Why do artists make music videos?

• There are a number of reasons as to why a music artist would want a music video to be shot in conjunction with a particular song or promotional material; however there is no definitive answer as there is quite a large spectrum of potential reasons behind the question.

• The first, and possibly the most obvious reason, behind why artists make music videos is for the profitable revenue they receive if the video has the assumed success of a typical ‘chart song.’ With technological developments becoming more apparent in today’s world, music videos benefit by having the potential and the ability to be more creative, more abstract and much more real for the audience to view. This allows for a much more efficient use of the artists creative nature, much like that of a film director, making anything possible in a music video.  

• These extravagant and intricate features make for a colossal video to truly express emotion, style, and image and to also give a true visual portrayal of the music itself so that the audience will remember and refer to the song and artist through the video. Naturally, the genre and style of music dictates the type of music video shown; two fine contrasts would be of Indie music and Dance-style music. Indie music is very much stripped back to bare minimum, little effects and portrays a more ‘live’ feel to it whereas music videos associated with Dance music have a large amount of extravagant lighting effects, lots of different camera shots and great user of technology. 

• Of course, the royalties and monetary values behind making a video and the benefits it could potentially give to the artist are monumental; however there is an element of personalisation and stylistic dominance associated with these videos.  

• Amongst a vast number of artifacts in today’s superficial world, fashion plays a huge part in individualistic style and image. This is no different in music videos, with artists flaunting expensive accessories such as clothes, watches, cars and even houses to highlight the artist’s personality. The content within a music video would reflect an artist as a person as opposed to just an audible voice heard from a source. Again, I will use contrasts in genre to pinpoint the differences between style and image across different types of video.

• As mentioned previously, Indie music videos are typically quite stripped back down to barely anything but an artist and the song to provide the live feel to it. Another factor that contributes to this gig-type performance is the clothes that the artists wears, which stereotypically would be skinny chinos, canvas shoes, a trilby hat, a thin vest top and/or a granddad jumper. This makes the video much more down to earth and relative to a large number of young people in society, as this is currently a trending fashion and is seen to be quite casual and cool, reflecting on the nature of Indie music’s minimalism. 

• In contrast to the above, Hip Hop music is at the opposite end of the spectrum and typically includes a largely over-exaggerated lifestyle including expensive articles; typically large diamond jewellery, pristine trainers and over-sized clothing typical of many cultures in modern America. The nature behind these videos is to portray how money can buy you everything you want, and even shows a degree of attention-seeking from that particular artist so that the world can see how well music pays; thus deluding the fundamental emotions that many people became involved in music for.