The Purposes of a Music Video

The Purpose of a Music Video

The first sighting of a music video was in 1941, this was when a new invention was made in the USA and was put into many clubs and bars. This invention was called The Panoram Soundie; a Panoram Soundie was a jukebox that played short video clips along with the music. Because of this first invention it inspired others to make a way for music to be more than to just be listened to. In 1975 Queen released a music video for their song Bohemian Rhapsody which used advanced visual effects and marks the beginning of a new video era.

Music videos are a way for artists to promote themselves and to promote their songs. For example Videos can promote the artist by simply putting their name on the instruments or in the background scenery.  The video itself is a free advertisement and a way for the artist to promote them, so the more memorable or desirable the video the more views and people are going to be watching it and therefore this will promote the song and the artist. Also if the video is really liked by an audience the director of the video will be promoted too and will give them an opportunity to get known and picked to direct other people’s music videos. An example of this is Pearl Jam where they have the name of the band on the drum kit.

It’s the producer’s responsibility to market the artist in the right way and to get the right target audience viewing and listening to them. For these reasons producers’ market artists differently depending on the type of music they are producing and also how much money can be spent on the video. The more money that can be used for the video means better locations; costumes and effects can be used. Major label bands or artists have a lot of publicity behind them, this is because they are known in the music industry, and because of this a lot of money is given to them which are used for their music videos. In these photos of Britney in the music video Toxic we can see that its a main stream, high budget video this is due to the different location, lots of glamour, different costumes and the use of CGI.

Independent bands/artists don’t have the money/support that major bands/artists do; therefore they have a low budget and can’t afford all the different locations and glamour that show in major band/artists music videos. The producers of independent bands/artists have to suffice with this low budget and have to make a video which entertains the target audience without all the special effects and glamour, these music videos are usually filmed with them just singing and performing to a camera and sometimes have a little narrative.

 

With technology as it is today with many types of media outlets self-produced artists are able to create their own music videos and publish them for everyone in the world to see, for example some of the biggest stars were found on YouTube, such as Justin Bieber, he started uploading YouTube videos of himself singing and after people found him and shared his videos he was found by a producer how signed him and got him into the industry.

Being a music artist is their job and for this reason they do anything they can to increase their income. Before today’s technology, radio was the way to earn money; every time the artist’s song is played they get royalties. In our generation media outlets have increased and there are many ways for an artist to earn more money and to promote themselves more. There are many media platforms that artists use to earn more money. TV is a good platform to increase the artist’s income; the music videos entertain the audience and make the music a lot more entertaining, this also helps them promote themselves which increases their income even more, this is because people who are entertained by the video may really like the music and be more likely to go purchase the artists CD. Depending on the artist and the type of music they play can depend which channel their music is most likely to be shown on, there are many music channels which differ to different genres of music, some of the main channels are Kerrang!, MTV, 4Music and Viva. Computers and the internet have changed the world, it has opened many doors and jobs, and it’s a fantastic way to promote/advertise yourself or your products. YouTube is a money maker, YouTube is an internet site which allows people to post their own videos for everyone to watch, if your video receives a lot of views YouTube will pay you money to let them advertise on it. An artist has to take opportunity’s to use as many media outlets as they can to wider the audience and to extend their income. 

Some music videos are part of a synergy, i.e. related to another media product, for example a film. New Divide is a song by Linkin Park; this song is part of a synergy with the film Transformers, without the music video it shows some brief clips of the film, this is good as the song itself will make money as well as advertising the film and also promoting themselves as a band.

Music videos are a norm in our society now, when you go into work or college/school people will often say "have you seen (arstist) new video" this is a main way in which music videos get attention and entertain people, by doing this is creates free advertisement from viewers who like it and these boost the sale rates of the song. The future for music videos will stay strong and i think the only thing that will change is the advance in technology which means better grapahics and CGI.