Ellen Rouse-Barron
Purpose of Music Videos
There are four reasons for music videos, the first is for Promotional reasons, to sell the song; get a reaction from people so they remember it, therefore more views on YouTube, more downloads and CD purchases. It is also to expose and expand the artist’s profile, by entertaining and showing off their talents. An example of this is David Bowie’s catchy promo for ‘Ashes to Ashes’ scored his first UK No.1 in nearly a decade. The popularity of the music video can put the song in the top 10. It is also to give the audience a better understanding of the music video, as well as entertain.
Extension of income, Music videos can be used to promote the band or artist, long after the single or album has been released. Some artists are remembered years later because of the memorable music video. For example, Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, he was the first to create the idea of a short film, a music video with a beginning, middle and end. Watching a music video may encourage the audience to purchase; the single, the album and merchandise. It raises the profile of the band/artist and then encourages the audience to attend tours/festivals. Extension of outlets, such as music channels, CD sales, websites, downloads and YouTube. Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ was the first video to receive 1 billion hits.
Synergy, when two areas of media work together to mutually benefit each other, for example ‘Skyfall’, both the producers of the movie and Adele benefit from this arrangement. The music video promotes the movie and the song promotes Adele.
Producer’s strategies, major labels and independent. For major labels the purpose of the music video is to provide a strong online presence and allow them to make more profit through advertising. For example ‘Vevo’, this is a music video website, it is also used on YouTube. The independent or ‘indie’ producers see their work as an art-form and not just an advertisement for the music industry.
Styles and Conventions
Blink-182’s ‘All the small things’ is a parody style music video as it isn’t serious, and is meant to be comedic, it mockingly imitates other music videos. They use the same sets, dance moves and costumes as other bands, which is an impressionist style, to show that they are not the conventional pop rock band. They use references to bands such as the Backstreet Boys, impersonating the ‘popular’ music genres, making it a homage/pastiche. The song is also about his girlfriend, showing a narrative, and therefore it is an interpretive music video as it encourages the audience to speculate as to the deeper meaning of the song, by using the lyrics, and the bond between the wo will not be immedialy obvious.
This music video focuses on one main music video convention; links to other artist: Backstreet Boys ‘I want it that way’, Backstreet Boys ‘All I have to Give’, Britney Spears ‘Sometimes’, Christina Aguilera ‘Genie in a Bottle’, Ricky Martin ‘Livin La' Vida Loca’, Backstreet Boys ‘As Long As you Love Me’, Sugar Ray, 98 Degrees and NSYNC.
Extending or consolidating a songs’ meaning in a music video, is when you use symbolism and things in the mise-en-scene to further push the meaning of the song or to add more of a meaning to a song or to just bring the lyrics together into a visual explanation of what the song actually means; and for this music video its harder to understand the song when put together with music video, because the video was just about having fun and mocking other bands, but the song is about his wife after she complained that he wrote songs about his other girlfriends. He was afraid it wouldn't be good so he kept telling her it was terrible. It ended up being a hit. According to Tom DeLonge, the lyrics are true. His wife really did leave him roses by the stairs after a long night in the studio; “Late night, come home, Work sucks, I know, She left me roses by the stairs, Surprises let me know she cares”.
The 1975 ‘Sex’, this song has three different music videos; the first one is an in-concert/’as live’ footage, this style is stereotypically used for indie and rock bands. The 1975 use this style of music video because it isn’t staged, its real-life footage of the band performing and the audiences reaction.
The second music video for this song is the acoustic version, which is an impressionist style video, as it is a simplistic yet aesthetically pleasing and increases the amount of attention that is payed to it. It’s more about the mood and atmosphere of the video that links in with the song, and helps with the lyric interpretation.
The third and final is an interpretive, narrative style music video; it tells a story of this boy and girl having a ‘thing’ but she already has a boyfriend. Because of this it has lyric interpretation, as the video shows what the lyrics mean.
