The Nature & Purpose Of Music Videos

BTEC MEDIA YEAR 12 - P1M1D1

Lucas Stone

Question: Comprehensively explain the NATURE (How does it exist) and PURPOSE of music videos?

Music videos date back to the early 1920’s and first started appearing on Television around the 1980’s time when Aerial television became a thing. You used to be able to tune into one of 5 channels and hope that one of them were broadcasting a music video.  The nature of music videos is to visualise a representation of a song. They also allow the person to experience emotions which they may not be able to without the video.

Q: What TV Channels exist in the UK on TV or online streaming to broadcast music videos?

Many TV stations in the United Kingdom broadcast music videos, this is a list of some of them…

Kerrang

MTV

VH1

Smash Hits

Capital TV

More4

Heat

Classic FM

Most of these channels are broadcasted on a variety of platforms including Sky TV, Netflix, Virgin Media, Amazon Prime and much more. Some of these channels require satellite dishes and extra equipment such as Sky entertainment boxes & broadband. The others such as Virgin Media, Amazon Prime etc. all run through high tech fibre optic internet cables which run underground instead of being beamed from satellites in space. All of these channels are available to anyone which has one of the services listed above.

Q: What are the differences between music video channels? Explain in relation between E4/VIVA/MTV/VH1/MTV Base etc.

Channels such as MTV compared to E4 are more mainstream in terms of how much music is broadcasted on them for example MTV is broadcasting music 24/7 whereas E4 only occasionally broadcast music videos. Another comparison would be how different channels cater their content for specific genres for example I have a Sky Television package in my home and if you navigate to the music tab in the TV Guide

there is 6 different MTV Channels…

·         MTV Hits

·         MTV Pop

·         MTV Rock

·         MTV Dance

·         MTV Classic

·         MTV Electronic

All of these are different based upon their name. This is great for everyone since some people only like to listen to Dance music and may not like other genres such as Pop, rock, classic etc.

Q: What music video channels exist online/internet?

There are multiple websites online which broadcast/stream music for the whole world to view and download. An example of a website which is home to millions of music videos would be YouTube.

YouTube features thousands of big artists and independent artists on their section of the website which is called ‘YouTube Music’. Since YouTube became a thing it has become as easy as clicking a few buttons before you’re watching a music video. There is a company called VEVO which is a group of people who help artists get their music video out on the world-wide web for everyone to see, pretty much every big artist you see on YouTube nowadays has the VEVO watermark on the thumbnail of their videos. As well as YouTube and VEVO there are a variety of music streaming websites which feature just the Audio of the song for example Spotify, SoundCloud & Audio Jungle.

Q: Why do music videos exist? Why did bands in the 80’s. Duran Duran, Madonna, and Michael Jackson make music videos? Explain

Bands such as Duran Duran and the Jacksons were those of the first to pioneer music videos, their aim was to invest a lot money hoping to increase sales on their records. Seeing the song being broadcasted on Television & Radio constantly makes the person want to go and purchase their own physical copy of the track/album. People thought that having their own physical copy of the track made them special when really, they have just helped to fund Mr Jacksons plastic surgery which he had done (a lot). Although yes, you were spending around £5 for your CD, it’s always good to have a copy since future digital copies will make the CD’s obsolete. As time progressed we are now in 2016 and we are not able to hit a button on our phones, payments are made instantly and the songs digital MP3 is on your device within seconds.

Q: What were they trying to achieve by making music videos?

By making these music videos they were able to increase their record sales A LOT. Most people say that they only make them so that they can make more money but I look at it from the point of view which I personally believe that without the video the song would not make sense since the narrative of a music track is usually based of the video. A lot of songs make people feel emotions which they have never before experienced in their life.

Making money is important in this situation since they have a lot of actors to pay as well as editors, camera crew and sound producers etc. Ultimately I think the end goal is to get reputation and help from top Hollywood directors which would lead to recognition and then eventually more contracts being singed and then becoming a huge money making scheme.