purposes of music videos

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music or a song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Music videos are primarily used for the promotion of music singles by the artist. Music videos have become a necessity for bands and artists over the past 4 decades, videos are sometimes remembered more than the actual song. The first ever music videos were just basic recordings of of an artist performing their own song. during the 60’s,



The Beatles took the idea of using filming a performance to promote themselves by introducing concept and a narrative to the performance. This allowed them to promote singles without having to constantly be on tour. Alot of other artists copied this idea. Bob and The Animals also made very important and memorable videos around the tim eof the beatles.

During the 70’s music videos had become a very important part of promoting songs for all major artists. Artists were competing to come up with the most memorable conceptual ideas.

David Bowie took the idea of the pop promo a stage further, making what were essentially short films charting the story of a character named Ziggy Stardust. The renowned Rolling Stone photojournalist Mick Rock worked with Bowie to create a series of short films which allowed Bowie to basically turn into this character and for the audience to see him.



This collaboration was also important becasue Mick Rock was actually a photographer not a TV/Film maker, he was also given complete control of the entire project. This idea is something that influenced the way music videos would be made in the future.
Queens Bohemian Rhapsody was also a very famous promotionla video. In the 80’s MTV was launched. MTV was a cable television channel dedicated souly to playing music videos. This new channel proved very succesful.

Budgets rose for music videos and the directors involved were becoming more famous, and their ideas and images became more challenging. The first video to be banned by MTV was Queen's 1982 hit "Body Language." Due to its homoerotic content, plus lots of skin and sweat. it was branded unsuitable for a television audience at the time. However, MTV did show Olivia Newton-John's 1981 video for the song "Physical", which lavished camera time on male models working out in string bikinis, ultimately pairing off to walk to the men's locker rooms holding hands. The video for "Girls on Film" by Duran Duran, which featured topless women mud wrestling was also banned by the BBC. Today we can access these videos easily via bedsites like YouTube.



The video for Micheal Jackson's Thriller took the idea of a music video to a new level, the video was basicly a short film including the song, it was 14 minutes long and was filled with scripted speech and sound effects. It was directed by a film director, John Landis, and went on to be nominated for an Oscar. The video was shown on MTV and shown as a special event on other channels. It was also released on video cassette. Thriller had a huge effect on music videos and highlighted show the world how powerful the music video could be.



The Thriller video really captures the meaning of a promotional video, and is recognised as one of the most successful promotional videos of all time. The 80’s and early 90’s contained lots of artist releasing more and more challenging videos. Duran Duran and Madonna released some of the more controversial videos at this time.

during the early 90's and today, the music video has become an expected part of a bands new single release, and bands use the videos to push their image and ideas towards a wider audience. One of the biggest success stories relating to music videos during the 90's was the rise of the american grunge band Nirvana. In 1991, Smells Like Teen Spirit was about to release as a teaser for their second album Nevermind. The record company were expecting sales of around 50,000 copies for the album. However, 2 months after its release, MTV decided to place the song on its main playlist. This resulted in the video being showed several times every day and led to success of both the single, which reached number 1 in the US billboard charts 3 months after release, as well as the band. Nirvana's huge international success really shows the power that MTV held.



Many famous film directors started off their careers by creating music videos and the 90’s was responsible for creating the careers of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and other famous directors, sometimes the video director becomes famous than the actual band.

Also with the rise of the internet and websites like 'Youtube', the music video has found a whole new distribution channel and it is much easier for videos and bands to get recognised. Artists no longer have to rely on physicaly releasing singles or appearing on MTV, anyone can now access music videos whenever they want. The effect of the internet has also been the fall in the amount of music videos that MTV now play. The main MTV channel now actually plays very little music videos, limited to just a single chart show each week. Instead, it shows soap operas, realty and teen drama programming all aimed at an audience of teenagers. It also means that artists no longer need expensive budgets and anyone can easily watch their favourite music videos.

more people using the internet has also led to a whole new market of homemade videos and parody acts. Fans of bands can now make their own music videos to their favourite songs. Daft Punk famously saw a fan made clip of the song “Stronger” and used the video as the official promo for the song. The soul purspose of a music video is to promote the artist and sales.

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in reaction to this video hundreds of copy cat user generates content was created giving the song and the band wider publicity and increases popularity here is another famous user generated video for the song 'Stronger'.