RS - Directors going against Genre Conventions

A perfect example for bands going against their typical codes and conventions would be the recently released video for Mein Land by Industrial Metal band Rammstein. The video was directed by Jonas Åkerlund who also directed the very controvesial video for P*ssy (be warned, it's very explicit!) by Rammstein. He has also worked with artist such as Lady Gaga and Christina Aguilera showing that he has a wide understanding of different genres of music. Akerlund is known for making mock forms of movie trailers or films which can be seen in the Mein Land music video.

Rammstein are known for using huge flames live and causing fans to go home from heat exhaustion, as well as having very explicit/controversial and daring videos. Despite all this they went ahead with having a video based on a 1960's Tv show. They are wearing 60's beach attire along with cheesy "surfing" shots all the way to having 60's instruments worn very high as an intertexual reference to The Beatles. They use beach-boy type titles on the screen for some of the lyrics along with the song title, band, director etc. However in the last quarter of the music video the conventions all switch and they go back to their over the top performances with all their instruments on fire, topless women and scary contact lenses!

Its all very different to their usual videos however it is a perfect example of showing that you don't have to follow the typical codes and conventions. One of Industrial Metals biggest acts ever has done it and they made it work meaning even we could do the same with our genre.

Here is a typical Rammstein music video with multiple explosions/flames to show off what their live perfomances are like:



Here is the music video for Mein Land. Be warned this video contains some brief nudity!