Task 1 - Purpose of Music Videos

Brief History of the Genre

Music videos transformed the music business in the early 1980s. Making a visual recording of an artist performing on a video cassette meant that a small package containing the video could be sent to TV stations around the world and the artist could then be seen by millions of people everywhere within days of releasing a record.

The term ‘music video’ first became popular in the early 1980’s, but promotional music films had been around for a lot longer. Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” is often though of as the first “modern” promotional film clip, although originally it was shot as the opening part of a documentary about his 1965 tour of England.

Back in the 1960's a number of experiments with promotional short films began. Bands which experimented with this were the likes of The Animals, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The ability to show short films of their latest releases meant that the band themselves did not have to perform the track. Therefore the appeal of the bands grew further. The Beatle’s “Strawberry Fields Forever” promotional film was especially important, it featured reverse film effects, stop motion animation, jump-cuts from daytime to night-time, and the band playing and later pouring paint over an upright piano. It was selected by the New York Museum of Modern Art as one of the most influential music videos in the late 1960s, along with another Beatle’s track, “Penny Lane”. By releasing these films bands could easily be seen all over the world, which a major part of the global phenomenon that the Beatles bacame in the 1960's.

In the 1970's more bands started making music videos – bands such as, Queen, David Bowie, The Jackson Five, Roxy Music, ABBA. In particular Queen’s video for “Bohemian Rhapsody” was considered groundbreaking, and is often said to have helped establish the “visual language” of the modern music video, and helped make it the third highest selling UK song ever.
In the 1980s music videos grew in numbers due to the launch of MTV in 1981, so there was a real demand to create music videos so that acts could be heard globally. However it was mainly British acts creating the videos for broadcast. Hence the massive “Brit invasion” of the US charts in the 1980's.

Music videos are for the artists preferred target audiences within the general public. Each artist whether solo or group have their own genres, for example "pop" and "rock" are two of the biggest genres in the music industry therefore getting the larger target audiences. By seeing an artists video potential fans can get an idea of that bands image and begin to relate to them more strongly. However music videos are not purely just for entertainment reasons there is a lot more to it. Artists are constantly competing against one another to reach out to as many of us as possible. So in releasing a music video they are intending to promote their albums and tracks. Most artists normally only used 3 or 4 songs off one album to shoot videos, this will illustrate to the viewers what the album has to offer. This is to hopefully make people go out and buy their music. They promote the artists by showing the viewers the meanings of the song whether it’s a love song or a song about drugs. Furthermore it gives the viewers a chance to see the artist visually instead of just hearing their instruments and their voices. It also offers a further opportunity for the track to "heard" as radio and the internet are the only other options to get their music out into the open.

Music videos also helps keep the artist in the public eye for as long as possible even months after the album has been released. There are a wide range of outlets for their music video to be seen examples of this are television channels like MTV, VH1, Kerrang, Hits TV, NME. Furthermore there’s the internet which includes Youtube, Vodpod, Videocore. The newest outlet for videos is downloads for ipods, mobile phones, blackberrys.

Videos for songs are often released quite a long time before the track is available to purchase, this helps create interest and hopefully a bigger demand for the song.

The music video may not have been made just for the band as their song may have been used for a soundtrack of a film. So their video may contain clips of the feature film appearing as part of the narrative/performance.

The success of a video can be judged just in terms of increased track sales, but also from the critical reaction to it within the music industry and by the public on sites like Myspace and Youtube.