Music Video Essay

“Music videos have changed drastically over time and are now unrecognisable from their historical counterparts.”

A music video is defined as a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. In this essay I will explore how music videos have changed significant amounts over time.

           Although the origins of music videos date back a lot further, they were introduced around the 1980’s, when MTV based their format around the idea. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by television personalities known as "video jockeys”. In its early years, MTV's main target audience were young adults, but today, MTV's programming is primarily targeted at teenagers in addition to young adults. MTV played all sorts of music videos from all different genres such as hip hop, heavy metal, classical music or rock. The very first music video MTV broadcasted on August 1, 1981 was ‘Video killed the radio star’ by The Buggles which made a huge impact on society. The track topped sixteen international music charts, including the official singles charts of the group's home country of the UK and other nations such as Australia, Austria, France, Italy Ireland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The music video however is very basic, with three main singers standing on a stage and a keyboard player who also features in the video. They use basic cut and dissolve transitions and zooms throughout the video with simple camera work. Not many advanced camera shots are used, just basic mid shots, close ups and long shots.  This is probably because the cameras and editing technology they used at the time were nowhere near as advanced as they are today. The lyrics in the song had a message that video would take over, which is exactly what happened as radio got less and less popular. It is ironic that this was the first video played on MTV as it sort of predicts that video would capture audiences and almost eliminate radio.

Another historical music video, Michael Jacksons ‘Thriller’, which was released in 1983, was MTV’s first world premiere video. It was voted as the most influential pop music video of all time and was outstandingly different to the Buggles music video which was released 8 years before. Thriller explored new ideas and used different aspects, for example a story line, to engage viewers. They also used props and costumes to create a more theatrical video. It also cost a lot more to make than the Buggles video, using more up to date software and equipment which was improving as time went on. The video cost around 500 thousand dollars which at the time was a lot and sold over 9 million copies and set new world records. The music video is based around zombies and werewolves who were popular in movies and TV shows at the time. Creating a storyline for the video really engaged viewers and sort of made the video into a short film, rather than just a music video.

             More recent hits, like Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking ball’ which made a very large impact on the music industry, use different ways to entice viewers.  In the video Miley is seen wearing nothing but her boots, this is an obvious way of attracting male viewers to watch the video. She uses her looks and figure to engage the audience; however some people think the video is too graphic and shouldn’t be accessible to young children. This video supports Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory and that the camera is putting the audience in the position of a heterosexual man, as it lingers over the curves of a woman’s body. It also relegates the status of a woman to an object. This video shows how media is becoming more and more graphic and is it almost a normality nowadays to see some nudity, or very little clothing used in music videos, films or television.

             With Music Videos becoming more popular over time, and developing in technology, more music videos were being used as a way of promoting other media, like films and TV shows. A recent example of this is the Alicia Keys track ‘It’s on again’ which is featured in the latest of the Spiderman series ‘The Amazing Spider-man 2’. Because of this, parts of the film are used in the music video and the track can be heard during the end credits of the film. Both the song and film advertise each other successfully, with the video having over 11 million views on YouTube, and the film making more than 90 million dollars on its opening weekend.  People who see the film may hear the track being played at the end and want to go and buy it and vice versa. 

            Another approach to music videos that has worked incredibly well recently is comedy. Including an aspect of comedy in a music video is becoming a new way to attract perhaps a younger audience. A good example of this is the ‘Gangnam Style’ video which was the first video to reach 1 billion views has now had a shocking 2 billion views on YouTube. The video features the singer PSY dancing in a number of strange locations, including a public coach, a tennis court, some horse stables, a boat and a number of other public locations. The popular music video is seen as random and bizarre by some audiences, but it is clearly very effective, with its catchy beat and PSY’s amusing dance moves.

         From looking at some of these modern music videos I feel that they have definitely evolved drastically over time, however some music videos do still resemble their historical counterparts and have the basic structure and content used in some of the very first music videos ever released.