A music video that contains the narrative convention is essentially a short film that almost always depicts the story that the song itself is trying to tell. Whether that be through the lyrics, the themes, or even just the sound of the song, the music video will attempt to take the viewer through what the lyrics should mean.

Of course, there are different forms of narrative music videos; there's what's known as illustration, where the narrative of the music video tells the exact story of the lyrics. Some good examples of this are Lovejoy's cover of "Knee Deep at ATP" or "Brittle Bones Nicky" by Rare Americans. This has its advantages and can be very interesting; however, it does not leave much up for the imagination. There's amplification, where the video is loosely based off the lyrics; the video will often have similar themes to the song and might contain references, but is free to somewhat tell its own story. A lot of music videos fall under this category in some way or another, but one example would be "This Hell" by Rina Sawayama. Finally, there's what's known as disjuncture, where the narrative of the music video does not match at all with the lyrics and tells its own individual story. This can be a lot more abstract, and so it can be quite fun; an example would be "Emperor's New Clothes" by Panic! At The Disco.

There are lots of pros to this convention; for one, if the song is incredibly interesting and has a lot of intense messaging, themes, and lyrics, it can be very advantageous to play into those strengths with the music video. Especially if the music video is one that provides more insight into the meaning of the song, many audiences may prefer this music video method to any other. The cons of this conception are, of course, that there is not much room for viewer interpretation (especially in the more illustrative music videos that convey the exact meaning of the song's lyrics), and so many find it to be a bit repetitive and unnecessary, perhaps even cliche or expected. I think that this style of music video's success is entirely dependent on how well the writers and directors of the video pull it off and make it work with the song.

This convention is often seen as being a sort of opposite to the previously discussed narrative music video; instead of being based upon a structured storyline, this style of music video often has little to no plot whatsoever and instead focuses on trying to expand the artist's vision and try and capture the feeling of the music video rather than any kind of story. This style of music video is often paired with songs that don't have any kind of plot or narrative lyrically and might be more music-based or abstract in their themes. While this style of music video varies greatly from the previously discussed narrative style, it has a lot of overlap with the disjuncture sub-convention that I discussed, with the main difference being that narrative disjuncture still has some form of structure and plot, whereas concept music videos rarely have anything of the sort and are likely to be more chaotic.

Of course, the music video doesn't need to have a plot, but it still needs to fit in some way with the music that it is paired with. Because of this, "thematic" videos are usually the most popular kind of concept videos, since the concept of the music video is based upon the themes of the song, whether that be musically, lyrically, or even something as simple as a colour or a feeling. A good example of this would be "Fireflies" by Owl City. This music video does not tell any kind of story and does not have anything to do with the lyrics of the video narratively; however, the video attempts to capture the childlike wonder and magic present in the themes of the song. Another example would be the music video to "Cornflake" by the band Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, which is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a 3-minute song with only 8 lines—it's a very upbeat, psychedelic song with a chaotic, unstructured music video to go alongside it. Despite there being no narrative, the qualities of the video match perfectly with the song.

This kind of music video is a lot simpler than the others discussed; it is simply a type of music video that uses scenes of live performance in its videos. This style of video does not have any kind of narrative and does not contain any particular concepts. The appeal of this style of music video is entirely in the publicity section, as showing off your band or artist can help with brand identity and can also look very appealing if you set up a good camera with interesting angles and lighting.

A good example of this that I can think of is the music video to "Pizza Boy" by the band Everything Everything, which contains a series of clips of them performing this song live before its release.

These music videos are the most simple; this convention actually mostly started out as fan-made videos posted to YouTube (often without rights) to allow fans to see the lyrics. These videos, of course, weren't very interesting until the industry adopted them and started throwing in more interesting techniques to make the lyrics match visually with the song. Of course, you can easily mix lyric videos with any other style or convention, and a lot of artists will put out a lyric video and a music video for a song. A simple example of this convention would be the song "Juno" by Cavetown, which is just a video of a cat with the song's lyrics along the side. A more interesting variant of this convention would be the music video for "Home" by Cavetown, which features a picture book showing the lyrics alongside matching visuals.

This is a style that music videos utilise in order to appear more abstract and unreal; it is often paired with concept music videos in psychedelic or electronic music in order to emphasise their common themes of abstract and chaotic values. An example of this would be Arch Enemy by Everything Everything, which is a concept video that uses 3D modelling to seem unreal and strange, matching the tone of the song. An example of surrealism being used in a narrative music video would be "My Ordinary Life" by The Living Tombstone, which tells the story of a character in an abstract way, and an example of surrealism being used in a performative music video would be "The Dreamer's Hotel" by Enter Shikari, where the band is shown playing their instruments, paired with surreal colours and imagery to match the song's psychedelic themes.

This is a bit more of a specific style, in which a music video will reference or make fun of some other piece of popular media. In music, this is done very frequently, and certain artists dedicate their entire careers to making parodies of popular songs (well-known examples include Weird Al Yankovich and Horrible Histories). When it comes to music videos specifically, though, it is often in the form of imagery that represents a piece of popular media; perhaps that was implied in the lyrics. A good example of this is in Lowlife by Poppy, wherein she continuously references the Illuminati, including her being seated in a pose that is a distinct reference to the demon Baphomet.