History Of Music Videos And How They Have Changed

Music videos used to be a lot less important and developed then it is nowadays. MTV first started broadcasting with its first music video being " Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Buggies. With MTV broadcasting 24 hours a day the need for more music videos became more and more common.

One of the first types of music videos was illustrated song. George Thomas produced many still images on a screen to live performances.

The concept of music videos when they were first produced was to have a song accompanied by a performance video. For example, "Video Killed the Radio Star" is a simple video, showing the musicians of The Buggles just playing their instruments while the song was being featured.

After simple music videos of the 80s, the concept of music videos began to change. Many musicians and recording artists took music videos as an opportunity to give more depth to their song and their image. A lot of artists used music videos for active purposes, encouraging people in the United States and around the world to listen and pay attention to the powerful, yet simple voice and image of change.

In the past music videos were just simple performances to play along with the live action occasionally showing special effects. Today music videos have changed a lot. Performance, narrative and mixed type of music videos have become a lot more common, there is a story line amongst most music videos that keep the audience interested, this is often backing up the overal meaning of the song and what they are trying to say to the world. Music videos bring a lot more personal appearence into it nowadays, styling, colouring, hair, make - up etc is very thought through to portray a better more professional looking artist that audiences will be interested in. Raunchey videos are a lot more common with explicit scenes in. With bannings of music videos becoming more and more popular through current artists. Technology has also really developed since then, with better quality cameras, lighting, backgrounds such as green screen, computer technology to create the music video on etc.

This is an early music video in 1979 and is said to be the first music video that was appeared on MTV, the music video is a lot simpler than todays music videos as it uses different camera angles, zooms in and uses basic effects as well as using hand - held camera angles. This is very different from some music videos today as costumes, camera angles, lighting and new technologies.

This video of Beyonce's shows the technological development of current years, this video has a lot of green screen, split screens, 4 screens, planned choreography, stylists with hair and make up and outfit in order to be so successful.

The Voyeruism Theory

The Voyeurism theoy is based on the belief that in some media, there is a notion of looking. Sometimes, this can be in a sexual way. Often in media, women can be portrayed as objects or they are presented as being shown just to look at. This theory is also applied to some music videos as some objectify and sexualise women. Some music video's have even been banned or cut and sensored for extreme cases of this. I have not used Voyeurism in my music video as music videos which have a similar genre to pop/rock do not tend to have this in their music videos. I want the viewer to focus on the singers voice and the song and her style instead.

The Voyeurism theory is a feminist type of theory, that within the media there is a notion of looking. Sometimes this can be through a sexual way. This theory points out that often in the media women can be portrayed mainly sexually and just to look at, that people are more interested within their physical appearance rather than their vocal skills as an artist or contribution to the music industry.

A lot of artists that are sex symbols are portrayed in this way through their music video as a way to create greater fan base and promote themselves, causing high video views and hoping this will cause audiences to buy their album. There have been some music videos that have been banned from playing on MTV or music shows because it is too explicit. As well as being banned off YouTube to avoid offence. An example of this is Rihanna's S&M video which has been banned.

The Voyeruism theory is very relevant to my chosen music genre as there are a lot of  women in pop, electro and dance that some viewers may find sexually orientated. Such as Rihanna. A lot of the women are young and good looking, this can be in bands or individually so it is ver common for sexual references to appear in pop music videos today. In my video this will not be presented, because although it is an all female cast we are not portraying any sexual references. This is also portrayed in the official I Like That video, the song itself has sexual references, while the video isn't very explicit.

The notions of looking theory

Andrew Godwin's theory. He has identified a number of key features within music videos that form a relationship and get the interest of the audience, a personal relationship is developed between the artist and audience throughout the music videos, this is created from the lyrics and the visuals seen on screen which is either contradicting the lyrics or emthasising them.

He says that in music videos a lot of the time there is a constructed link between the artist and the visuals of the song, and everything is done very carfeully and purposely. He says sometimes intertextual references to eaither music videos or within films provide greater understanding and pleasure to the audience.

He points out that in music videos, a lot of the time the artist is looking directly at the camera. This personalises the experience, making the audience feel as though they are talking directly to them , feeling a closer personal relationship with the artist, causing fan base to grow.

This Notions Of Looking theory is very relevant to my music video, the main female artist within the music video is looking directly in the camera for most of the video, she is miming lyrics wihtin the song which empthasises the lyrics and overal message of the song. They also do this with text, for example when she mimes " like it" to the camera, the words say it, she mimes it, and it also comes on the screen with text.

Another example is how in my chosen video a lot of visual images are present empthasising what she says, with the " gucci gucci" lyric, the lyric is played out loud, she then mimes it, as well as having it wrote on her hand, this is a very effective way of empthasising certain lyrics and we also plan to use this small technique in our music video. I think all the different lyrics and visual images to back up the lyrics is all to reinforce the originality of the song, as well as it being fun, random and different from any other.

Record Company.

The record company that produced " I Like That" is Vicious Vinyl/ Universal Music

Vicious Vinyl is a record label regioning in Melbourne Austrailia. It is quite a recent record label as it was established in only 1991 by producers Andy Van and John Course. The label has released some very popular dance, club and house records. The most popular genre among the label is dance music.

the label has had over 70 releases, spawned 3 subsidiary labels

The demands of the record label is getting higher and higher because of the reccent growth in dance, electro music and many other record labels favouring that genre. They will impact my video because they are the producers that produced the song, the genre of the song decides what kind of music video it will be, a lot of different shots, diverse, sharp cuts, fun and different as well as being upbeat and keeping the audience interested.

What Lady Gaga says about her music.

Lady gaga's music genre is simular to my chosen artist, she has dance/hip-hop/pop, the song my group have chosen to do has pop/electro elements with dance. So what she thinks about her music and the kind of sound she wants to portray in her songs reflect the genre, giving me and my group more of an insight into " I Like That" genre and what kind of sounds bring in which element.

On an interview about Lady Gaga's genre, the journalist asks how she is bringing dance, hip - hop and pop together.

Lady Gaga: " I think I'm bridging the gap in a few different ways, and it's mostly from a music conceptual standpoint, mixing the dance beats one second. Mixing retro dance beats with more urban melodies, and a certainly pop chorus. It's really about, in a very methodic way, almost choosing exactly what pieces of what I want to have in the record, and then watching it cross over, with my fingers crossed. "

Britney Spears Digipak

This is a very old didgpak of Britney Spears. There is a big contrast between Britneys current digipaks and this one, this one was her " Sometimes" album and was introduced when Britney was quite a new artist.

This is trying to relate to the target audience of young teenage girls, at the starting age of around 11, because Britney is very young these images try to portray her innocence, she is wearing jeans which is a typical assosiation to teenagers, as well as a blue hoody which is also often assosiated with teenagers. The colour blue and trainers is also associated with teenagers, so all her clothing is relating to the target audience, trying to get them interested with clothes that they may as well wear, bringing a simularity between Britney to normal teenage girls, feeling closer to Britney and making  fans feel closer to the artist.

Colouring of this digipak also realates to young teenage girls, there's a lot of blue, there's light pink as well as yellow. This are all soft primary colours which relate to the stereotypical view of teenage girls, which by doing this Britney is encouraging this look and relating to her fans.

There are 4 pictures of Britney in the same clothes but in a different position, this is fun and different from what fans may have already seen of simular artists, creating an interest and originality with Britneys digipak.

Britney's styling, make - up and hair is all relatively simple, this is to really relate to the fans of britney, getting them to feel as though she is just another normal teenage girl just like them, so instead of seeing Britney as above them and as more intimidating, they see her as normal and approachable, therefore attracting a larger fan base.

Analysing Katy Perry Teenage Dream

This is Katy Perry's Teenage Dream digipak, straight away the style of the digipak relates to Katy Perry's music that is featured on the album, such as California Girls, in the music video  there is a lot of different colours, candy and sweets featured and a lot of pinks, reds and blues. This is reinforcing the colour and style of the music videos, relating to the target audience straight away.

Because the target audience is mainly teenage girls, the colours are something that would appeal to a lot of teenage girls as pink is seen as quite a "girly" colour. It also realates to the style of her songs, for example California Girls was very popular, it was a fun video not being taken too seriously, with sweets and different objects, so this digipak resembles the style trying to be portrayed in the music, which is fun.

The two disks resemble sweet patterns and colours, this again relates to songs in the album as well as making it fun and more enjoyable for the target audience, having a youthful appeal as well as presenting the Pop Genre.

The pictures of Katy will appeal to her fans, as they are able to see new and original photos of the artists, which maybe they have not seen before in magazines and so on. The interest of individual original photos appeal to the audience as they feel like they are seeing something that not many others have seen, and for Katy fans that is something they want to have experienced. The photos of Katy is quite provocative, with her looking as if she has no clothing and is just covered in candy floss, because Katy is a popular celebrity and has been noticed by magazines etc. for her looks it influences her sex symbol appeal. A range of audiences would be interested in seeing these photos of Katy, because of the originality and pun with candy floss, but as well as her appearance it may interest male audiences as well as female fans.

There is also a photo of Katy wearing a tiara and prom dress, as the album is called Teenage Dream, it is a teenage dream that many young girls have to be prom queen, wear a tiara and beautiful dress, so this is again relating the title to images inside, all to atract and interest the audiences causing bigger profit sales and more interest into Katy.

How the music industry is changing

The music industry is very diverse, it is highly popular and has many different styles, genre, languages, artists etc. But changes in the music industry has caused a lot more consumer variety than ever before, with not only the type of music they are interested in but the artists, the album or singles, CD's, MP3's, Ipod, YouTube, downloading etc. There are many possibilities in how the consumer buys the music, as well as artists, types of music, types of style constantly growing in the industry.
The main change is the digital foramt, the main way of listening to music used to be casset/CD's, but as the years go on and technology expands the way we collect and store music has changed. A lot of people now use Ipods and download music onto their phone, a popular way of downloading songs is through Itunes, this is legal and consumers pay for the individual songs or albums. Although the growth of illegal downloading is very comman, with music producers and artists missing a lot of profit, making the music industry a lot less stable financially. This puts the artists and the producers at a struggle because with illegal downloading getting more and more popular, money being made from music is vastly declining.

Aswell as the consuming proccess changing, the distribution of the music industry is also changing with a lot more geographical distrubition of audiences of niche interests developing all over the world.

This puts the artists that i'm reasearching in a bad position because they are not signed with big names, so they are not as well known as others in the industry, so their CD sales and merchandise is not going to be as popular or as common, so a lot of consumers when hearing about their music are likely to reasearch them on the internet and YouTube instead of buying their records.