How are contemporary media issues changing ‘the music video’?

The invention of music videos is normally accredited to 1970s band Queen, who, in November 1975, found they were unable to appear on BBC TV's Top Of The Pops due to tour commitments. Their solution to the problem was to spend two days and under £4,000 on recording a video for their latest single, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to be shown in their place. It was a decision that inspired many other acts to do the same and by the early 1980s. But Queen were not the first band to do this. To attain that accolade they would have had to travel back a decade before.

The Beatles were always at the forefront of the technology of music. The same group that pioneered backward loops, the sitar, and feedback can also be said to have invented the music video. Therefore, on 23 November, 1965, they make a series of promotional films specifically designed to be broadcast by television companies throughout the world. Videos of 'We Can Work It Out', 'Day Tripper', 'Help!', 'Ticket To Ride' and 'I Feel Fine' were filmed. Less sophisticated than the segments that appeared in the film Help, they nevertheless managed to capture the energy and sense of humour that the Beatles were famous for.

Music videos then took a different direction with Michael Jackson’s short films, in the 80’s.Such as; Thriller, Moonwalker, and Bad.Michael Jackson’s music videos all included a narrative structure that appealed greatly to his target audience and started a convention for music videos to come. Due to these elaborate films the expenses were very high. This was money well spent as the video’s advertised his music to a wide audience.

As time has gone on and technology has developed music videos have become less necessary to bands and artists due to various other mediums such as spotify, last.fm, MP3 players and social networks. For example Radiohead’s album ‘In Rainbows’ had no official videos and left it up to the fans to create animated videos of any track on the album. This shows that normal music videos are not so exciting any more for alternative bands to make it different and challenging for audiences.

Michael Jackson appealed to a wide audience however today with contemporary media issues changing music videos are tending to be targeting niche audiences.For example, sites such as Blogoteque and Guerrilla Videos, are creating music video for unique alternative bands such as fleet foxes and arcade fire, in unconventional locations such as in a lift and in the back of a black cab, for less money and which takes less time to make. This is an original idea and make it new and appealing for the bands particular audiences. Also this give more power to the band and their fans, ie Daft Hands (made by a fan), and less power and control to the record label, who used to organise all music videos for the artists.