Carlsson's theory

Carlssons Music Video Theory

Today we looked at Carlsson's Music Video Theory.


Sven Carlsson 1999

Carlsson suggests that music videos in general fall into two rough groups; performance clips and conceptual clips.

• When a music video mostly shows an artist (or artsists) singing or dancing, it's a perfromance clip.
• When the clip shows something else during it's duration, often with artistic ambitions, it is a conceptual clip.

Peformance Clips

• Mostly filmed
• Vocalist(s) in one or more settings.
• Common places: rehersal room, recording studio.
• Can take place anywhere.
• Walking down the street-common.

The performance can be of 3 types; song performance, dance performance and instrumental performance.

Narrative Clip

• If a music video clip is most appropriately understood as a short silent movie to a musical back ground, it is a narrative clip. A narrative clip contains a visual story that is easy to follow. A pure narrative clips contains no lip synchronized singing.

Art Clip

If a music video clip contains no perceptible visual narrative and contains no lip-synchronized singing, then it is a pure art clip. The main difference between a music video art clips and contemporary artistic video is the music. While the music video uses popular music.