Form

This chapter begins by looking at two standard song forms that shape the majority of music videos: verse/chorus form and strophic form. It overviews well zoom in a bit more to understand some individual sections that make these forms work. The chapter demonstrates three alternative strategies for organizing musical time that depart from these standard forms. Terminally climactic forms are usually heard in rock music, rather than hip-hop (Frank Ocean’s “Self-Control” is a notable exception), and they occur much more frequently after 1990. Since 2011 a lot of popular music has started absorbing some of the sonic characteristics of EDM in a way that has fundamentally altered the formal structure of these songs. Instead of the familiar four pop sections (verse, prechorus, chorus, postchorus) these songs feature two new ones, resulting in the four-part design verse, riserchorus, drop, postchorus. Finally, the chapter compares the formal structure of a video’s music with the time flow of the visuals themselves.