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A common trope for songs that are part of a movie's soundtrack and (usually) written for that movie, the video consists of clips from the movie. This serves as an additional way of promoting the movie—often becoming its unofficial theme song (unless it's already the official theme song)—as well as providing another hit for the artist, and the song often finds itself as a bonus track on their next album or an Updated Re-release of the current.

This trope naturally arose alongside MTV in The '80s, as studios — which already were noticing the power of hit soundtracks to drive ticket sales at the end of The '70s — quickly realized the music video format could just as easily promote a movie as a musician. 1983's Flashdance owed much of its success to cannily releasing the soundtrack before the film hit theaters and using videos for its title song and "Maniac" to promote it.

In more annoying examples, ever since The '90s, the song will have no direct relation to the movie at all other than the video, especially if the video is fully coherent without the film clips, since it might have been re-edited to include them note . The aversion is when the song is featured on a movie soundtrack, and might be directly related to the movie, but won't feature any clips from the movie at all — though thematic elements or even actors from the film may appear. For examples of those, see "Movie Tie-In Music Video" at Other Common Music Video Concepts. Note that the two concepts can and often have overlapped in that a video can include actors, elements, and clips.

For copyright reasons, there is often also a version of the video without the film clips as well for uses where the rights to the film clips are not available such as the artist's own concerts or media releases. If there isn't and/or the song doesn't make it beyond the soundtrack album, the videos and/or songs can become among the rarest items in an artist's catalog.

In an inversion of this trope, some Fanvids produce a similar effect by including band footage from the song's official video.


Examples:

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    Film Franchises/Multiple 
  • The Austin Powers films had several:
    • Ming Tea (a Supergroup featuring Mike Myers, Suzanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet) released two songs: "BBC" (for International Man of Mystery) and "Daddy Wasn't There" (for Goldmember), which both feature performance footage mixed with clips from their respective films.
    • Mel B's "Word Up!" featured the singer dancing in a futuristic costume in the moon base from The Spy Who Shagged Me, coupled with film clips.
    • Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger" and Britney Spears' "Boys" avert this - although Myers is present in-character, no clips from the film are seen, and the plot is wholly separate from the movies.
    • Beyoncé's "Work It Out" has her in character as Foxxy Cleopatra, and starts with a sequence with the film.
  • Two videos for Back to the Future, Huey Lewis' "The Power of Love" from the original (and yet "Back in Time", which mentions to the film's plot, averts the trope) and ZZ Top's "Doubleback" from the third.
  • The 80s/90s Batman films had several tie-in videos:
    • Prince's videos for his Batman (1989) soundtrack songs avert this, though "Batdance" incorporates numerous audio clips from the movie, and the music videos for "Batdance" and "Partyman" feature performances by groups of dancers wearing film-themed costumes.
    • Siouxsie and the Banshee's "Face to Face" from Batman Returns (which is also played in the film itself). The music video features clips interspersed with the band lounging in a house and surrounded by strange imagery and cats.
    • U2's video for Batman Forever's "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" turned Bono into an animated Batman comic book villain (inspired by his personas in the Zoo TV tour, The Fly and Mr. Macphisto) and intercut these sequences (including a rooftop performance by the comic-book version of the band) with carefully-edited scenes from the movie.
    • Forever also gave us Seal's "Kiss From a Rose" and Method Man's "The Riddler". Interestingly, these two have their priorities switched: Seal's song was written independently, but in the video he's standing in front of the Bat-Signal. Meth's video on the other hand is generic gangsta rap fare about some rival crimelord with movie clips awkwardly forced in. However, it's possibly the only song on the soundtrack actually written for the movie.
    • Batman & Robin gave us "The End Is The Beginning Is The End" by The Smashing Pumpkins, "Gotham City" and its remix by R. Kelly, and "Look Into My Eyes" by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. "Foolish Games" by Jewel averts this, though.
  • DC Extended Universe:
  • Michael Jackson did a video for each of the first two Free Willy movies. "Will You Be There" wasn't written for it but exported from his album Dangerous, so its video just intercuts a stage performance with movie clips. "Childhood (Theme from Free Willy 2)" was written for its film and averts this trope in its video, with the kids from the movie (Jason James Richter and Francis Capra) showing up to join a procession of happy children in flying boats while Jackson mournfully croons in a forest below.
  • Beverly Hills Cop
    • The Pointer Sisters video for "The Neutron Dance" features the girls as ushers at a theater where the movie is playing.
    • Glenn Frey's "The Heat Is On" has a man watching and editing film clips from the movie while Frey and his band play in the next room.
    • Harold Faltermeyer's "Axel F" mixes shots of Faltermeyer playing with scenes from the movie, many of which have Faltermeyer green-screened into the action.
  • The Ghostbusters films had two music videos:
    • The title theme for the original film, sung by Ray Parker Jr. The music video features Parker stalking a young woman in a neon-lit apartment, clips from the film, various celebrity cameos, and ends with the main cast dancing in the middle of Times Square.
    • Bobby Brown's "On Our Own" (from Ghostbusters II), which (like its predecessor) features lots of celebrity cameos and clips from the film played on various cityscape shots.
  • The marketing campaign for the 1998 Godzilla remake had the interesting tactic of not showing the full profile of the titular reptile in its various music videos:
    • The Wallflowers' cover of "Heroes" mixes clips of the creature destroying objects from the film and intercuts them with the band performing in a partially-destroyed hotel.
    • Jamiroquai's "Deeper Underground" shows a montage of clips from the film on a projector reel that's being played inside a movie theatre. Besides that, the plot of the video (Godzilla attacking a movie theater) is completely separate.
    • Puff Daddy's "Come With Me" simply inserts film clips and effects shots from the film with performance footage. It's still the only one to fully show Zilla (the scene from the movie where he stares down at Matthew Broderick is even replicated at the video's ending).
  • The first two Home Alone sequels had:
  • Into the Night took this to an extreme: Not only was this trope invoked with its Title Theme Tune performed by B.B. King, it was just one of three clips directed by John Landis (who helmed the movie) that were featured in a short documentary special, B.B. King "Into the Night". The other two were set In Da Club and used his old hit "My Lucille" and a cover of "In the Midnight Hour". Plus, the "nightclub band" consists of Jeff Goldblumnote , Michelle Pfeiffer, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, and Eddie Murphy — the last two of whom aren't even in the movienote !
  • Most music videos for the James Bond movie themes, even those which add a story in-between:
  • The Mummy Trilogy:
    • Live's "Forever May Not Be Long Enough" has the band playing in an Egyptian ruin along with scenes from The Mummy Returns.
    • Godsmack's "I Stand Alone" has the band playing in an Egyptian ruin, scenes from The Scorpion King, and a story of sorts where Sully Erna seeks the Scorpion King's temple.
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street:
    • Dokken's "Dream Warriors", from the soundtrack of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. The clips are sort-of integrated into the video, with the band performing and running around in a warehouse not unlike the one featured in the dream scene near the beginning of the film. Also, at the end it appears to be All Just a Dream... of Freddy's!
    Freddy Krueger: What a nightmare! Who were those guys?
    • The Fat Boys' "Are You Ready For Freddy?" averts this - despite being produced for A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, it has no clips from the film, and relies on an entirely separate plot of the band members being stalked through a house by Freddy (played by Robert Englund), who raps at the end.
    • "I'm Awake Now" by Goo Goo Dolls features the band watching Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare on television. They fall asleep, get chased by Freddy, watch more clips of the film in a movie theater and are chased off again by him.
  • "Take Me There" in The Rugrats Movie, and "Who Let the Dogs Out?" in Rugrats in Paris.
  • Space Jam featured several tie-in music videos from several artists:
    • The most obvious, of course, is "Space Jam" by Quad City DJ's.
    • Monica's "For You I Will" has the singer walking into an abandoned movie theatre, watching clips from the film.
    • "Hit 'Em High (The Monstars Anthem}" featured a cavalcade of well-known rappers (LL Cool J, Coolio, Method Man, B-Real, Busta Rhymes) performing in a packed basketball, interspersed with film footage that highlighted the villainous Monstars basketball team.
    • Seal's "Fly Like An Eagle", which mixes performance footage with short clips from the film.
    • And R. Kelly's 'I Believe I Can Fly' naturally has scenes playing out on a field and/or billboard while he sings.
  • The Spider-Man Trilogy had tie-in videos commissioned for each film, including:
    • Chad Kroeger and Josey Scott's "Hero" (Spider-Man)
    • Sum 41's "What We're All About" (Spider-Man; one of the clips even tries to connect with the band footage)
    • Ana Johansson's "We Are" (Spider-Man 2)
    • Dashboard Confessional's "Vindicated" (Spider-Man 2)
    • Switchfoot's "Meant To Live" (Spider-Man 2), while not featured on the official soundtrack, had a music video tie-in filmed, which features the lead singer walking through New York singing and interspersed with film clips.
    • Train's "Ordinary" (Spider-Man 2)
    • Snow Patrol's "Signal Fire" (Spider-Man 3), while not directly featuring film clips, re-enacts the plot of the film as a children's School Play.
  • Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, with "Duel of the Fates", which also includes behind the scenes stuff and a "tone poem" featured on a TV spot. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones had "Across The Stars", which is more straightforward (cuts between John Williams and his orchestra and the movie).
  • The Tomb Raider film series had three:
    • The U2 video "Elevation" digitally adds behatted guitarist The Edge to a series of clips from the first movie, "hilariously" turning him into Lara Croft's sidekick.
    • The two songs from the credits of the sequel, Davey Brothers' "Heart Go Faster" and Korn's "Did My Time" (featuring additional footage shot with Angelina Jolie and the band - though the song didn't appear on the soundtrack album for licensing issues).
  • Top Gun had two: Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" and Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone". The former was made up entirely of film clips, while the latter mixed Loggins' singing in a room with clips from the film.
  • The Transformers franchise:
  • The 1995 romantic drama Waiting to Exhale had three separate tie-in videos:
    • Brandy's "Sitting Up In My Room" features the singer dancing alone, then going to a party to dance, while clips from the film play.
    • Mary J. Blige's "Not Gon' Cry" mixes film clips with performance footage, as does Whitney Houston's title track, "Exhale".
  • The Avengers has the video for Soundgarden's "Live to Rise". It intersperses clips from the movie with footage of the band performing in front of some blue lights, that give way to a violent burst of energy from the Tesseract.
  • Disney Animated Canon
    • The Title Theme Tune from Beauty and the Beast — specifically its end credits duet between Céline Dion and Peabo Bryson — was the company's first crack at this trope in 1991. It has a classic setup for this trope — the singers recording the song in the studio while movie clips run on a screen in the room.
    • Aladdin's end credits version of "A Whole New World" teamed up Bryson with Regina Belle. This time the singers are on a mock-Agrabah set with clips being projected on the billowing silks of the tents.
    • The Lion King (1994) has two videos of this type that intercut Elton John with scenes from the film: "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" and "Circle of Life". The latter also incorporates the animation studio and a live lion cub into the action.
    • The Lion King II: Simba's Pride has We are One by Angelique Kidjo that has scenes from the film as well as some video clips of the children and Love will Find a Way by Kenny Lattimore and Heather Headley that has scenes of Kovu and Kiara as cubs and young adults that appear during the video.
    • Pocahontas's "Colors of the Wind", as performed by Vanessa Williams, just intercuts a staged performance with clips.
    • Ditto for All-4-One's "Someday" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the first Disney example of this trope in which the song doesn't appear as part of the film's action but only over the end credits.
    • Michael Bolton's rendition of "Go the Distance" from Hercules has the novelty of putting the singer in a museum of ancient Greek artifacts when it's not focusing on clips.
    • One of Christina Aguilera's first videos was the one for Mulan's "Reflection".
    • Phil Collins's music video for Tarzan's "You'll Be in My Heart" is mentioned under the "Artists" folder below, which marked the end of this trope for Disney for quite some time.
    • Ne-Yo's "Never Knew I Needed" marked a new beginning for it with the release of The Princess and the Frog.
    • Wreck-It Ralph's "When Can I See You Again", performed by Owl City, consists of him singing in an 8-bit landscape spliced with clips from the film.
    • Demi Lovato's "Let it Go" alternates between clips of the singer on a soundstage and clips from Frozen.
    • Similarly, Panic! at the Disco's "Into the Unknown" alternates between clips of Brendon Urie performing and clips from Frozen II.
    • Fall Out Boy's "Immortals" (Big Hero 6), while not directly featuring clips, instead shows the song playing on a 45 RPM with Baymax's face on it.
    • Jhené Aiko's music video for the Raya and the Last Dragon song "Lead the Way" features several clips of the film as she sings in an outfit appropriate for the world.
  • Will Smith is a major proponent of this - almost every film he's starred in has an accompanying music video, in which he appears in-character (often with other members of the cast) and directly interacts with the singer (along with clips from the film).
    • In Diana King's "Shy Guy" video from Bad Boys (1995), Smith and Martin Lawrence appear as the two titular cops of the film, reacting to the singer's presence and trying (miserably) to dance to the music.
    • Wild Wild West from the 1997 remake of the same name. In the video, Jim West (Smith) pursues a Back from the Dead Dr. Loveless, who has once again kidnapped Rita Escobar (Salma Hayek). Although the music video premiered months before the film came out, it is a semi-sequel to the film, and ignores most of the movie's ending (namely, Rita has apparently left her doctor husband, and Loveless has appeared alive and well without explanation).
    • His videos for the Men in Black franchise (the self-titled track from the original film and "Nod Ya Head (Black Suits Comin')" from the sequel) features him as J, doing a stage performance together with aliens.
    • And when the third didn't feature a song by Smith, Pitbull's "Back in Time" still tried to follow the formula.
  • Played straight with Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do", which was included in the theme song for the first Fifty Shades of Grey movie and features clips from it in its music video. Averted, though, with The Weeknd's "Earned It", which was the song that got the bigger Oscar push and the actual nomination, even though "Love Me Like You Do" has a more traditional Award-Bait Song feel to it.
    • Fifty Shades Freed has Julia Michaels' "Heaven", which features clips of Christian Grey from the movie interspersed with the footage of Julia singing.
  • Lil Nas X "Old Town Road (Original Version)" features a montage of video clips from the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2.
  • The music videos for the Confession Executive Committee songs "YELLOW" and "Blue Flowers" are both taken from various scenes in How to Enjoy This World ~Secret Story Film.
  • The video for Whitney Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You" uses a lot of clips from The Bodyguard. In addition to promoting the movie the clips also helped to distract the viewer from Houston's pregnancy.

    Artists 
  • The music video for Adam Lambert's generic love ballad "Time For Miracles" consists of the singer walking through various CGI disasters from 2012. It's exactly as hilarious as it sounds.
  • The video for Aerosmith's "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" does this with clips from Armageddon (1998).
  • Badly Drawn Boy provided two songs (and an entire score) for the movie About a Boy; the video clips for both built a very funny back story for the duck Marcus accidentally kills in one scene. In the clip for "Something to Talk About", we see how the duck has been tormenting the singer relentlessly since childhood, and he is finally freed from its tyranny when it dies; in the clip for "Silent Sigh" a scientist from the future unearths the frozen duck, and reading its memories finds that it was in love, but its partner was run over by a car — which happened to have the young singer in the back seat.
  • Cleverly played with in the Beck video "Deadweight" for the film A Life Less Ordinary, in which Beck walks through a series of surreal situations that reflect scenes from the film. For example, he dials a number on a phone on a beach; the video then cuts to Cameron Diaz's character picking up a phone in the movie.
  • Billy Idol:
    • "Speed" is a pretty standard example - faux live performance footage coupled with footage from the film of the same name, primarily action shots of the bus swerving around. In this case it's something specifically written for the movie though, and the lyrics do at least prominently use driving dangerously fast as a metaphor.
    • "Cradle of Love" features scenes from The Adventures of Ford Fairlane - but without featuring in them main star Andrew Dice Clay, who had been banned from MTV.
  • Billy Ocean's "When The Going Gets Tough", from The Jewel of the Nile features clips mixed with faux-performance footage where the film's lead actors (Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito) all appear and ham it up, pretending to sing.
  • Blackstreet, Mya and Mase's "Take Me There" features clips from The Rugrats Movie, coupled with the performers singing and dancing in a life-size redesign of Tommy's bedroom.
  • Breaking Benjamin released a music video for "I Will Not Bow" to promote the film Surrogates. At the end of it, The band collapse revealing they are also surrogates.
  • Bryan Adams's video for "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" played over the end credits of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was him walking around singing interspersed with clips from the movie.
  • Bryan Ferry had two of these in 1986:
    • For the American Recut of Legendnote , there's the end credit number "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" The video has Ferry in front of a large screen that appears to be in the catacombs of Darkness's realm, which alternates between showing film footage and clips of Ferry and his backing band featuring David Gilmour.
    • Intended for the end credits of The Fly (1986), "Help Me" ultimately was relegated to background music in the bar scene when the director and producers felt it didn't mesh with Howard Shore's underscore, although they all liked the song itself. Although it's not on the soundtrack album, it did get a single release and this trope. In a sharp contrast to "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" the bulk of the video is Deliberately Monochrome and minimalist with only Ferry on screen, but as the song reaches its climax it briefly switches to color for a montage of mostly-chronologically organized clips. (If heard on its own, it's a generic Sanity Slippage Song; knowing the movie's plot reveals the lyrics as the thoughts of the film's Doomed Protagonist couched in metaphors.)
  • Charli XCX has "Boom Clap", whose video is interspersed with clips from The Fault in Our Stars.
  • One of the earliest examples of this trope, with its movie arriving about a month before MTV launched, was Christopher Cross's video for "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" intercuts clips of him and his backing band in a recording studio with clips from the movie. It's the first music video for a song that went on to win the Best Original Song Academy Award.
  • Chynna Phillips' "I Live For You" mixes performance footage of the singer with clips from Striptease.
  • Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" (from Dangerous Minds) intercuts clips with new footage featuring Michelle Pfeiffer and Coolio sitting in a room glaring at each other.
  • Cyndi Lauper:
    • "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" has the odd tactic of devoting an entire chunk of the music video to nothing but clips of the movie set in more or less chronological order. The rest of the seven-minute is filled with Lauper joining the group on an adventure, and features from well-known WWF wrestlers like Captain Lou Albano, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and The Iron Sheik, and director Steven Spielberg. At the end, Lauper summons André the Giant to chase the heels away.
    • "Hole in My Heart" from her Non-Actor Vehicle Vibes is set in a generic Chinatown (because the song's Title Drop is followed by "that goes all the way to China") and opens with the staff of a laundry watching a clip from the movie on TV. Lauper rushes through and performs in the sheet-strewn backroom for part of the song, while the movie's MacGuffin materializes in the front and triggers some brief fantasy sequences in the second verse, intercut with more movie clips.
  • Several David Bowie videos derived from movie/TV soundtracks were this trope (for the Labyrinth videos, one of which completely eschewed clips, see Other Common Music Video Concepts), and only the one for Absolute Beginners shows up on compilations of his work.
    • "This Is Not America" (with Pat Metheny Group) consists solely of clips from The Falcon and the Snowman.
    • "Absolute Beginners" intercuts clips with a Deliberately Monochrome (save for the odd Splash of Color) storyline in which Bowie pursues a mystery woman — a pastiche of an old British cigarette commercial. In the U.K., this served as the actual trailer for the movie.
    • "Fame '90" appeared both on the Pretty Woman soundtrack and the Greatest Hits Album Changesbowie. As a result, there are two different versions of the video — the original version, which features Bowie surrounded by a border of clips from previous videos, etc., and an alternate created for VH-1 that substitutes movie clips for some of the Bowie scenes. The former is the only one that appears on compilations.
    • "Real Cool World" intercuts movie clips with a pair of dancers.
  • Destiny's Child's "Independent Women, Part 1" (from Charlie's Angels (2000)) features the group singing at a board meeting as clips from the film play on a screen behind them.
  • Diana King's music video for "Say a Little Prayer" features her singing in a room while clips from My Best Friend's Wedding play intermittently.
  • Dorothee's "Les Petits Ewoks" (from the French version of The Ewok Adventure, which was released theatrically outside of North America) is a straight usage of this trope - the singer is filmed in front of a green-screen forest, singing over clips from the movie.
  • Dr. Dre's title track for Deep Cover — which was not only his first solo single but also featured newcomer Snoop Dogg — took this approach, with clips from the movie appearing on a screen behind the rappers.
  • En Vogue's "Don't Let Go (Love)" had two versions produced. The first features the group performing in a condo for a group of people (including a man - played by Mekhi Phifer - who cheated on every member of the group), while the second reused the performance footage and featured clips from the Jada Pinkett Smith heist film Set It Off.
  • Faith Hill's video for "Where Are You Christmas?" from the live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas! had the singer walking through situations that reflect the film, similar to the aforementioned A Life Less Ordinary video. There are also appearances by Cindy Lou Who and Max the dog in the new footage.
  • The Foo Fighters have two, but both have storylines as well:
    • "Breakout" is inspired by Me, Myself & Irene, and is probably better than that movie (Dave Grohl and Traylor Howard - who starred in that movie - go to to a drive-in to see Me, Myself and Irene, and Dave eventually suffers a Split-Personality Takeover like Jim Carrey does in the movie).
    • "The One" was more inspired by Fame than Orange County, but still opens with Dave reenacting a scene of said movie.
  • Garbage:
    • The first video for "Breaking Up The Girl" contained only bits and pieces of the completed video, as well as behind the scenes footage of the band, and clips from the Daria movie Is It College Yet?. The second did not.
    • A version of "When I Grow Up" has clips from Big Daddy.
  • Girls Aloud's video for their cover of "Jump (For My Love)" is intercut with film clips from Love Actually, creating the illusion that the band snuck into Downing Street and spotted Hugh Grant's character dancing.
  • "I Stand Alone" by Godsmack does this intermixed with The Scorpion King.
  • "Iris" from Goo Goo Dolls was featured on the City of Angels soundtrack, and features lead singer Johnny Rzenick sitting up in a watchtower using a telescope to look at various things, including scenes from the movie (such as Meg Ryan's character riding a bike).
  • Guns N' Roses's "You Could Be Mine" uses clips from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, along with new footage with Arnie for a plot where the Terminator is trying to kill them.
  • The Harvey Danger cover of "Save It For Later" from the 200 Cigarettes soundtrack featured the band interacting with characters from the film via edited footage and body doubles. For instance at one point the singer drops his glasses in a mostly empty bowl with leftover frosting in it while performing - cut to a shot of Martha Plimpton's character licking frosting off one lens of a similar pair of glasses, then another shot of the singer picking the glasses back up, licking the other lens, and putting them back on. It's just well-integrated enough that if you aren't familiar with the film it might just seem like an exceptionally cameo-filled '80s-themed music video at first.
  • Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" video contains clips from Trainspotting. Notable for the fact that the song is about 20 years older than the film.
  • Irene Cara's "Flashdance...What A Feeling", appropriately, consists of clips from its parent film.
  • The music video for Jon Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" (from the Young Guns soundtrack) features clips from the film being played on an outdoor movie screen.
  • Juniel's self-composed song "Please" was used as an OST for Japanese film "Still The Water" and so an MV consisting of clips from this movie for the song was released. Oddly though for no given reason the music video was deleted from the official channel it was uploaded to.
  • The music video for Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway", interspersed with not just clips but the poster for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.
  • Kim Carnes's "Invitation to Dance" was created for That's Dancing!, a 1985 Clip Show of dance highlights from movie musicals (mostly those of The Golden Age of Hollywood), so it's not surprising that its music video is this! Carnes is a movie theater employee in the video's framework, intercut with/overlaid on the various vintage clips of Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, et.al.
  • Lääz Rockit's video for "Leatherface" shows the band rocking in badlands with clips of Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III in between. Musical instruments also get destroyed by a chainsaw.
  • Limahl's "Never Ending Story" uses clips from the titular movie.
  • Ludacris' "Act A Fool" (from 2 Fast 2 Furious) has the singer rapping beside a selection of street racing vehicles, coupled with clips from the film.
  • The video for M2M's "Don't Say You Love Me" contained footage from Pokémon: The First Movie playing on a screen at a drive-in where the video was shot - although the lyrics have absolutely nothing to do with the movie's plot.
  • Madonna, in addition to the Austin Powers example listed above, had other tie-in videos:
    • The "Crazy for You" and "The Gambler" videos show clips from Vision Quest with Madonna performing at the bar that was shown at the movie.
    • "Live To Tell" has Madonna sitting on a chair in a darkened room with a single spotlight on her while clips of her ex-husband Sean Penn's film At Close Range are shown.
    • "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" (from Evita) is filled with nothing but clips from the movie.
    • "Into The Groove" from Desperately Seeking Susan is made entirely of clips from the movie, which starred Madonna and Rosanna Arquette.
    • 'This Used to Be My Playground' from A League of Their Own. The film clips appear in various photographs in the album (others just feature her singing).
  • MC Hammer:
    • "Addams Family Rap" from The Addams Family included random clips from the film as well as new footage of the cast interacting with Hammer.
    • "Straight To My Feet" from Street Fighter has Hammer performing with Deion Sanders in costumes similar to Guile's (and in one of the filming locations from the film) as clips are played throughout.
  • The UK release of Night at the Museum used Mcfly's "Friday Night" in the end credits. As expected, the official music video included clips from the movie alongside footage of the band fooling around in London.
  • Metallica's first video, "One", was clips of them playing interspersed with scenes from Johnny Got His Gun. Originally, it was just going to be a Performance Video, until the band bought the film rights to use it in the video (as it is a Filk Song and they would complement it well).
  • McBride & the Ride's "No More Cryin'" was written for the soundtrack of the rodeo film 8 Seconds, and its music video features clips from the movie.
  • Mika's "Kickass" was written specifically for the movie by the same name. It makes sense that the majority of the video is clips of the movie. With the rest being Mika running around singing, and laying on his back singing.
  • Ministry's "What About Us?" - the band had a cameo playing the song in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence during the Flesh Fair scene, so the video is mainly an extended version of said cameo, coupling clips of that sequence with footage of the band miming on the same set, or at least somewhere that's supposed to look like the same set. Oddly, the song wasn't even included on the A.I. soundtrack album, and the video was made to promote Ministry's Greatest Fits instead.
  • Motörhead:
    • "Born To Raise Hell", the opening theme to Airheads. The music video shows Motorhead, along with Ice-T and Whitfield Crane, breaking into a movie theater screening the film to perform the song.
    • The music video for "Hellraiser" features clips from Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, with some additional footage of Lemmy playing poker with Pinhead.
  • The music video for Myra's cover of "Dancing in the Street" contains clips of Recess: School's Out throughout the video.
  • The video for Parachute Express' song "Dr. Looney's Remedy" utilizes various clips from classic Disney animated shorts and films.
  • The video for Paramore's "Decode" is filled with clips from The Twilight Saga, and looks like it was shot in the same forest.
  • Pat Benatar's "Invincible" video does this for The Legend of Billie Jean.
  • Paul McCartney did this with:
  • Paul Simon's "Father and Daughter" from The Wild Thornberrys Movie.
  • A Perfect Circle's "Passive" is a mix of clips from Constantine and band-playing clips- except the latter are stylized with a false-color camera to fit in with the visual style used in that scene from the movie. The song was used in the movie.
  • Peterpan's "Tak Bisakah" and "Jauh Mimpiku" are the lead singles of Alexandria soundtrack, so their music videos have many clips from that film.
  • Phil Collins:
    • "Two Hearts", released as a tie-in with the comparatively lesser-known Collins film Buster, features a performance by a band featuring multiple versions of himself (all with different disguises) mixed with clips from the film.
    • "You'll Be In My Heart", from the Tarzan animated movie, is a standard clips-mixed-with-performance video.
  • Plain White T's "Pet Sematary" for Frankenweenie. Might also be a case of Music Videos Always Spoil.
  • The Proclaimers' second video for "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," which included clips from Benny & Joon.
  • The Psychedelic Furs' "Pretty In Pink": While the original video consisted of Richard Butler lip syncing inside an Alice In Wonderland-inspired house, once it became associated with the film of the same name, a second video was made featuring movie clips alternating with shots of the band miming with painted-over stills green-screened behind them, which was the director's way of putting a more artistic spin on things.
  • Queen:
    • "Flash", the theme song of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie, which features the band performing in front a screen showing clips from the film.
    • The video for "Radio Ga Ga" contains numerous clips of Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis, as well as brief shots from almost every clip for earlier Queen songs.
    • The video for "Princes of the Universe" interspersed clips of the film Highlander with scenes of the band (on the film set), culminating in a sword fight between Freddie Mercury and a guest-starring Christopher Lambert.
    • A particularly egregious Queen example is "One Year of Love", also from Highlander, which originally had no video. The song later appeared on Queen's second compilation album (Classic Queen or Greatest Hits II, depending on your locale), and a video was needed to make the album match its corresponding VHS video compilation. One was cobbled together from Highlander clips and clips from other Queen videos.
    • And the video for the song "The Show Must Go On" was entirely composed of clips from previous Queen videos. This was because Freddie Mercury's health was rapidly declining by this point, and he could not appear in a new video.
    • One more Queen example: Their video for the song "Bohemian Rhapsody", one of the earliest music videos, was re-cut to include clips from the movie Wayne's World, after said movie featured it prominently on its soundtrack and became a hit.
    • Released four years after Freddie's death, "Too Much Love Will Kill You" is comprised of clips of past videos and live shows.
    • The video for Freddie's version of "The Great Pretender" shows him revisiting the music videos for "I Want To Break Free", "Radio Ga Ga", "It's A Hard Life", and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", as well as his solo songs "Made In Heaven", and "I Was Born To Love You".
  • The video for Rascal Flatts' "Life Is a Highway" features several clips from Cars, on whose soundtrack it was included.
  • The Red Hot Chili Peppers cover of "Love Roller Coaster" alternates between clips of Beavis And Butthead Do America and an animated version of the band themselves meeting Beavis and Butthead on a literal "love rollercoaster" (or at least, one shaped like a heart).
  • Lampshaded in the clip for R.E.M.'s "The Great Beyond" — the clips from Man on the Moon are presented as commercial breaks during a live taping of their performance for TV. At one point, the band members waiting out their break throw darts at a screen the clips are being projected upon. Moreover, the band actually discovers the Fourth Wall and escapes by smashing it, emerging from a TV set somewhere else; this is a subtle reference to Andy Kaufman's experimentation with various television tropes.
  • The Rolling Stones's music video for "Angry" has Sydney Sweeney dancing in the backseat of a convertible driving down a street with electronic billboards showing clips from previous Rolling Stones music videos and live shows, some stylized after their previous albums' covers, which also allows Charlie Watts, who'd passed away 2 years prior, to be featured.
  • Roxette had two hits featured as tie-in music videos:
    • "It Must Have Been Love", the lead single from Pretty Woman, was chosen despite the film's producers asking the group to produce a different song. It became the group's most successful single release, and turned into a Breakaway Pop Hit three months after the film's release. The video features the band performing in a warehouse, mixed with footage from the film.
    • "Almost Unreal" is an interesting example, as it was originally intended for the 1993 Bette Midler film Hocus Pocus before being shuffled to act as the lead single for Super Mario Bros., and featuring the standard mix of film clips and performance footage.
  • Roxi Drive's "All Night Long" video uses clips of the Canadian Flashdance Mockbuster Heavenly Bodies.
  • Aside from the two in the upper folder, Seal has "This Could Be Heaven" from The Family Man.
  • Semisonic's FNT had two versions, one with clips from 10 Things I Hate About You and another from The Long Kiss Goodnight starring Samuel L. Jackson and Geena Davis.
  • Sixpence None the Richer's "Kiss Me" has the group watching scenes from She's All That on mini-televisions, as well as appearances by lead stars Rachel Leigh Cook and Freddie Prinze Jr.
    • Another version has scenes from the TV show Dawson's Creek.
  • Smash Mouth:
    • "All Star" video originally contained clips from Mystery Men and sported cameos from the cast of the film, but when the song became much more popular than the movie, the clips and the scene featuring the cast were taken out.
    • When the same track was used as the opening song for Shrek, a video was released showing members of the band looking for members of the cast in a hotel, and keeping on narrowly missing each other. There were also a few scenes which referenced the Power of Love video done for Back to the Future.
    • The music video for "Holiday in my Head" is full of clips from Clockstoppers as well as appearances from the movie's stars Jesse Bradford and Paula Garcés.
  • As it was released as a single to promote Dangerously Close, The Smithereens' "Blood and Roses" originally mixed clips of the movie with footage of the band playing in an empty school, as one of the film's characters lurked in the background. While not technically a Breakaway Pop Hit, since the song was already released on their debut album, the song became more popular than the movie, so it later was re-edited into a straight performance video. They couldn't cut the character out of background shots though, leading people who'd never even heard of the movie to wonder why this mysterious man in sunglasses was in the video just standing around doing nothing.
  • Stan Bush played guitar in front of scenes from the animated Transformers movieAutobots, Rock Out! !!!
  • Steve Martin's rendition of "Dentist!" from Little Shop of Horrors got one of these by taking the actual sequence and reediting it to include clips from the the rest of the movie. For the "Say aaaaaaah!" ending, it looks like Audrey II's offspring are handling the chorus part!
  • Australian pop-rock band Taxiride's "Get Set" music video featured film clips from Election.
  • Tenacious D's "POD" from Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny takes it in a very meta direction: the song is specifically about how awesome the movie is, and the video has them singing it in the middle of a crowded theater showing the movie itself (and eventually getting thrown out by security after annoying one too many people).
  • Waka Flocka Flame did "Game On" for Pixels, featuring footage from the film mixed with a performance in an 8-bit inspired set.
  • The video for Warrant's cover of "We Will Rock You" is full of clips from the 1992 boxing movie Gladiator.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic did this with bits of Johnny Dangerously cut into "This Is the Life"; rather than a Performance Video, Al appears as a gangster in a similar 1930s nightclub setting. A Recut of the video created for 1985's The Compleat Al eliminated the movie clips and thus abridged the song, but later compilations and Al's YouTube channel all use the original version.
  • Sia's "Rainbow", from My Little Pony: The Movie (2017), alternates between scenes from the film, including her character Songbird Serenade, and footage of dancer Maddie Ziegler, who has a habit of appearing in Sia's music videos.
  • In addition to the aforementioned "Love Me Like You Do", Ellie Goulding has also played this trope straight with the music videos for "Beating Heart" from Divergent, "Still Falling for You" from Bridget Jones' Baby, and for her Covered Up version of "How Long Will I Love You" from the About Time soundtrack.
  • Wheatus' "Teenage Dirtbag" was released as a single to promote the film Loser (2000) - the video mainly mixes clips from the movie with footage of the band playing in a school gym (and later on at a prom). Through re-contextualizing certain scenes and adding new footage of lead actors Jason Biggs and Mina Suvari, the video still follows the plot of the song's lyrics closer than it does that of the movie... though it's also shown to all be a dream of Jason's character.
  • Yello: The music video for "Jingle Bells" intercuts snippets from The Santa Clause with footage of Dieter Meier reciting the song's voiceover in a blue void. The only other original footage is a cameo from Tim Allen depicting him in-character as Scott Calvin.

    Live Action TV 
  • "How Do You Talk To An Angel?" by The Heights, from the TV show of the same name, mixes a handful of shots from the show with new performance footage. Interestingly, the song (and video) became a hit just as the show was cancelled by FOX.
  • Parodied in the MADtv (1995) skit/Show Within a Show "Pretty White Kids with Problems". Midway through the second skit, the announcer mentions a tie-in soundtrack that is overflowing with indie artists, as well as a mock music video by Lisa Loeb, who appears in person to sing the theme song and interact with the characters as they deal with their issues.
  • The Comedy Central Roast Of Pamela Anderson opened with a music video montage featuring clips from all over her career set to the songs "Looks that Kill" "My Humps" "Lady" and "So Damn Hot". The footage included clips from Baywatch, Miserable, VIP, and Barbedwire, as well as pictures from her modeling career and close-ups of her "assets." The video gradually ramps up speed before ending on the scene from Miserable were she catches lead singer A.J. Popoff in her mouth and eats him before strutting away.

    Western Animation 
  • Lisa Lougheed's "Run with Us", the credits theme for The Raccoons, uses clips from the show's pre-series Lost Star special, which predates the writing of the song (let alone Lougheed's version of it) by nearly two years!
  • The music video for Cat Hairballs is made up entirely of clips from multiple episodes, but still manages to tell a story by using "The Cat That Laid The Golden Hairball" as a through line. The video is about Stimpy being forced to lick up and hwarf hairballs onto a conveyor belt while Ren Stamps them with a big "Grade A" stamp for approval. While at first things seem fun and Stimpy seems happy to be farmed for this Unobtainium, things turn darker when Stimpy's body starts running out of places to lick and the act of hwarfing becomes more draining and painful as production (and the song) wramps up. Finally this ends with Stimpy, now naked and totally licked clean, suffering a Heroic RRoD and passing out on the conveyor belt, and Ren violently branding Stimpy's ass with the "Grade A" stamp.

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Living in America

James Brown sings an ode to the USA for the Rocky IV soundtrack.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (4 votes)

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