Purpose of Music Videos

In this report I will be writing about my knowledge and understanding of the purposes of Music Video.

Music Videos are mostly for promotion, artist make Music Videos to promote themselves to get more people listening to them so they can become bigger artists, to get people to buy there albums and listen to more of there music, some artist like ‘Lady Gaga’ go all out in there Music Video with strange things happening in the Music Video and wearing strange Outfits which she is known a lot for, this is to entertain the viewers so then they will want to see more of the Music Videos that the artist makes. Some Music Videos that artists make are also to promote a movie that might be coming out for example people who were fans of ‘Celine Dion’ would watch the Music Video of ‘My Heart Will Go on’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNyKDI9pn0Q) for the movie ‘Titanic’ and might want to go and watch the movie, it works the other way around as well, people who are a fan of the movie would watch the Music Video and might become a fan of ‘Celine Dion’ because of that, that will work the other way if the Music Video is on the DVD of the movie. This also happened with the song ‘I’ll Be There For You’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzQWmAwNNCw), this song became really big because it was the theme tune to the hit TV Show ‘Friends’, this has also happened for video games as well. Some artist also like to promote things like there own make up or perfume for example ‘Britney Spears’ uses her perfume in her Music Videos to promote it and to get people who watch the video to want to buy her perfume, it can even be a promotion for other artists for when two people collaborate and make a song together some people might not know who the artist is that they are collaborating with and might start listening to there music and become a fan of them.

Some artists get millions of views on their Music Videos because of how shocking it is, for example ‘Miley Cyrus’ was mostly known for playing ‘Hannah Montana’ on Disney Channel which was aimed at little kids, when she finished on Disney Channel nobody heard of her for a while and out of no where she came out with this Music Video called ‘We Can’t Stop’ which shocked a lot of people because of how much she had changed since leaving Disney Channel, because of this shocking change she got a load of views on her Music Video and even more on ‘Wrecking Ball’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8) because she is swinging on a wrecking ball naked. With Music Videos like that they become viral from friends showing other friends on how she had changed, which got the Music Video over 500 million views. The Music Videos for songs might appeal to people more than the actual song, they might not like the song at first but when they see the Music Video they might enjoy the song more.

There are four major labels since 2009, which are Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group. These companies help with the music of the artists and the Music Videos and gigs for them to do, and it also helps the company with funding so they can get better technologies for other artists that will help them out in the future. For there second album ‘Arctic Monkeys’ self-produced it, and it became number one in the charts, this made them really popular and the gigs that they held got more people going to them. Another self-produced artist was Naughty Boy, he use to produce all of his work in his shed, one of his songs that he produced hit number one.

There are music channels that also help to promote Music Videos such as 4music, Viva, MTV, Starz etc. these channels are mostly used in pubs and gyms, the people who work there pay to be able to play these channels to appeal to the people who are there, this helps with income for the music channels so they can carry on playing Music Videos as well as some of the money going to the artist, other ways that artist make money is through YouTube, when Music Videos are uploaded they receive the money through the advertisements that always show next the video or play for a few seconds before the video starts also through how many views that they get on the video. There is also iTunes that is used for people to buy the artist’s full album or just a song that they enjoy of theirs which helps make money, so the artist can go on making music and videos to get even more money and to gain popularity.

The main purpose for Music Videos is to make money, because without the money the artists can’t make the videos that they make and they can’t carry on with making music either because people won’t be that interested because they aren’t making Music Videos which are the main thing that draws peoples attention and then ending up with a lot of views on the video which then makes them a very popular artist.