The Purpose Of A Music Video

Promote

The purpose of a music video is to promote the song as well as the artist’s image.

A well executed music videos means a greater number of audience is likely to watch it and furthermore purchase the music video through downloads or purchasing CDs/DVDs.

An example of this is Michael Jackson featuring Justin Timberlake “Love Never Felt So Good”. This music video is dedicated to displaying the influence Michael Jackson has had with the public and the music industry. This is portrayed when young children are attempting his famous moonwalk dance.  Also in the music video are clips of Michael Jackson in his past music videos at 0.00 and people are imitating his unique dance moves at 0.05. This music video was used to help promote his latest album “Xscape” which was release in 2014. Despite Michael Jackson not being available to be present in this music video, he is displayed more than anyone else to cater for the audience who are passionate about seeing and hearing Michael Jackson voice. The record label realises that Michael Jackson is more of a selling agent than Justin Timberlake therefore is the face of the video. While Michael Jackson is more well known to the older generation, Justin Timberlake is more popular in the modern era therefore this music video appeals to a larger scale audience. Also Justin Timberlake won the Michael Jackson Vanguard award therefore is the ideal person to collaborate with the man himself. Record labels know that they will receive they will make a lot of money from this music video because they are using two of the biggest faces in the music industry.

Synergy

Synergy is when two companies work together to promote a video such as a music company producing a music video which contains clips that belongs to a film company.  An example of this is the music video by Wiz Khalifa featuring 2 Chainz “We Owe It” which includes footages from the sequel of The Fast & The Furious franchise.  The music video is a summary of all The Fast & Furious films and is promoting their latest film Fast & Furious 6. The Fast & The Furious sequel is worldwide therefore the music video appeals to a wider audience. From the entire music video 0.00 -  2.38 we see footages of Fast & Furious The advantage of synergy is that it helps to promote the music video if the film is popular because in general the song is played as a theme tune at the beginning or at the end of the film. Also it helps record labels get more income and get more contacts with important members within the film industry.

Visual Representation

This is portraying the musician based on their appearance and character to enhance the impact of their music to the audience.  Visual Representations are a good way for the audience to connect with the musician and see how they change their style throughout their career. For example Justin Timberlake started his music career in a band called N Sync in 1995. N Sync targeted their type of music to young female audience. This is shown in their music video “It’s Gonna Be Me” where the band members are displayed as dolls from 0.07 – 0.18. At the same time as this music video was released they decided to sell these dolls in stores designed to be purchase by young female viewers.  Justin Timberlake decided to go solo in his music career in 2002 and released his first song “Like I Love You”. In 2006 Justin Timberlake changed his visual representation in the music video “Sexyback”. He changed his hairstyle as well as wearing a suit rather than casual clothing. He changed his target audience to a much older community. This can be shown in his song “Lovestone” where he compares the attraction he has to a woman to be similar of that of a drug. We also see the genre of his music change from pop to a more R n B type music.

Art

Artist can show art through their music videos as a way of entertaining the audience as well as setting a story. For example, Naughty Boy music video featuring Sam Smith “La La La” describes a story set in Bolivia in the 19^th century. We see a young deaf boy who fled home and finds a dog to keep him company at 0.44. Later he meets an old man with an unhealthy heart and buys him a new heart at 1.55. He then meets a disfigured man at 2.25 who helps take him to see the demon. Since the boy is deaf he could not be controlled by the demon called El Tio and he uses his ability to stop the demon from cursing anyone else. We can see this in the music video at 3.35. There are various artistic clips from the scenery of Bolivia’s desert to the cotton material to represent the disfigured man. This is Naughty boy first music video and the art of this video helped receive 425 million views on YouTube. Whilst it will cost the record label more to fund this music video they are more likely for audience to watch this video leading to an increase in purchase of CDs/downloads.

Extended play video

Extended play video is the amount of time a music video is played by the audience. It is how frequent the music video is played on a music channel such as Pharrell Williams “Happy” which has been viewed 490 millions times on YouTube. The music video is about various people as well as celebrities such as Kelly Osbourne dancing on the streets at 2.52. The genre of the song is pop and it is an uplifting song about being happy. This music video is played a lot by various music channels such as MTV and 4music and artist receive royalty when the music video played on the channel. Also this helps to promote the artist and   record labels benefit from this as they take a cut from the royalty of the artist. Extended play ability is likely to increase the chances of an artist reaching the charts. This can be portrayed through Pharrall Williams “happy” topping the charts worldwide.