Misha Sillifant
What is the Purpose of a Music Video?
Music videos have been around since the 1950s starting with Tony Bennetts Stranger in Paradise where he was filmed walking along The Serpentine in Hyde Park. Then by 1964 The Beatle’s released a motion picture for their A Hard Day’s Night album which consisted of a sequence of their music. Top of the Pops was very important to the music industry when it first started in 1970, the show consisted of live music and music videos. The show only showed a very few music videos so this caused competition between artists as they knew their videos had to be at the best standards to be included on the show.
MTV was very important for the success of music videos. The channel launched in 1980 with the first video to be aired being Video Killed the Radio Star, as this song was big at the time and also could’ve been a pun of how they knew music videos were going to become big and important now they were being aired on TV. MTV continued to branch out with other channels such as MTV Hits and MTV2. It is also the start of many music channels such as Chart Show TV and Starz which are around today.
After this artists started to create a wider theme to their videos, this included having a storyline or concept to the video. Michael Jackson was the first to do this with having the idea of creating a short film, he did this with his iconic song Thriller. The video had a beginning, middle and end attracting fans of Michael Jackson as they would get to see a short film that he appeared in and also an audience of people who were interested purely due to it being the music video to be based around a short film. The purpose of this video was for promotion, as the video gained a lot of attention making the song twice as popular.
Promotion is one of the main purposes of music video, as the music video will promote the song which then overall promotes the album increasing the artist’s sales. Every song which is in the charts has to have a video and if the video is popular it can be the reason for a song getting into the top 10. If someone was to have a music channel on in the background but the volume was down but the video caught their eye they would be more inclined to listen to the song allowing them to then enjoy the song as well as the video.
As well as music videos promoting the song it also promotes the artist with the help of selling the artist through imagery. This could be due to the things the artist is doing in the video to what they are wearing, if the audience like this it will allow them to be attracted to the person more and maybe start to like them if they didn’t before. Also if people then become fans of the artist through the music video they’ve made it also means they are likely to then go out and by this artist’s albums and merchandise. Music videos are also used to show off any other talents that the artist may have. This is done due to the artist wanting to gain more fans to increase sales and also to surprise people in to realising they aren’t just a singer. For example this is apparent in many of Beyoncé’s videos, such as Single Ladies, as she often includes an element of dance allowing the audience to know that she also has this talent, meaning it’s talked about in a positive way encouraging more people to watch it to again increase downloads.
Artists will also set an image which could be done by setting certain moods to their videos, this can be done by linking the song with memorable experiences. For example Duran Duran – Girls on Film included sexual imagery in the hope that it would have an effect on the audience so it would then get talked about. As more and more people are then talking about the song and artist, more people will then watch the video, meaning people might then like the song increasing its sales. This then increases the artists’ income by selling CD’s, DVD’s and gaining downloads to become more successful. The publicity of Girls on Film was high due to the video and it’s still just as iconic today. This means that artists can be remembered for many years due to the help of their music video.
Another purpose of music video is synergy. This is when two different industries apparent in the media work together to create something, for example film and music. It is often seen when an artist has done the whole soundtrack for a film for example AC-DC did this for Iron Man 2. The film included AC-DCs most famous songs the main one being Shoot To Thrill which AC-DC then brought out a new music video for including scenes from the film in.
This helps to promote the film through the artist, by fans of AC-DC watching the new video, seeing clips of the film and wanting to watch it. Also by the music video being rereleased meaning if people were to see it online or on music channels they could then just be attracted to the film this way, they wouldn’t even need to like the song but just see the clips and thinking they would enjoy it. AC-DCs target audience is males aged 30-40 as they have been around for a long period of time and have never really changed the style of their music and Marvels target audience is younger males, meaning AC-DC will help the film to attract a wider audience. However this also works the other way around as AC-DC will also receive a wider audience from fans of Iron Man or people just watching the film enjoying the music. As Shoot To Thrill also appears in the trailer for Iron Man 2, this trailer will also be seen by a very large number of people all over the world, again allowing more people to hear AC-DC and be attracted to their music.
It is also common to see an artist just do one song for a film, this was seen in the film stardust when Take That Rule The World appeared at the end credits of the film. This was the only time the song appeared throughout the whole film but bits of the Stardust film did appear in Take That’s video which appeared on TV. Take That have also been known for doing this for X-Men First Class where the video also featured parts of the movie. This again attracts fans of Take That to the film and fans of the film to the artist.
AC/DC Music Video
Iron Man Trailer
Take That / Stardust
Take That / X-Men First Class
Some artists rely heavily on their music videos and the videos set their image. For example the Gorillaz are never seen and have characters which represent them in their videos and they have also done live shows at which just these characters are seen. This means that the videos and the style at which they are represented through have to be good to grab and keep their audiences. To do this, they have also made their videos film-like and they all link together to make a long piece. This means it will draw an audience in to want to watch the full version.
In conclusion music videos are a lot more important now than they have ever been. This is due to technology expanding over the years meaning audiences have been able to watch music videos on their TV’s and now whenever they want and how many times they want on sights like YouTube. This means artists and production companies try and make the best possible videos in hope to promote and sell the artist in another way not just through the song. However it is also clear that music videos are used for other reasons such as promotions of films or to make a statement for the artist.