1. Initial Research
What is a music video for? Its purpose, its role/importance in contemporary society.
In the last 25 years, the art of making music videos has grown to be one of the most powerful and
individually stylistic modes of production in the music industry. Music videos represent a crucial part
of the music industry. Artists make music videos as they are being given the chance of impressing
their fans and the audience not just with their vocal talent, but also with their appearance and other
things such as their dance movements. Michael Jackson was famous for his moon walking dance
routine which fascinated most people and still does, even though his videos are more than 20-25
years old.
Few decades ago music videos weren’t as popular as they are now, they weren’t as powerful or
influential as they are now, but that was because it was only the start to a massive change to the
music industry. Only very famous artists came out with music videos, and it was quiet expensive.
Nowadays its easy, one computer and a camera can do the work.
MTV also played a big part in the music industry as it was broadcasting 24 hours day music; this
meant that those music videos had to be produced constantly. Therefore, music video began to play
an important role in artists' careers and it was the music video that determined whether the artist
was successful or not.
Madonna is a key example as her popularity grew after her music videos, they were often very
unique and she often portrayed herself so that she seemed attractive to men and woman. It is said
that she was inspired by actress Greta Garbo, who was a silent movie star. The introduction of MTV
had very different views among people, some people said it created the start of amazing new music
videos whereas other groups said that it was the end to real music, as the audience started to
appreciate the appearance and looks of the artist rather than the talent that they had.
Nowadays most music artists are heavily depended on music videos, it’s almost like as if it decides
the success of their effort put into it. Music videos are simply a new form of art that is expanding
widely and becoming available for everyone to watch and enjoy. All music videos now have an
official release on YouTube, which is the world’s most used video sharing site. One of the reasons
for music videos to be so famous is due to the potential of using female sex-appeal in music videos.
Hip hop and RnB songs can often be related to this.
Music videos play an important part in people’s life, especially along teenager and young adults;
they are more prone to getting influenced by this powerful piece of media. Younger girls often look
up to famous artists such as Britney Spears, Nicky Minaj, Katy Perry, Jessie J, Beyoncé, Rihanna and
even Lady Gaga. All these artists are great singers but their videos are often shown to the audience
in a way that make it look admiring, in other words its more appealing as they often represents
sexuality. For young men and teenagers this is often something that they appreciate and love to see
however male artists also have a great impact on us. Words like “Bitch”, “shit” ad “fuck” are overly
used in music videos and have now become an accepted language. A recent music video by Tyga, an
artist heavily successful and well known came out with a successful hit called Rack City, which
features the words bitch, fuck , shit and etc. So language also plays an important part in music
videos.