Purpose of Music videos

For a while music has been around but it wasn't until 1975 that the form of music videos began to take shape as the type of videos we see today. Entwined with all these music videos are several different concepts that go into it such as promotion, image, producers strategies, synergy and many more. I shall take these concepts and explore them in greater detail. The first true music video ever released was Queens "Bohemian Rhapsody" due to it's lip syncing and live performance of the band themselves rather than the music just being played alongside some meaningless imagery.

Artist promotion
Usually most artists/bands have a specific logo or recognizable icon in their music videos as a form of advertisement. For example in the music video for the song Bleach blonde baby by Poppy there are several shots of Poppy's specific logo. The logo behind of the P in a triangle is a signature logo for Poppy and has had many pieces of merchandise surrounding it as well as being a recognizable symbol for Poppy. As well as the song's title having a lot of merchandise created around it.

Director promotion
As well as artists sometimes directors can be promoted throughout their work by showing their specific style of such in the music video for Here with me by The Killers it was directed by Tim Burton and it is easily recognizable by the Gothic style with everyone wearing dark clothing and most of it being shot in dark areas. The black and white swirls of his glasses could possibly reference one of Burton's films, Beetle juice.

As can be seen with beetle juice on the right his outfit perfectly matches that of the glasses shown in the music video. Using black and white has always been a big choice of Tim Burton with films such as corpse bride, Frankenweenie and even the overall look of the character of Edward scissor hands. seen below at a glance you can see that many of Tim Burtons works have a darker visual tone than most other things. with the first 2 films having their main character looking black and white whilst the other 2 actually are visually presented as black and white.

Producer strategies and why artists are marketed differently
Most artists or bands have a different vibe to them which makes producers market them in different way to one another for example a band that uses primarily dark clothing and imagery such as Black Tide will be marketed completely differently to a band which is more bright and colorful such as Smash mouth. The image a band creates usually entices different audiences to their music. Black tide are marketed as being a very dark and particularly edgy band which reflects their metal style of music and music videos whereas on the other hand Smash mouth have a very child friendly image and have pop music that has been featured on soundtracks especially the dream works animated film Shrek this can also be seen in their colorful imagery in music videos.





















Extending artists/record label income
In the past it was a lot more linear to support the bands you loved by purchasing vinyls and going to their concerts now in the current day and age it has begun to turn very convoluted as now artists get payed through their royalties. Usually through radio plays and such, this method doesn't work very well for more unique bands and not very well known artists due to either their uniqueness being too much for normal radio listeners to be popular or them not being well known enough for people to recognize them on radio. By creating a music video for their music it adds an extra layer of the royalties the band/artist receives. For example every time you watch a music video for a band or artist they then earn a small bit of advertiser revenue form their video in the same way as if a band or artist was played on the radio. Most people these days aren't exposed to many independent artists because the radio won't show them and you have to put effort into finding independent artist and bands for music.

The extension of various media outlets
There are many Media outlets these days to allow artist and bands to express their music and show their music videos. one of the strongest outlets around is YouTube, several artists jump started their careers from making you tube videos and then creating music for example as mentioned before Poppy found her music career after uploading music videos to her slightly bizarre and strange artistic you tube channel. She then went on to release an album and even has her own tour now. as well as youtube many artists found their fame releasing videos onto social platforms such as Facebook these are artists such a Rebecca black and Justin Bieber.
additionally with apps being very popular such as Spotify and Apple Music a lot of band/artists can be noticed this way as well by releasing singles and such


Synergistic marketing

Synergistic marketing is when marketing is influenced by big brands or companies. For the video game "The Evil Within 2" the band Hit house created a song cover of Duran Durans Ordinary world, They used the games trailer as the music video and the song is also part of the video games soundtrack since it being an end credits song as well as the instrumental being used within the game thus being synergistic marketing between the game and the band and fans of the video game would be interested in the band and then people who are interested in the band would be interested in the game.

as well as the exposure given from synergistic marketing the profit that is made from this is also notable, linking to the example when the band created the song they get paid by the company to produce and then they will also take a share of how much the album makes.











Conclusion
In conclusion I believe that music videos really add more depth and layer to a band/artist or a band/artists music by letting them express their distinct style that they want rather than just expressing that through the words that they sing. In this day and age it's quite easy to create a music and music video and it's got to the point where you can have a cool music video and the music isn't really that important anymore.