The tragic rise and fall of music videos

There are 3 things on God's green earth that I know to be true:

• If you order an espresso from a cafe but ask for a cup of boiling water after you've paid, you have made your own Americano at half the price #stealfromyourlocalindependant
• There is no best thing since sliced bread. Don't believe what you hear
• A cracking music video can salvage the shoddiest of songs

An ode to the music video

To quote in verbatim the poet laureate that is Maria (the mother in the cinema that is 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding'); the man (song) is head but the woman (music video) is the neck. Music videos are a funny concept. A short film to supposedly showcase its accompanying song. In many ways music videos can boost an already fully-fledged banger and in rare twists of fate, can transform a sub-par, bland, strictly Italian mixed herb seasoning song into the next national anthem.

Everyone individual and every generation has their proto-type case-study to evidence the power of the music video. My individual show-stopper has to be Basshunter’s ‘Every Morning’ music video. This piece of pure cinema gave 7 year old me literally no other viable option but to pick up my jaw off the floor piece by piece.

Jaw-dropping stuff. The story, the drama when the main character girlie gets lost in the sea- all unfolding on a backdrop of brick-phone dalliances and bikini clad girlies (the 00s attitude being less is less when it came to girlies on a yacht with Sweedish DJs). The song provided a delicious backdrop for what was an even more delicious mini feature film. In a sense, this 'nothing-to- write-home-about' 2009 techno cancion acted as a vessel to carry its more charming, more dramatic, and more memorable music video.

Music videos are formative, on a micro and macro level. The music video has penetrated into the realm of popular culture and cultural nuances. You just need to pop your head outside on the 31st October to see countless girls dressed up as school-girl Britney Spears from her '...Baby One More Time' music video. Or the socio-political stir videos can cause, such as Madonna's 'Like A Prayer' in which the Vatican urged people to boycott the video due to its immoral religious imagery (including burning crosses and a Black saint statue coming alive and kissing Madge). Ironically, the Catholic Church completely missed the true message of Madonna's video, which was an ever-poigniant social comment on systemic racism and police brutality against the African American community.

Brit, Madonna and X-Tina Aguilera: Monachs of the pop music video
 

In Layman's terms, the music video was the boy you actually fancy, and the song was his mate who you speak to just to get closer to the fanciable friend. It’s called appeasing. It's called the greater good. The art of carrying.

Music videos: A child of its time?

It really felt that the progression of music videos truly peaked in the 90s and 00s.

The music video conveyor belt had left behind its terrifying pals from the 1980s...

Some personal highlights of mine. Oh the 80s loved a green screen.

its raining men! the weather girls have lost their head

Leo Sayer u really DO make me feel like dancin

tainted luv giving me the heebie jeebs 

 heads gone

And these risque videos paved the way for the boy-band cliches, choreographed dancing and sensationally dizzying and disturbingly non-ironic video story-lines of the 90s, 00s and 10s. There was a comfort culture in the reliable excitement of Saturday mornings watching the Smash! Hits TV channel. 4Music and VIVA were the iconic TV channels that counted down the hottest hits, often made memorable by their music videos (or, in the case of Miss Kathryn Elizabeth Perry’s ‘The One That Got Away’, being upstaged).

Katie as an old woman is something I didn't need to see but also needed it more than life itself

evocative of a simpler time of T-Mobile and Now That's What I Call Music 68   

Growing up in the 2000s meant that your main vices were telly and eventually Youtube. There was no TikTok or quick-fix reels. The era of digital bombardment and see-all media was merely sizzling below the surface; waiting for iPhones and social media to wet our digital dependany. Flipping through the pages of Heat and Mizz magazines to inform yourself about current global affairs (the affairs being the gag-worthing stories from Mizz’s ‘share your shame!’ page). And look! I’m greedy guts! Please bombard my senses! Force me to skim read article after article so I can just get straight to the next, and retain net.ZERO information. I love a bit of over-stimulation. I’m mad for maximalism. When watching a Youtube video, I do have wondering eyes on the auto-cue; I'm already there before I'm here.

But living in a digital age has squished our attention span and overloaded us with never-ending wormholes of endless choices and 'grass is greener' content to scroll through. The result? Nothing is that...special, anymore.  

An ode to: Our teeny tiny insy winsy attention span:

Today’s world wants fast-paced, quick and readily available unlimited content. Today's diminished attention span cannot justify sitting through a 5 minute music video when there are endless TikToks and reels (yes i'm yapping about reels AGAIN) doing the exact same thing, but in delicious bite-sized, four-second spurts that keeps the attention span’s tongue wagging.

Why would there be a TV channel exclusively dedicated to music videos when such media can just dissolve into one of the many things watched, and just as quickly forgotten, on a phone screen!

Even Youtube (the once promised land to music videos) cannot escape our gratuitous appetites, from their new Youtube Shorts feature, to the increasingly popular format of best bit and compilation videos.

Stream or a nightmare?

If Hansxl and Gretxl symbolise the snipped up attention span, then the breadcrumbs they scatter to the gingerbread house lead us to destination: streaming services. The likes of Apple Music, Spotifucked up and Deezer have chewed up any fond memories of music video TV channels and iPod Nanos, and spat. them. out. Yuck!!!

millenial but allow it.
1: Christian rock
2: Praise tecnho
3: Jesus Indie Sleeze
4: Primary school hymns 

Streaming services have cut out the music video middle man and skipped straight to the music, with millions of songs readily available with a simple tap. Streaming services are hot-to-go for our increasingly busy and individualized lives. Take Spotify: within a few uses of the app, AI and listening analytics quickly analyse your listening actiivty and personalise your Spotify experience, from custom-made playlists according to your preferences and new music recommendations. Not only is it quick and easy, but it's all about YOU. And who doesn't love feeling special and individually pampered? Gone are the days of enduring naff songs on the radio or sitting through countless music videos before you get to your floor-favourite.

Non-believers look in my Christian eyes and  tell me you don't love 'Oceans'. Atheists rise up.

So it's all about YOU. AND it's all about keeping up with YOU and YOUR busy, multi-tasking, sensory-overloaded lifestyle. On the run? Airpods in, Spotify on, laptop open to work on a gazzilion other things. Getting ready for a gig where you know none of the artist's songs? Spotify This Is: *insert any artist* playlist blasting, accompanied by their handy lyric feature. House party? You know that Spotify queue is chockablocka with everyone's song requests being skipped so you can get yours to the top of the priority list.

I'll miss you my sweet

Before we unleashed unlimited access to our favorite artists (from their personal social medias, live-streams filmed in their own homes, Instagram stories and appearances on popular TV and streaming shows) artists had a certain mystique surrounding them and their art. There wasn’t the as readily available content to explore more about the person behind the music and their work. Music videos provided several minutes to preciously un-peel another layer of the person behind the music to learn more about this enigmatic talent. This was exciting. This was fresh. And as much as my greedy guts self loves the narcissism of Spotify Wrapped, I equally miss the poignancy of music videos. 

Whilst we welcome the new era of music engagement, the golden age of the music video truly was a time to be alive. Honourable mentions include the likes of Avril Lavigne (or Melissa depending on your Lavigne persuasion)’s spellbinding 'When You’re Gone' music video, laiden with a Richard Curtis style patch work of several devvo story-lines. The old man crying over photos of him and his late wife is harrowing. On par with an Age UK advert.

If this the music video wasn’t the one I usually rely on when I fancy a sob and need a helping hand, I would be inclined to believe it’s one of those compensation ‘accident at work’ adverts due to the scene where the old man’s walls start (literally) falling down around him.

Or the classic Justin Timberlake’s 'Goes Around Comes Around' starring a loverat Scarlet Johanssen and 10 minutes of fully fledged dialogue as we follow their Moulin-Rogue style story of sizzling chemistry, lust and deciet. Just two 2000s icons int their absolute prime. Cinema! And always nice to witness JT before he flipped the classic narrative and turned from his 2000s riches, to his present-day rags. An anthem and an equally astounding video.

It’s all a bit bland that artists nowadays would rather produce a Smiggle looking, graphic-bopping lyric video, in favour of a fully fledged music video. But such is life. And in the worlds of wordsmith Justin Timbers, what goes around truly does come around. If 90s and y2k paraphernalia such as vinyls, cassettes and low-rise jeans have had their comeback, it’s only a matter of time before we’re sinking our pearly whites back into music videos a la the 2000s.

And I have a sneaky feeling that we are beginning to see it happen. Sabrina Carpenter's 'Espresso' certainly made waves this year with a decadant, visually sumptuous music video that matched the sky-high standards of this song of the year. The sepia-toned, vintage aesthetic of this video successfully introduced the public to the next era and aesthetic of her music career. Maybe videos are great again.

I for one, can't wait to sink our grey, brown, pearly-white teeth into the rennaisance era of music videos and pump some life back into this dying art.