Task 1 - Purpose Of Music Videos

Music videos are a form of advertisement, used to promote the song and the band featured within the video. These videos can feature the band themselves. These are known as ‘performance’ music videos. These usually feature the band playing along with the song. This can be in a live environment, a studio environment or somewhere usually related with the song being played or the band in question. Another type of music video is a ‘narrative’ video. These follow some sort of plot and storyline that usually relate to the lyrics in the song being played. The other sort of music video is a called a ‘concept’ video. These are usually completely unrelated to the song and are usually more imaginative and over the top than the other sort of videos.

Music videos roots can be traced back to the 1920's when sound films were first introduced and many short musical films were made. When bands such as The Beatles and The Monkees started to make films and tv shows featuring the bands music the idea of a musical video started to take a whole more promotional route. In 1965 The Beatles started to make promotional clips for there songs so they could be promoted without the band touring. Throughout the 60's and the 70's music videos grew in promotional significance and importance. The 70's saw an introduction to music television with various shows showing music videos and live performances. In the 80's the very first music tv channel, MTV, was launched and music videos became alot more commercial and mainstream, with artists such as Micheal Jackson releasing much more expensive and elaborate music videos such as the 'Thriller' video. As music videos got more popular as did the directors that were making them, with people like Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze getting alot more recognition. To the present day music videos have became more and more popular and now with the internet and sites such as you tube any music video can be watched on demand by anyone at anytime and they are seen now as a very effective form of promotion for a artist or a song.

If a music video is going to be really effective it has to be rememberable, when people watch it must stick out from the other music videos and stick in people’s minds. The videos that are the most effective at this are the ones that have some sort of bizarre or over the top theme or concept to it. These are videos such as Fatboy Slims ‘Weapon of Choice’ which features the actor Christopher Walken dancing and flying around to the song.

As music videos are adverts and used to promote bands and songs, a really good music video can make an average song sell a lot more copies and can even make an old song that has stopped selling so well to start selling well again. This is why film makers and artist alike are spending a lot more money and putting a lot more effort into making music videos now than they ever have.