Harry's HWK
Aisha Bhoja
Unit 29: Understanding the purposes of music videos
In this report, the purpose of music videos will be explored and discussed by focusing on the key aims such as where and how music videos have been accessed overtime, how they have become beneficial for artists and their albums by forms of promotion alongside commercialism. In today’s millennial era music videos can be accessed through much more forms of media than ever before due to an easy access with new technology, whereas in the past most music videos were viewed on television, how this has promoted artists will also be analysed in this report.
This paragraph will cover light on how music videos were viewed before today’s era. The 1980’s were a time of the music genres rock and dance, during this decade music videos were accessed mainly on television, “MTV, aka Music Television wasn't an immediate success when it launched in 1981, but the 24-7 music network had a good run. Launched on August 1, 1981, … MTV had a huge impact on 1980s pop culture” (3). Shortly after the launch of MTV the release of Michael Jackson’s debut album ‘Thriller’ was released in 1982, this same album featured his worldwide hit ‘Thriller’. Due to Jackson’s choice of director and musical innovation he achieved a haunting music video that was much ahead of its time. As his audience loved the music video so much it instantly became a hit musical horror film in the charts, this helped broaden his audience as the music video became a synergy by intertwining movies and music videos. Therefore, this allowed ‘Thriller’ to get more airtime on television, whilst still being highly viewed in today’s common method of access for viewing music videos, YouTube, “It got saturation play on MTV and has been seen more than 149 million times on YouTube” (4). Furthermore, at the time of release for ‘Thriller’ “The music industry in the 1980s was driven mostly by the success of a wildly popular new music cable channel called MTV” (5), this conveys just how much television helped boost popularity of music videos and artists. However, the mise en scene shows high use special effects (SFX), creating very realistic zombie costumes for its time, leaving the music video almost unwatchable for its younger viewers, making them the secondary audience. As adults became the primary audience the music video was only aired on television after 9pm due to watershed. The music video also creates audience gratification as the original choreography portrayed in the video formed visceral effect by engaging the audience. The music video’s modern approach still has an impact on its audience today, as the nature of the video has influence on current costumes for other celebrities in contemporary music videos, they would create audience gratification by using references from ‘Thriller’ due to it being such a hit, creating use of intertextuality. Moreover, this makes the audience of those other celebrities remember Michael Jackson, still creating a boost for his career all by the music video ‘Thriller’. Producers achieve intertextuality by secondary and primary research.
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Now the access of music videos today will be explored and how they benefit the artist. Most audiences consume music videos through YouTube, as according to statistics currently “The total number of people who use YouTube – 1,300,000,000. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute! Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day. In an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49-year-olds watch YouTube” (1). Music videos have allowed many film industries, such as Bollywood (the Indian film industry) to promote films before their official release dates by posting the music video first, thus allowing the song to become a hit in the charts. This makes music videos to become an easy method of promotion. Furthermore, this allows an increase in revenue whilst allowing the film to gain more attention from their targeted audiences midst creating a social boost for the celebrities in the music video and film by creating a star persona through the celebrities’ representation. An example would be the Bollywood hit ‘Baijrao Mastani’, many of the attention gained for this film was received through the early release of the music video ‘Deewani Mastaani’ which instantly became popular in the charts of 2015. Not only did this help increase popularity for the main cast but also had a major influence of commercialism as this music video in particular from ‘Baijrao Mastani’ aspired many of their female and male audience to purchase Asian attire just like the costumes worn by the actors and actresses, as seen in the mise en scene, thus influencing a certain lifestyle as they aspire to look like the actors and actresses in the music video.
This paragraph will cover the reasons as to how and why music videos can be produced to help promote an album. An example of a narrative music video would be Ed Sheeran’s song ‘Perfect’, this music video illustrates a cliché love story by using the genre of romance. As an audience we know that Sheeran has intentionally made the narrative of the music video as quite relatable due to the authenticity of the storyline itself, “Ed has said ‘he needed to write the best love song of his career’ with ‘Perfect’” (8). This helped to raise the listeners of his album ‘Divide’ as he achieved his intention of creating a hit love song, as the song and music video was released before the spring of his album. Furthermore, “In December 2018, Ed released a new version called ‘Perfect Duet’ with Beyonce, and this helped the song climb back in the charts, reaching number 1 in the UK and US” (9). As Ed Sheeran had created the duet with Beyonce, Sheeran’s audience and Beyonce’s audience came together providing more revenue for Ed’s album due to the increase in views of the music video leading to the song’s quick climb back into the charts. In addition to this, before the release of the original music video for ‘Perfect’, he had released an animated lyric video created with the use of CGI. This had allowed a bigger build up to the output of the original video as the lyric video alone had done very well because of its illustrative style. All forms of the song, the lyric video, original video and duet had all constantly kept the song at number 1 in the UK and US charts, therefore helping to promote his album ‘Divide’ as a whole.
https://www.smoothradio.com/features/ed-sheeran-perfect-meaning-lyrics-video/
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In summary of this report, music videos can be used for promoting artists’ albums, record labels and genres, as well as promoting certain lifestyles or ideology of thinking This is all intentionally done to achieve an extension of income and revenue as promotional purposes gain more of an interest from their audience for the artist and their next album. The producer may use strategies such as having guest appearances of other celebrities in their music videos to gain more acknowledgement from other artists’ fans to help boost their music career, or even use more innovative techniques such as a complex style of narrative, either being illustrative or interpretive. This can be accomplished through the staging, setting or props used in the mise en scene, camera editing or special effects. All of these strategies used in the music video to help promote the artist also then encourage a boost in the amount of the artists fans listening to the song through other music outlets increasing revenue.
By Aisha Bhoja.
Bilbliography:
1) The total number of people who use YouTube – 1,300,000,000. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute! Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day. In an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49 year-olds watch YouTube.
Accessed 30thOctober 2018
2) Screenshot of ‘Baijrao Mastani’
Accessed 30thOctober 2018
3) MTV, aka Music Television wasn't an immediate success when it launched in 1981, but the 24-7 music network had a good run. Launched on August 1, 1981, with the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," MTV had a huge impact on 1980s pop culture
Date accessed: 6thNovember 2018
4) It got saturation play on MTV and has been seen more than 149 million times on YouTube.
Date accessed: November 6th
5) The music industry in the 1980s was driven mostly by the success of a wildly popular new music cable channel called MTV.
Date accessed: November 6th
6) 
Screenshot of ‘Thriller’.
Date Accessed 6thNovember.
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Date Accessed: 6thNovember.
8) Ed has said ‘he needed to write the best love song of his career’ with ‘Perfect’
Accessed: 8thNovember
9) In December 2018, Ed released a new version called ‘Perfect Duet’ with Beyonce, and this helped the song climb back in the charts, reaching number 1 in the UK and US.
Date Accessed: 8the November
10)
Screenshot of ‘Perfect’
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