Purposes of Music Videos

The main purpose for music videos is to promote an artist so that they become more successful and make more money. It also helps sell their music. In the 70's and 80's British artist were the only ones that were making music videos. This caused a massive 'brit invasion' in the American charts. The Beatles kicked off the music video industry which was a big reason for their huge success. They created the first music video when they did a video for 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. A music video could also promote an artist. This could be done by making a controversial or crazy video. Lady Gaga's 'Judas' music video is an example, the video had a lot of complaints about blasphemy in video. This got the public talking about the video which meant they would go and check it out. A totally opposite example would be Psy's 'Gangnam Style'. This video kicked off one of the worlds most well known dance crazes and now has over 450 million views. The band Gorillaz pushed the boundaries a bit further because in all their music videos they have made cartoon version of themselves which gave them promotion as word of mouth kicked in and people went to watch their videos and buying their music. The creation of music videos caused the make of new TV channels such as MTV and VH1 which specialise in showing music videos all day. However the popularity in music videos caused the demise of programmes such as Top of the Pops due to the invention of YouTube where music videos is the main interest on YouTube. The most watched music video on YouTube is Justin Bieber's 'Baby' with an impressive 786,574,162* views followed by Jennifer Lopez's 'Get on the Floor' featuring Pitbull with 605,643,753* views. Music videos can also promote films, this is called synergy. Most recently Adele released a song called 'Skyfall' to promote the new James Bond. They could also promote an certain brand or product. A song could be used in an advert, a popular example is a the Superbowl halftime commercials. Also because of the huge viewing figures a song from a memorable advert would often go to number 1 in the charts that next week.

Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles

Justin Bieber - Baby

  

       

Lady Gaga -Judas

Psy - Gangnam Style

Gorillaz - Feel Good inc.

Adele - Skyfall

M&M Superbowl Commercial - Sexy and I Know It

*As of 9/10/12