Music videos first emerged in 1975 with Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and helped promote the band as innovative. Since then, music videos have become an important way for musicians to promote their music, brand, and assert themselves in the industry. Music videos can help both artists and directors gain popularity and build their representation. Mainstream artists tend to have high production value videos featuring elements like choreography, narratives, and locations to appeal to broad audiences, while independent artists have more freedom to portray themselves and may find audiences through online platforms. Successful artists earn royalties from their music being played or their videos being watched through various media outlets.

1. The Purpose of Music Videos
Music videos first officially emerged in 1975 with
Queens ‘Bohemien Rapsody’, where their advanced
video effects and lip-syncing set them aside from
many other musicians. It changed the way videos
were used alongside the artists music, the purpose
of the video was to promote Queen as new,
innovative and to gain popularity, setting up their
own brand. Since then, music videos have
skyrocketed in popularity. Most musicians now use
them as to promote their music and assert themselves into the industry. This essay will
explain the promotion, strategies, income, outlets and synergy of music videos.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Rhapsody )
Music videos are a way of promoting the artist and/or the
director of it. It usually works both ways. They do this to set
up their own brand identity, which can be inserted into the
video by having their band name plastered throughout the
video, a clothing style, an artist’s face being in the video or
symbols on the screen. When it comes to promotion of
directors, this can build their representation in the industry and help the director gain
popularity as well as the band. They can do this by visual
appeal where they express themselves using visual image,
using all creative means or as simplistic as possible to express
their talent to their audience. Directors such as Hype
Williams used Music videos to express his R&B and Rap genre
which helps create his style/brand. His style is usually simple,
but he always seems to use the Fisheye lens which distorts the cameras view into just a
centre focus. He also seems to adopt the style of using a solid plain colour with a lighter
colour being shown towards the centre, as seen in Kanye West’s music videos.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_Williams )

2. Artists like Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez and Katy Perry (Mainstream Artists) they all have
publicity behind them to create a refined image, this is added onto their music videos, all
high production value and thought through. This means
they will usually add certain elements in their videos such
as; the artist themselves, dance choreography, a narrative,
high quality fashion, different locations, a variety of shots,
and sometimes VFX. These types of artists are usually seen
on channels such as MTV, Top 40 or The Hits and usually
get the most views on YouTube or Vimeo. Different artists
are marketed different to appeal to different audiences,
this is so they gain popularity in those particular niches, if
they keep to their fit then they keep their audience. There
are artistic videos such as Florence and the machines ‘Hunger’ which provides beautiful
visuals and dances.
The difference between mainstream and independent artists is that they are not as popular
and also are freer to pick and choose the way they want to portray themselves as they don’t
have flashy equipment, there’s a chance to show their talent
instead. Choosing their unique selling point is essential to
whether a band/artist gets noticed or not, you are more likely
to see new talent online such as YouTube, Instagram,
Facebook and Snapchat; usually self-produced artists like
Shawn Mendes. Shawn Mendes came to fame by uploading a
cover onto Vine in 2013, he writes his own songs and music.
Some independent artists create a video to express
themselves, this can be shown visually or with the meaning of
the video.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Music_Choice_channels)
An artist who is successful usually receive payment or royalties exchange by others to be
able to use their product, for example every time it’s played on the radio, they get payed. If
the artist then makes a music video, every time
that is watched they also get payed. This is all in
theory as it can’t be tracked fully as there are so
many media outlets which a consumer may
watch the video. They made an assumption on
how popular the track is and how many people
have bought the album, then the artist is paid
appropriately. Bigger, popular artists are heard
more on the radio as the radios themselves don’t want to risk playing alternative artists as
they could lose their audience. Lesser known artists try to get themselves recognised by
music videos or Facebook pages and other media outlets. Jess Glynne’s ‘Thursday’ was
released in late 2018 with her music video reaching 19,772,158 views and topped 3rd
in the
UK Singles charts, 1st
in Scotland. Her video is a very message- driven music video where she

3. states she does not ‘wear makeup on Thursdays’ to help promote self-love and that she is
enough. It is very relatable and speaks to the hearts of many which is why people may listen
to the song a lot, a song that speaks of self-empowerment.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thursday_%28Jess_Glynne_song%29)
Media outlets in general allow us to access content media-
wise such as music videos from our favourite artists, this can
be done online, via DVDs or even on games consoles.
YouTube, for the last 5 years, have become the bigger media
outlet with various types of entertainment on it. Other media
outlets such as Vimeo, snapchat and Instagram showcase
different artists and their music videos. There are both
advantages and disadvantages to different kinds of media outlets, for example an advantage
of YouTube would be that anyone can sign up and its mainly free to use even if you don’t
sign up. A disadvantage would be that you need internet to access it, and also it has around
1,300,000,000 videos. 300 hours of video uploaded every minute so a lot of content
especially music videos goes unnoticed if it isn’t popular. Therefore, it is hard for
producers/labels and their artists to go along with the trends as what audiences like changes
every second. Vimeo is an ad-free platform used to host
videos and became the first site to support high-definition
video. Spotify is a music provider which uses vertical music
videos, lots of mainstream artists like Billie Eilish, Lewis
Capaldi and Taylor Swift have created vertical videos.
(https://tubularinsights.com/hours-minute-uploaded-
youtube/)
Artists usually with their music
videos synergise with companies to
help them to promote their video to
gain popularity and appeal to certain
audiences. Billie Eilish’s ‘When I
Wad Older’ was inspired by the film ‘ROMA’ and the makers of
ROMA synergised with Billie to help promote themselves and for her
to promote herself to the audience associated with the movie. Also, Synergy includes
product placement such as Billie Eilish’s beat headphones in her music video ‘Lovely’, this
means she gets payed by the company to display the headphones and in turn the company
gets more buyers. Imagine Dragons also synergised with ‘Wreck It Ralph 2’. This strategy is
very useful as both sides gain from it by introducing different audiences to each other,
reduces cost, increases revenue and helps to empower one another.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I4fD49Gbck) (https://movieweb.com/wreck-it-ralph-2-
breaks-the-internet-soundtrack-song-imagine-dragons/)
I believe music videos are so popular because of the visual and audible aspects which work
together to create this hybrid. Along with the visual aspects, editing to the beat and keeping

4. the pace the same makes it more satisfying
to watch. Also, the idea of seeing their
favourite artists makes the viewers feel
closer to them. If there is a story-line, then it
adds to a movie-like appeal and instead the
viewer sees it like an ongoing story of which
creates more relatability. This gains more
popularity and gets the artist more money.