in 1997 with "Come to Daddy" by Aphex Twin, which was instantly praised and also banned. He followed up by making the music video for "Windowlicker" again, by Aphex Twin, and the astounding "All is Full of Love" video by Björk. Aphex Twin's music was of the electronic genre, this having a smaller audience than genres such as dance or hip-hop allowed Chris Cunningham to aim his diverse music video to a smaller amount of people who would possibly enjoy what his video contained. "Come to daddy" was featured on 'MUZU.TV' music channel which played a variety of genres from rap to soul music which gave Cunningham's diverse video a chance to appeal to a wider audience.

Michel Gondry is another director who creates diverse music videos, he has worked with artists such as Kylie Minogue and The White Stripes who have created diverse music videos for their songs. The videos are obscure and different which makes them more memorable for the audience compared to the conventional music videos made for specific genres. Gondry's success in making diverse music videos came from his use of mise-en-scene, he incorporated the five mise-en-scene elements into his music videos in very unique ways to engage the audience. An example of this is the settings he tends to use, for example in the video 'Hardest button to button' he uses settings such as a train station and a park, this is obscure because bands usually play on a stage, the use of public places such as a train station and a park make the artist seem more accessible as they are in ordinary places so the audience feel like they can relate more with them.


Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham were both very successful directors but they had converse styles in which they directed their diverse music videos. Cunningham was more controversial, an example of this is when he edited Aphex Twin's face onto child characters in Aphex Twin's music video, this completely strange music video style attracted a lot of views and publicity simply by the diversity of it, which is why Chris Cunningham was such a successful music video director. With Madonna, who is a more famous artist, Cunningham's video gained plenty of views because of people talking about how strange it was, this increased publicity for Madonna and Cunningham trough the strange music video for her song 'Frozen' because of how different it is. Gondry contrastingly works with music that has a smaller fan base such as rock genre, this is because the audience care more about the music opposed to the artist which is the case with other genres such as pop. This allowed Gondry to apply a directing style that focuses specifically on the music to improve the fan base for the particular artist. Working with Cunningham would be successful in the way that he will increase an artists publicity for their music simply by his ambiguous videos and directing style, but for an artist this could confuse the audience as the videos would be very different from each other would could make the artist loose fans as the videos are that obscure.

Chris Cunningham directed 'Come to daddy' by Aphex Twin, this video is extremely controversial due to the editing by Cunningham. He edited Aphex Twin's face onto a group of school girls. This makes the video memorable because of how unusual it is, on the other hand the school girl body and male face could make the audience feel uncomfortable, the title 'come to daddy' can be seen as inappropriate to the audience as the video contains little girls, this could create a negative feel in the video but it is a risk Cunningham has made. The genre of this song is electro, the video subverts the conventions of this music genre as it includes disturbing, strange visuals which would fit more into the horror genre.

Kylie Minogue was part of the pop music genre and usually had flamboyant glamorous music videos to accompany her music, but when Gondry directed her music video for 'Come into my world' the video was diverse. The video includes a lot of repetition which subverts from the generic conventions of a pop music video, this makes the video stand out more to the audience and make it more memorable for them. On the other hand this could confuse the audience as Kylie Minogue's other music videos are conventional to the pop genre. We see her wearing a casual pink shirt which is not what you would expect to see a pop artist wearing as they usually wear clothing that stands out and is extravagant, also the setting used is very normal and ordinary which makes the video relateable for the audience even though it is diverse.

Advantages and disadvantages of a diverse music video

A diverse music video can be successful because people would talk about it and how unusual it is, this would increase the publicity and popularity of the music video and the artist. Also it would stand out from other music videos which would promote the artist and her music if the video is diverse. However there can be some disadvantages of a diverse music video, for example the obscurity of the video could be seen as too much for the audience and make them feel uncomfortable or confused about the visuals for the music, this would make the artist loose fans because they would be used to the artist's normal, conventional music videos.