What is a music video

What is a music video?

These bullet points below are summaries from 4 popular dictionary websites on the definition of a music video.

• A music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional purposes or artistic purposes. (Wikipedia)

• A commercial video featuring a performance of a popular song, often through stylized dramatisation by the performers with lip-syncing and special effects. (dictionary.com)

• A videotaped performance of a recorded popular song usually accompanied by dancing and visual images interpreting the lyrics. (Oxford dictionary)

• A film or video rendition of a recorded song, often showing the musicians performing or showing images that illustrate the lyrics or the mood of the song. (freedictionary.com)

I agree with the definition from freedictionary.com; this is because in this description they mention “showing images that illustrate the lyrics or the mood of the song”. The reason this makes more sense than the other explanations is that not all music videos are the same in 2019, in fact, they are all so different, there are many new modern styles, for example, experimental, like some of the imagine dragons and twenty-one pilot’s music videos.

Imagine Dragons - Thunder

twenty one pilots: Stressed Out [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

However, I believe a music video can be summarised by:

A music video is the band/performers way of getting across an emotion, mood, feeling or insight into modern day issues to their audience.

Purposes of music videos.

Below are the main purposes of a music video; the objectives are essential as they have a significant impact on the style of your music video, here are the main purposes:

• Promotional

• Entertainment

• Extension of income

• Extension of outlets

• Synergy (TV/films)

• Longevity

• Raise Awareness

Promotional

Promotional reasons to create a music video may be because the artist/group may be raising customer awareness of themselves, this intern generates sales of their album/song as well as creating brand loyalty at the same time.

Entertainment

A band/artist may want to make a music video to entertain their audiences providing amusement or enjoyment to a wide range of audiences. This particular practice was implicated when a YouTuber known as W2S (Harry Lewis) made a rather uncalled for dis-track on another YouTuber KSI (Olajide Olatunji), the music video was not created to make Harry money, it was just him making fun of KSI, however, when the video was released it was spammed all over the internet as people loved it and found it hilarious! Below is the diss-track itself:

W2S - KSI Sucks (RiceGum & KSI Diss Track) Official Video

You can see from the video there was the reason at the beginning for the track itself to be made as well as the lyric representation with the video when Harry talks about KSI’s Lamborghini the video cuts to a clip of Harry on top of it, altogether a fun, catchy video.

Extension of income

Extension of income in the music video industry is just as much a form of advertising as it is a music video this is because some music videos, for example, one from Mumford & Sons - Hopeless Wanderer (Official Music Video), this performance from the band attracts the watcher to want to see them live and its not just them plenty of other groups do this like for example OneRepublic - Wherever I Go (Performance Video) and Oasis with multiple video’s shots in the performance style.

Below are 2 of these videos:

OneRepublic - Wherever I Go (Performance Video)

Mumford & Sons - Hopeless Wanderer (Official Music Video)

So other than providing the regular income from streams of the video’s online (revenue generated from sites like Spotify, YouTube), as well as extra album sales, this style of video can make the viewer watching the video buy a ticket to one of their real performances on tour or at a festival.

Extension of outlets

Extension of outlets is providing more areas to showcase the product or band, for example, most music videos (that are suitable and from big enough names) tend to be streamed on the TV channel MTV where they would be played (if they got into the top 20). As well as this a music festival is an excellent place to show a bands music video behind the stage where they are performing, this could bring in extra views for their video and bring in new fans.

Synergy

Synergy is the strategy of synchronising and actively forging connections between directly related areas of entertainment. For example, its where some clips in a music video from an artist could have been taken out of the movie its played in. This has been present from music videos where;

Twenty-one pilots have used footage from / inspired by suicide squad (the song is called Heathens)

twenty one pilots: Heathens (from Suicide Squad: The Album) [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

Wiz Khalifa - See You Again ft. Charlie Puth which contains various footage Fast and Furious 7, in tribute to Paul Walker.

Wiz Khalifa - See You Again ft. Charlie Puth [Official Video] Furious 7 Soundtrack

As well as songs being inspired/created for movies, games and the advertising for them can also contain a soundtrack from a band/artist which may lead the viewer into watching their original music video as well, this technique was used in the battlefield 1 trailer where a song by The White Stripes - 'Seven Nation Army' was applied over the top of the trailer:

Battlefield 1 Official Reveal Trailer

Longevity

Longevity techniques are used in the music video industry to increase or secure the lifespan of the product (music video) or band, for example the song by Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody, was revived after the successful film Bohemian Rhapsody was released in 2018, it also brought in new, Queen fans, as well as many more views on the music video itself. This way of marketing was also present in many Michael Jackson music videos for example – Thriller, where the Thriller, dance (present in the music video) is still popular to this day in 2019. These aspects whether that be a film, or a famous dance, create a significant moment in time and adding popularity to the band/artist and the original music video.

Michael Jackson - Thriller (Official Music Video)

Bohemian Rhapsody | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

Raise awareness

The raise awareness type of music video is present to make apparent a subject or issue that is meaning full to the artist/band. For example, Queen’s performance at Live Aid in 1985. Other groups and artists may also make video’s inspired by a current issue (mental health) or others, for example, Cancer Research and the Red Cross. However, there will always be criticism, and for some artists, this may be true, but it is where an artist could make a mistake, and they make a music video doing something good right after (promoting a charity or raise awareness) as almost a form of self-promotion. For example, though it is not totally music video related when a YouTuber known as Logan Paul filmed a ‘vlog’ walking through the suicide forest in Japan and accidentally captured footage of a man who had hung himself and even went as far as to post the footage online, he was undoubtedly hit with hate left and right. Then within two months made a documentary about mental health and suicide prevention to arguably clear himself of a bad name.

Queen - Live at LIVE AID 1985/07/13