The role of women seems clear-cut in most rock videos, especially the heavy metal videos of the 1980s. Kaplan considers them both "sexist" and "nihilistic", but there is one major essay that disagrees with her claim - Robert Walser's "Forging Masculinity: Heavy Metal Sounds and Images of Gender" (from Sound and Vision pp.153-I81). Walser claims that these videos are sexist only when taken out of context, and that their "sexism" and "nihilism" is part of the aesthetic of the heavy metal image and therefore essential to the music. "Musical analysis is crucial for music video analysis because aural texts are indisputably primary: they exist prior to videos and independently of them" (p.157). His description of heavy metal music is thorough and therefore more valid than that of Kaplan"s. "Metal songs usually include impressive technical and rhetorical feats on the electric guitar" and perhaps the most important aspect of heavy metal is that "an experience of power and control...is built up through vocal extremes, guitar power chords, distortion and sheer volume of bass and drums" (p.153).

These factors are then applied to the visuals of heavy metal video, with performers who wear "visually noisy clothing, punctuating their performances with phallic thrusts of guitars and microphone stands" (p.153). The musical display of power is therefore echoed in the visuals, and many metal videos depend on images of the band performing as central images. The lack of special effects means that the rawness of the emotion can be both seen and heard in a heavy metal video.

Does a certain type of video suit a certain type of genre? It seems the case with heavy metal, where many videos use similar techniques, but is it true across the board? There is some evidence to suggest this, though no firm statements are made in the research I read. In Philip Hayward's Industrial Light and Magic, the author claims that it was initially a specific type of music that led to the development of music video technology in the early 80s. This was New Romantic, and it became associated with bands such as Ultravox, Visage, Spandau Ballet, and directors such as Russel Malcahy, who directed Ultravox's Vienna in 1981 and said in an interview in S86 that the music of the New Romantics "was very rich and a joy to put images to".

A current example of how the nature of image is dictated by the nature of sound is the stream of computer-generated Virtual Reality videos that are receiving heavy airplay on MTV. The images are often fantastical or surreal, and highly repetitive, and usually accompany heavier Techno soundtracks (such as Herbert Gronenmeyer's Morgenrot/Trance Mix,1991 and Westbam's Bostich, 1995) or dreamy ambient tracks (such as Future Sound Of London's Lifeforms, 1994). These videos are not mentioned by any of the research because they are a fairly new development, emphasising the constantly shifting nature of music video production. More research will have to be written to accommodate new technology.

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