Codes and Conventions of Rock Music

I am going to try and found a series of codes and conventions for the Rock Music genre and the music videos that come out of it.

Rock music is a genre of popular music which entered main stream in the 1960's, The sound of rock usually revolves around bass guitar, electric guitar, rock drums and some form of Piano sound. Its a genre that has many many different sub genres such as Alternative Rock and Garage Rock.



At random i have selected 5 music videos from 5 different bands and will search for some consistent codes and conventions.

The Beatles - Help!

• A simple black and white performance video
• Shots jump between shots of all band, of a member and of instruments.

Biffy Clyro - That Golden Rule

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWUF2oiWe2I (Can't embed)

• Performance video with the whole band, usually performance video codes and convention's.
• A lot of lighting and post production effects used.

The Smiths - Panic

• A art driven concept video shot mainly in black and white
• Recurring shot of a possible band member and the camera moves around him
• Extremely fast POV jumpy shots
• Shots of a possible post industrial London looking at the river and old industrial buildings
• Shots of graffiti of lyrics on walls.
• At the halfway point and end of song they is post production pieces of a spinning crown and a band member, which the image of the band member flashing.

Oasis - Wonderwall

• Starts with diegetic footsteps of a clown walking up to and putting on a record.
• All shot in black and white
• Is it a performance video mainly
• Mainly shots of the band playing the song and then shots of musians playing different parts of the songs such as violinists.
• Some random shots of people such as a shot of a dancer and 5 swinging guitars.

Brand New - Sic Transit Gloria

• A concept video, with a aspect of performance
• Follows the lead singer of brand new
• The story is a interpretation of the lyrics
• Follows a guy who runs away from something that we don't see, he runs into a bar and he can control everybody in the bar, but he realises in the end he doesn't want control.
• References in the video to the director.

Conclusion

My conclusion of rock music videos and their codes & conventions is that performance is mainly a common code and is seen in a lot of rock music videos. Narrative and concept themes are commonplace but really is dependant on the style of rock music and the band.
The videos for rock music really are so diverse that its too hard to pin down any real codes and conventions.