Music in film and television Essay: "Pop videos no longer attempt to 'Visualise' the lyrics as they did in their infancy". Agree or Disagree?

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Music in film and television Essay: “Pop videos no longer attempt to

        ‘Visualise’ the lyrics as they did in their infancy”. Agree or

       Disagree?         

Imagine the scene.  You’ve heard that you’re favourite band are releasing your favourite song on their new album as a single.  The big premiere is on MTV that night.  You go round to a friend’s house (you haven’t got MTV – you’re a poor student), anticipation flowing through you like adrenaline, and then you see the video… and it’s the most boring, irrelevant crap you’ve ever seen.  You turn the TV off in frustration and curse whoever commissioned the video.  Three months later it wins a Brit Award for Best video.

Now this story may not necessarily be true (it is – “Wonderwall” Oasis) but illustrates well the capacity for music videos to cause a wide range of emotions from the public.

Music Videos are something of an enigma in today’s society.  They have launched the careers of some of today’s biggest artists  - Radiohead, Missy Elliot, Nirvana, strengthened the careers of other established artists – Michael Jackson, Madonna, George Michael, not to mention making names of directors such as Michael Bay, Spike Jonze and David Fincher as well as actors such as Jack Black, Courtney Cox and Liv Tyler, all of whom have gone on to great success within the movie industry.  Despite this, there still seems to be a division of opinion about their importance.   For some, they are a vital part of an artist’s image - an instant leg-up to notoriety and popularity.  For others, they are an irrelevant by-product of record company blanket marketing that half the population never see.

 The music video has had a long and complicated life. The roots of the music video date back to the 1930s and 40s, when a man named Max Fleischer created cartoons and put them to songs by Jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong. These "soundies," as they were called at the time, were played in jukeboxes located in restaurants, diners, and nightclubs, and helped to draw intrigued customers.  The next people to combine songs with visuals were inevitably the Beatles.  They released a string of promo clips, for songs such as “Paperback Writer”, Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Hello, Goodbye”, as a showcase of their expanding minds.  Of course they also made feature-length films, snippets of which were later turned into music videos by MTV in the 80’s.

By this time, the potential of videos were beginning to be realised by people such as Michael Jackson, Duran Duran and Peter Gabriel.  These artists were pushing the boundaries of visual effects and censorship, creating cinematic events designed to garner as much publicity as possible.  However, these artists were still the exception rather than the rule. Even though 24.2 Million people watched MTV in 1984, record companies were still unsure of it’s longevity, and unwilling to spend thousands on a video.  Because of this, most videos were either a performance on stage or in a studio, with little or no creative input.  Videos also tended to visualise the lyrics, as if the audience would be unable to understand the meaning of the song without it.  Some people took this literally, such as Dire Straits video for “Romeo and Juliet” in which every line was acted out to the letter by the actors. Patrick Gookin, an ex record company man now working for VH1, said:

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 “Music Videos were highlighted as a good advertisement for an up and coming artist, and a vital part of their image.  For this reason, especially with pop artists, most videos of this time were inoffensive and simplistic.  We wanted the artist to appeal to the right people.”  

While this practice undoubtedly still goes on, the general consensus of music videos shifted in the 90’s, and has carried on apace ever since.  Videos such as Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”, Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” and George Michael’s “Freedom” addressed issues such as sexuality, suicide and religion within a 3-minute pop video, which ...

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