Music Videos, Why!? Why are music videos are created and to what purpose are they used?

Reasons Promotional Extension of income Extension of outlets Links to films or TV Producer Strategies

Promotional Music videos where originally created for promotional reasons, to promote the bands image and records, Music videos began to become popular in the early 80’s when music video television began, however their were videos before this including the beetles and queen. These videos where created to promote the band. This however dragged people away from the music and became more about image. Music videos today are usually linked to new album releases as the video will be released before the album to encourage the viewers to purchase the album. An example for a promotional video would be what is possibly one of the first music videos, The Beetles with Help, this video was made to promote the release of the new album entitled “Help” released in Modern music videos are also created to promote other than the music, this is called product placement a good example for this would be headphones by Dr. Dre endorsed by any modern pop artist that are seen wearing them in their music videos.

Extension of income Another reason music videos where created was to increase the income of the artist, with the amount of music videos that people can obtain is huge, the band or artist will receive royalties for this, therefore they create music videos which will be played online or on air, this is closely linked with the promotional aspect as bands that have more promotion will gain more income from viewers and various other methods including audiences wanting to see the artist live or purchase a CD.

Extension of outlets Extension of outlets is another reason why music videos are created, for example back in the 80s when MTV was first broadcast, artists such as kiss, bon jovi, twisted sister were among the first groups to be broadcast on MTV during the head bangers ball, this was an outlet extension as bands were becoming more than just a listening outlet of media and entering the realms of a visual outlet. More modern outlets would consist of music video websites such as vimeo, MUTV and the most popular YouTube. Youtube has may different videos posted on their website, one of the biggest channels is VEVO it is a huge outlet of nothing but music videos

Links to films Some music videos are produced and are made to link to a film, two examples of this would be Armageddon with Aerosmiths- I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing and the Titanic with Celine Dions- My Heart Will Go On, both of these songs were created for the purpose of linking to the film, both of these songs are immensely popular thanks to the film, and vice versa with the films being immensely popular due to the songs Once again this links to promotion as viewers of the huge blockbuster films may be enticed to buying sound tracks for them including the chosen song.

Producer strategies The producer strategy relates to two prime examples you have the indie bands such as The Artic Monkeys and The Black Keys who create the video themselves and produce it for current fans who then go out and show their other peers increasing the value The indie route also increases the “underground” popularity, if a band creates a video themselves it shows the hard work and devotion Another example of producer strategies is that of the Xfactor and its link to Simon Cowell. Simon Cowell for years now has delivered to the world his idea of pop music, this is then seen across the entire world via satellite this is used to create huge interest in an artist as the winner or runner up has been heard many times before they release their first album this creates a huge popularity from the off for the chosen artist.