Music Videos

One thing I always found really confusing when I was younger was the concept of music videos. I've always loved music, but the idea of a short video to accompany a song seemed off somehow. Music is an aural medium, meant to be listened to, so it often feels silly to be watching a 'music video' - it's a blend of two different forms and when I was younger I didn't think that it could work. Since then I've become a lot more accepting of music videos; obviously they serve a purpose, allowing the music to appear on TV channels and YouTube. These are both visual displays and music videos allow artists to get their songs on those displays; and having your song played on TV or on a video-sharing site will increase public awareness of the song, and of course that in turn will lead to higher sales. So I do see why music videos have to exist. However, I've never really embraced them. I've always preferred just listening to a song over watching the video, even until very recently.

In the last month, though, I've had my opinion of music videos mixed up yet again. I watched two music videos that made me feel that they were not only necessary - they improved on the original song.



The first one was this video for the song Shake Up Christmas by Train. I was cycling through some of Train's tracks on YouTube after a friend (with excellent taste in music) told me to listen to their song Drops of Jupiter. Anyway, while I was looking through their song list, I found a Christmas track from last year, and thought to myself 'Well, it is the Christmas season after all,' and gave it a look. Now, I really like this song on it's own - it's cheery and merry and the singer has a cool voice. But it's the video that really made the experience for me, and that's never happened before. I think the reason this video appealed to me where others have failed is because it tells such a simple, heartwarming story, and it tells it so well. The interlinked lives of the five or six major characters in the story, and the 'Christmas magic' that brings it together - and of course, because it's a music video, the story is told entirely through direction. A huge majority of the music videos I've seen make no attempt to tell a proper, fleshed out story, and those that do often rely on the song's lyrics to provide cohesion. In Shake Up Christmas, on the other hand, the video works as a standalone piece in its own right. You could mute the sound and it would still make complete sense (though that would be a bit counter-intuitive, wouldn't it?). I think that's another major factor in me liking it - it works as a standalone piece of art.



The other music video I saw was Alex Day's new song Forever Yours. Alex Day is a YouTube musician, so the vast majority of his work is displayed primarily through the Internet. The logic behind me liking this video is a bit harder to pin down, because the story isn't as clear as in Shake Up Christmas' video; it took me a few watches to properly understand what was happening in this one, so clearly the story wasn't the primary appeal. I think this time round it has a lot more to do with how 'clever' the video is. The direction flips between two different styles; an amateur, homemade production, and a more high-budget, professional video. Not only does it make the video more interesting to view, it sharply shows the contrast between different levels of filmmakers, from kids with video cameras making films in their gardens, to a proper film crew with a director and editing team. I think this makes it a lot easier to appreciate the effort put into making the video, on both sides of the coin. On the amateur side, it shows how hard they have worked to create something realistic-ish with no fancy equipment or software, and how they have had to use smart filming techniques to bypass scenes that would otherwise be expensive to film. On the professional side of the coin, it shows how much hard work and time goes into making something so high-end, something in a different league from most small-time video makers. This makes watching the video a more satisfying experience.

Ultimately, I'm not 100% sure why both of these videos suddenly jumped out at me and made me appreciate music videos more as an art form. Perhaps it has something to do with the reasons above, or perhaps there's something else that I've missed. Regardless, I'm now a lot more agreeable with the idea of music videos being just as important as songs (but not more important - the song is always the primary piece of media). That's all from me this time - I know, it wasn't really a very substantial post, but hey, I needed to write something, and this topic burst forth from my head. I think - fingers crossed - the next post might be a book review, if I can keep on schedule. For now, though, goodbye, and thanks for reading.