Purpose of Music Videos

Music videos have lots of different purposes .Music videos are used for promotion ,extension of outlets, extension of income and synergy.

Purposes of music video's

In the 1960's experiments with promotional short films started ,with big bands from the mid 60's like The Beatles ,The Rolling Stones and The Animals.Now that bands and artists were starting to make music videos it meant that they didn't have to appear live to perform the track.
In 1967 in February The Beatles took 2 days to film one the first ever real music videos in a surrey field to promote there new single "strawberry Fields" this video was a huge hit and made other artists and bands want to create there own music videos, in addition to this the Beatles also recorded a performance as live and it was broadcasted on TV, this arguably was one of the main reasons the Beatles where so famous and well liked because they started music video industry.And in the 1970's most big name artists were making pop promos with bands such as Queen, Abba and the Jackson 5 all making music videos,but the demand increased dramatically for artists to make music videos because of top of the pops , the BBC show was a phenomenon and soon it was essential for very top pop group to get onto the show, the TV show gave viewers a real taste for a visual representation of there favorite artists , and it became essential for most artists to have a certain unique style or image to go with there music.It was in the 1980's though when music videos really began to take-off with the launch of MTV in 1981,because now there was a real need to create music videos in order to ensure your music was "heard" globally.Although initially however it was generally British acts that were creating the videos for broadcast.And this was why there was a massive "Brit Invasion" into US charts in the 1980's .This showed how essential music videos were now to bands and artists.


I am going to talk about how music videos promote the band. From the 1960’s when music videos were first really experimented with ,music videos have become more and more a regular occurrence with almost every signed band now having a music video to go with there songs. Music videos are excellent for promoting the band because they give a visual representation of the band .This meant that massive bands like the Beatles didn’t have to appear live to perform the track and gave more opportunity for the track to be “heard” , this meant that the appeal of bands like the Beatles grew further. Music videos provide a great way to promote a artist or track as they provide a visual representation of around three to four tracks from an album.


Music videos are also used for extension of income. Music videos help to keep the artist or band in the public eye for a few months after the release of their album leaving them in the public eye for as long as possible .This means the artist/band will continue to rack up sales of their album for months after its release. This helps recoup the production cost of recording the music originally, but the real money spinner is extension of outlets, because technology has been gradually progressing since the 1960’s and it is now a massive influence on the music industry. Since Music videos entered television on stations such as MTV,VH1,Kerrang and Hits etc Music videos started to have a big impact on music artists popularity and a lot of work went into music videos examples of this were videos like Michael Jacksons Thriller which is arguably one of the most popular music videos of all time ,people not only were impressed by the short story but also the dance choreography behind the video ,this set a bench mark for artists and many artists now have particular dance moves to their music videos.In the early 2000's a band called the Gorillazs pushed the boundaries even further by creating a strong visual representation of themselves in the form of animated characters ,these made the band unique and there music videos were extremely good with funny twists and brilliantly created animated characters,the first thing that comes to mind when you talk about the gorillazs is there animated characters in there music videos this made them a very successful band .This shows the importance of music videos . These Stations all show music videos and have to pay to get the rights to show them. Also the internet will continue to show the artists music videos for months on sites such Vodpod and Video cure and music videos will be available to watch whenever you please on sites like YouTube .And you can also collect even more income from downloads of the Internet. The Internet is growing by the day and now people prefer to sit at home and buy and download songs off the Internet rather than go and buy there CD’s from high streets. Devices such as ipods ,mobile phones,blackberry's and mp3s are bought in there billions and people are listening to music on there phones ,ipods etc constantly, this however has seen the fall of well renowned TV shows such as Top of the tops to fold .This is mainly because of websites , such as YouTube because they had all of the most popular music videos just a click away and these music videos would get millions of views,in particular the most famous ones , and therefore people shunned there TV's for there computers and internet became the main source to listen and view music videos and songs. A really good example of how popular Music videos are on YouTube is the recent example of Eminem's new Music video for his track :"Not Afraid" which has had a massive 17 million views in under a week and a half of its release on the YouTube music video channel vevo.This shows the extreme popularity of Music videos on the web and shows the massive exposure the artist gets from this.


Music videos links to Film/Tv programmes (synergy) are also a important purpose for music videos.Music made by a artist or band that is specially made for a film, a good example of this is in the film Charlie's angels , where clips from Charlie's angles where included in destiny's child's music video this helped promote both the band and the film as every time the film was watched the song was being played and the popularity of the song grew, and even bigger example of this is the James bond films which where widely renowned as brilliant films and every single one of the movies had a single released from the film , and the music video would have clips of the film in it as it was specially made for the film, examples of this are gold finger and live and let die.The artist could then include clips of the film in there music video.This is another purpose for music videos because when people think about the film they think about there song as well.The artist could also get there music video on unsigned act shows such as x-factor.

Below is a link to Feel Good Inc by the Gorillaz ,i could not embed this video as it was disabled upon request
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyHNuVaZJ-k