Functions of Music Videos

Functions of a music video

What job does a music video do?

The main purpose of a music video is promotion that the video will bring to the artist. The music videos will help to give a newer artist a fan base or help an existing artist to increase the connection that the artist has with the fans that they have. A music video can help to create or change the persona that an artist has for example when an artist will change their identity to fit a different genre. The music video can also help to confirm the genre of a song or artist because certain genres will have certain styles of video. Music videos can also help to increase the sales that an artist has for albums and concerts. Many music artists will release a song with a video that is featured on an album before the album is released therefore advertising the product to people that did not realise that the album is coming out and therefore making them want to purchase it to support the artist. A music video can also help an artist to reinvent themselves such as Miley Cyrus who went from a child star in Hannah Montana, to a sexualised pop artist and then back into a pop singer without the sexualisation. This would be her trying to get back some of her fans who had left after her original transformation and genre change from child star to pop star. In her newest song she tries to recreate her image as a more innocent artist again, this can be seen for the art work for the song as she is lying innocently in the grass.

Since YouTube was created in 2005 more and more music videos have been made by people who would have previously not had the money to afford the equipment, however by this time digital technologies were becoming cheaper and more assessable to the general public and more comedic videos would be created. With more and more music videos being created it became likely that some would eventually go viral and send the artist into the public eye. For example in 2012 PSY’s Gangnam Style was released it quickly went viral and has gathered over 2.8 billion views, this viral video has helped to give PSY a career in western music and has got over 6 billion views overall.

Changes over time

Music videos have changed throughout history from being story based in the 50s and 60s with The Beatles and Elvis Presley having the funds and fan base to create music videos to everyday people creating music videos at home. However since the introduction of the digital age, and with technology improving and becoming cheaper it allows people with no funding from agencies to create their own music videos to go alongside with their music. This has allowed more and more artists to get internet celebrity status and can then enter the music industry with an already established fan base.

MTV was launched in the United States in 1981 and it quickly became an artists largest promotional tool and soon many artists were making music videos to go alongside their music however MTV did have some problems as smaller artists were struggling to be promoted due to only major artists having the budgets to create the music videos. Another problem for MTV is that the success that the videos had in money would have to constantly be reinvested back into the artist and their careers therefore meaning that the artist would not necessarily make any money from the video. A problem for the audiences would be that if they missed a song they would have to wait for it to be replayed therefore meaning that some artists would not get the same show time as other songs from more popular artists.

Michael Jacksons ‘Thriller’ song was the first music video to be produced with a budget over one million dollars and this created a new wave of music videos with increasingly large budgets. The most expensive music video of all time is the song ‘Scream’ by Michael and Janet Jackson, with a budget of $7 million.