Purpose of Music Videos
Music videos are a visual representation of music. Music itself being a form of art has its appeal but when its joined together with good filmmaking and a video, it enhances the viewer’s experience.
The main purpose of a music video is to promote the artist or band. Like wise before films are released; film posters, trailers, social media campaigns are done to create a feeling of suspense between the targeted audience. Hence music videos play the role of promoting the song or the artist. Music videos also provide an opportunity for companies to advertise their products by adding them in the video. This promotes artists to work on more albums as the promotions bring in money. In ‘’Radar’’ by Brittany Spears, she drives a luxury car from the Mercedes Benz SLK class line. The song ‘’Best Song Ever’’ by One Direction was produced to promote their film. So music videos also do play an important role in promoting products by other companies or mainly promoting the artists themselves and their music.
HOW IMPORTANT ARE VISUALS TO AUDIOS ?
Let’s take ‘’Around the world’’ by Daft Punk as an example. Most of the video goes by with just the beats and choreography. now without the video its just beats combined together which only a few people might listen to but the video included it may get more views; if someone is not interested in the music they may like it for the choreography or the color scheme etc.
Music videos also are a way of story telling or narrating to us, viewers what the artist is trying to say through the song. An example of this could be “Breakfast” by Dove Cameron. Now I have never even read the lyrics to that song but I know through the music video that main point is about the stereotypes of male and female roles and also refers to abortion in accordance with protests.
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“Daylight” by David Kushner has a very fascinating video with lyrics that talk about our true soul and a meaning that cannot be ignored. To explain it better the music video was made in scenes where he talks about his dark side shows scenes of dark blobs in the air, now the artist could’ve just produced the audio but he went the extra mile with the video to attract a wider audience.
The music video to “Somebody that I Used to Know” by Gotye resembles a piece of abstract art. The artist here wanted to show different thoughts running around his mind. Thus, giving the video its own new appeal. His video acted as an explanation of his words for his viewers.
The music video of the song “With or without you” by U2 takes an already very sad song and makes it even sadder. The video shows us that this song is about a man who is lonely. He finds that his lover is distant and this is shown in the video by a few cut scenes. The video helps the song lay emphasis on the relationship travels between the singer and his partner.
On the other hand, U2, took a different approach with the song “There is no end to love”. They only released the audio version of this song and did not make a video. The lack of the music video is a big factor for this song, not being as big of a hit as other U2 songs. Music videos are important to people and they help the audience to relate with the artists feelings. Even though the music video of the song “With or without you” is very basic and simple but it still holds great significance to the song.
In conclusion, the music videos help the songs reach a wider audience and hit a higher number on the charts. Almost all songs that are on the Billboard charts have music videos.