The emergence of the music video began all the way back in 1941 where a new invention was thought up called the 'The Panoram Soundie'. This was a jukebox design that also played video clips alongside the music. After this many television companies developed and adapted this format. For example, music accompanied sequences in dramatic films in 1969's 'Easy Rider'. In 1970 short 'promos' (early music videos that began to replace the live artist performances on a TV-stage) were created by the record industry as they thought it would help promote their artists. After this in 1975 marks the beginning of the video era and it sets a standard and a form of language for the modern music video. This ground-breaking song was released by Queen and it's called 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (video below). The video for the song is considered by many as one of the first videos to used advanced video effects of the time.
The Promotion of Artists (plus their songs) and The Promotion of Directors.
Music videos are often used to help either artists or bands promote themselves and their music. Also sometimes music videos are used to help promote the producers and directors and help to get them noticed in their fields of work and gain them more business and popularity.
The method in which an artist or band uses music videos to promote themselves and their music is to feature their name or a recognizable symbol/icon related to them so they have some identification within the video and so their selective audiences will be able to associate them within the video. A good example of where a band or artist has used this technique would be the band 'Linkin Park' in their video/song called 'What I've done'. In this video (below) you can see at several points during the video that the logo is featured within the video.
The bands logo is featured on the drum kit they have their bands recognizable logo on the biggest drum facing the camera, thus promoting their band and allowing the viewers to recognize and be able to associate the band with the logo and therefor the band with the song. Also as another added bonus promotion, the band members themselves are also featured within the video and/or are prominent in the music video. Thus promoting them even more/the most.
As I've said before, music videos are also often used to help promote the Producers and the Directors/filmmakers of the videos themselves. An example of a music video that does this would be the song by 'My Chemical Romance' called 'The ghost of you' directed by famous film director Marc Webb. Marc Webb started out his career by making music videos such as this one. He made many music videos before going into film directing, his most famous and well known film being '500 Days of Summer' which is very popular. He also went on to direct films such as the 2012 'Spider-man Reboot' and 'The Amazing Spider-man' and also its sequel in 2002 he directed 'The Amazing Spider-man 2'. He is also well known for directing several of My Chemical Romance songs/music videos. This therefor associates him with the band themselves and therefore helped along with his other music videos to help forward his film making/directing career.
Producers strategies: The how and why artists are marketed differently.
Artists and bands are marketed differently depending on how popular and well known they are. For example, some bands/artists like Sia, as a mainstream artist would be hugely promoted and will be classed as a 'Major label artist'. She will gain huge amounts of promotion and publicity gained from producers backing them and will be given a perfect glossy image. This will be reflected by the content of their music videos. For example, in major label bands/artists music videos there are certain conventions and elements that will be featured in them. Things such as; A better set up; More widespread coverage; Better/more advertisement; More money in production; A major cameo (someone well known/famous); Nakedness (sometimes sex sells); Bigger cast and crew; Better equipment and editing. Sia is one of these 'Major label artists' because not only is she well known. But in most of her music videos such as 'The Greatest' 'Chandelier' and 'Elastic Heart' (videos below), features a very famous young dancer named 'Maddie Ziegler' who is only 14 years old but dances amazingly, what she can do is mind blowing and so Sia has become associated with her and they are associated with each other which helps promote both of their careers.
Image comparison: Sia (left). Maddie Ziegler (right).
Other bands and artists that are just starting out, might not have as much money or finances to help back a larger production music videos for their work because they are not as well-known as Major label bands/artists. These are therefor known as Independent bands or artists who will or can only release their music videos and have them paid by their Independent Record labels. As they are independent and on a tighter budget, for this there are certain conventions and elements that will be in these type of music videos. These conventions and elements consist of things such as; the video focuses only on them playing/singing their songs; there are cheaper or fewer locations; it's a low budget (will be evident in the video); it will have a more unique style as the band and artist will have more influence in what they want personally within the music video. A good example of an independent band/artist and an independent record label would be: The singer Bethan Leadley (images below). She is a well-known singer and video blogger who publishes her work on her YouTube channel called 'musicalbethan'. She has also released an album on iTunes in 2011. Before she became famous and well known she created her YouTube channel in April 2007 where she began to post cover music, before it turned into more of a vlog channel.
It was LAB Records, a Manchester UK pop/rock independent record label that helped her make her way.
An example of one of her music videos is below:
Another producer's strategy would be 'Self-Produced Artists'. This type of artist is pretty self-explanatory as they produce and distribute their own work/music via the internet as their own way of trying to get into the music industry. This is becoming a more popular way to become an artist as it is easy to get noticed and it is usually free to post your work on sites such as social media and through You Tube. The advantages and disadvantages to producing your own work are expected. The Advantages include; You get to make the video exactly how you want (within reason/your restricted budget); You can be more flexible with your production schedule; There are so many (especially now-a-days) online sites you can use as a god way to get noticed. The Disadvantages include; You can have a smaller budget; You are limited to what you can do (i.e. smaller cast and crew, low budget etc.). A good example of someone who is a Self-Produced Artist or started out as a Self-Produced Artist would be: Evan Blum. He is a songwriter/producer who gets his acknowledgements for his music through YouTube and other social media sites. On YouTube alone he has over 6,000 subscribers and over 1,500,000 views. (His YouTube homepage is below):
Just a few examples of some of his music videos (he has made many more that a popular):
An example of what one of his videos looks and sounds like:
The final producer's strategy would be the creation of music videos to show 'Art' or to push a statement. Some artists choose not to solely exist for the stake of commercial reasons; as some artists prefer/want to create a more visual meaning piece of art or a masterpiece and be remembered for it. This means that music videos can also be used to help promote an artistic statement. An example of this type of video would be 'PAINTED' by Duncan McDowall (shown below) as one of their videos have a score of music, accompanied by a dancer to make a statement.
Extending Artists and Record Labels Income.
How artists and record labels make their money comes through either receiving royalties or they get a personal payment in exchange for the use of one of their products. When it comes to receiving royalties however, it isn't always receiving payments every single time the video or content is played or used as it is in possible to track down the consumption of a singular music video. This is mainly because of all the large and different media outlets people use nowadays. So, this is instead an estimated price depending on how well it is selling such as with the merchandise, and how popular the project seems to be working depending on its popularity and the overall public interest. This however is just an assumption but the royalties are still paid accordingly. How much you get paid depends on how much popularity you do have as a mainstream artist's music will be more popular as they will reach the top of the charts and their songs get repeatedly played on the radio, whereas a less known alternative musicians rely solely on their other media outlets to get themselves known and recognized. The reason this happens is because if a television company or radio station was to broadcast an unknown artist then they are at a major risk of people tuning out or changing channel to something/someone they do recognize. Thus, causing the show to lose its popularity and it loses the companies money.
Extension of Media Outlets/Platforms.
As I am studying music videos this refers to the media relative sources that allows us to access and view music videos. Media outlets and platforms exist and work so they can allow us to access a certain media text depending on what site we've used. These are more popular with the average public viewed these days as there is a vaster range of technologies to use and the internet and TV are so popular nowadays. There are so many types of media outlets, a few of which consist of; YouTube; Radio (i.e. Kiss; Heart; BBC radio 1/2/3/4 etc.); Music TV channels (i.e. Capital TV; KERRANG; MTV hits etc.); Social media sites (i.e. Facebook; Twitter; Tumblr; Instergram etc.); ITunes; Spotify, and so much more. However, even though there are so many of them. There are still both Advantages and Disadvantages to having so many kinds of media outlets. Some of the Advantages are; It is easy to get more promotion as there are so many ways to do so; It’s cheap/easy/free because posting to some of the websites are for free and it quick and simple to do because they are open for public use. The main Disadvantage however, is that because there are so many and because it is used so much by nearly everyone, it is incredibly overpopulated and there is too much to look at. This means you have an easy chance of simply and/or constantly getting overlooked and ignored.
Synergistic Marketing.
This is the type of marketing that, in the media, refers to
the sale of more than one product alongside the original main product or a
company through licensing deals. The idea of Synergy in the media started in
the 1930’s by Walt Disney who pressed this idea when he allowed other companies
to use his character Micky Mouse in several of their products and
advertisements. Disney has a long history of using Synergy to market their
products and the other companies will use the creations they have been allowed to
use to promote their own product, but by doing this they are also promoting Disney.
A specific example from Disney would be the animated film ‘Beauty and the Beast’
as it has memorable songs and loads of merchandise produced by other companies
to help promote it. Also, another non-animated version of the ‘Beauty and the
Beast’ is being created in 2017 because it is so popular to its public
audience. An example of one of the songs would be ‘Tale as old as time’ which,
in the film itself was sung by Angela Lansbury. (video posted below):
Below are other examples of merchandise produced and sold by other companies based on 'Beauty and the Beast':
Conclusion:
After completing all this research I have come to a decision
as to why music videos are so popular today. In my opinion, music videos are so
popular because the ‘youth of today’ are as in to music as previous generations.
However, the difference is that with music today, it has grown so much over the
past years and has become freer and easier to access music as more people are
getting technologies such as Smartphones, IPod, IPad, TV’s etc. and one of the
uses they use them for is to stream and download music/music videos and listen
to it.
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