Why are music videos so important?

Music videos are important as they advertise the artist in many ways. Ways in which represents their image. Image is very important to an artist and how other people see them in the music industry, and the audience. A music video’s image is one of the key concepts, as the video is an advertisement for the artist to the right genre of audience. Many genres of music have different ways of performing, so every artist will want their music video performance to suit their genre e.g. a rock band jumping around with a guitar- to suit an audience who go to gigs. The performance is just not for the artist/band within the video it is an advertisement for the performance of the record label and the director. An artist skills reflects their ability of music. It is also to do with the record label’s skills as they have to deal with the artist in a professional manner that suits them, such as their image and way of lifestyle.

Music videos are also important because they are relied to being the money in for the record label. The record label needs money to survive as a business within the music industry, and to make profit. The record label basically puts a considerable amount of money to the music video for it to be a successes. Lots of companies do get some percent of the profit that the music video makes, for example, ITunes sell music videos online on their Apple Store, and record labels will take a percentage. Downloading a music video is a big contribution to the money congregation. However the artist needs to make a good advantage and make the video beneficial to themselves, by presenting themselves well to their audience. Such as the music video from A-HA- Take On Me. This song was not remembered for the actually music itself but the music video. The music video made A-HA famous, which made their album/singles sell more within the industry. It had an impact on the audience when released in 1984, because the comic effect was never seen before. Music videos are usually for either an artist’s single or for the best song on the album to make it memorable.
Below  is the famous caption from the music video ' Take On Me'

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The Music Industry

The music industry sells recordings and performances of music from an artist/band.  The majority of organizations and individuals that function within the industry are musicians who create and produce music. The music industry involves so many companies and professions. Companies such as music publishers and producers, who in which sell and record songs, music venues where the artist can perform a live performance and entertainments lawyers who actually broadcast music itself. The main thing that the music industry wants to do is make money. The music industry sells music in a considerable amount of ways. The ways in which include DVD’s, ticket sales, singles, merchandise and albums.

Sheet music was a very popular element in the late 19^th century trough to the early 20^th century, the music industry was dominated by the publishers of sheet music. In the mid century, records had replaced sheet music as the largest player in the music business. People began speaking of the ‘recording industry’ as the win over ‘the music industry’ in the commercial world. However since the year 200, the sales of recorded music have decreased by a large extent, while live music has increased in value and significance. There are four major corporate labels that dominated record music being; Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI. All of which includes of many small companies and labels helping different markets.

Smaller companies are called independent record labels that are not included within a conglomerate. Independent records are concerned more about the music than the major record companies; independent records are more in touch with their fans. However they rarely have their own distribution channels, dissimilar to the major record companies.  The independent record companies can gain credibility by being owned by a major record company, or launch their own nominally independent labels. The CD sales decreased, however in 2008 digital music generated $2 billion alone. While the big four record companies dominated the market, the independent labels have a quarter of the market share.

Record labels promote their artists in the following ways:

·         Music video

·         Radio air-play

·         Posters

·         Tie-ins: TV, film, soundtracks, adverts

·         Live performances

·         Television/radio/web

·         Internet: MySpace, official/unofficial web pages

·         The music press

 

The live music industry is dominated by the largest promote and music venue owner, Live Nation. The company Live Nation is a past ancillary of  the largest owner of the radio stations in the United States , the Clear Channel Communications. The Creative Artist Agency  is another important section of companies within the music industry s, along with Apple Inc, in which is stated as the world’s largest internet based music store, the iTunes Store.

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History of music videos

Music videos have a whole range of styles that is the same styles as filming techniques including the following:
*Animation

*Live action

*Documentaries

* Abstract film

Also there are three main categories of music video:
*Narrative- In which is where the video tells a story and the lyrics are often related to the story. The artists themselves may be an actor/actress. 

*Performance- The artist produces a performance whilst singing the song, this is very common. The video may include a recording of a live performance or edited and constructed the performance.

*Abstract- This is where the video features an abstract analysis of the music, the artist may not appear in the music video.

The Beatles produced a music video, A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. This was very popular as it was also in a film, then the Beatles were international superstars. The Beatles were the craze in the 60’s. They represented an image which got them very successful.

In the year 1981 in the United States a channel was launched by the name of MTV, and this channel was 24 hour on music television. The beginning of the launch they kicked of the channel with ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’, being a very popular song back in the 80’s.

Throughout that 1980’s, MTV extended and became an important device in which was used within the music marketing. In the 80’s is when the actual term ‘music video’ came into popular usage. As MTV was getting so many viewings and become immense, the public referred music videos as MTV’s.  

When music videos were produced in the 80’s they were made so that an artist could promote their image to the public, such a Madonna. At this point in history, the best, influential and unbeaten music video was Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. Music videos were being made into stories, Thriller being the most interesting and appealing as the video was fourteen minutes long.

From the videos above, Thriller and A Hard Day’s Night, you can tell that technology has improved throughout the years. Colour on camera was invented, so there was no need to film in black and white, but not necessary the genre of music, in the era between with 60’s and 80’s. Nowadays music is all about image and performance. More and more films are including soundtrack, which allow the artist that produces the song become more famous, good example being The Beatles and most recent Miley Cyrus. The majority of music videos that are linked with the films soundtrack often show short clips of the film itself.  Nowadays MTV are not showing certain music videos because they are containing too much sex, such as Lady Ga Ga’s Telephone. Also unofficial music videos are now being shown, following with competitions to make artists or bands to get signed to a record label.

The CHANGE in images throughout the years:

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