During the late 60's and early 70's music promos became gradually more cinematic and creative, then top of the pops came along in the mid 70's a tv show where music videos could be shown and this meant alot of british artist began creating music videos just to be aired on top of the pops.
The 1980's brought real change to how music videos could be shown, before the 80's you could only see music videos on top of the pops and that was when the artist sent one to studio. Now their was a whole tv channel where you could watch music videos called MTV. MTV meant that music videos could be watched globally around the round, however not many bands made music videos in American or else where, so it meant British bands who had been making music videos since the 60's became really popular around the world and artist like Duran Duran and Adam and the Ants quickly went on to be global stardom. Also because their was now a place to music videos, music videos themselve became even more cinematic and expensive, with costumes and props now featuring in more music videos than before to create narratives and concepts that go along with the music.
Music videos are a way of promoting the artist/band's music, and it does this by following genre characteristics. For example a R&B artist always has lots of girls wearing bikini's, big expensive cars and the artist wearing lots of gold. However a rock band tends to just have the artists on a stage performing while a concept relating to song takes place every now again. Music videos are also a visual way of promoting the artist themeslves by representing how they look and act, as to create a personia for themselves. In R&B music videos the artist promotes themselves as a tough guy, who is rich and powerful who do what ever they like. However rock bands differ greatly as to how they representselves, some wear mask's to represent themselves as dark, scary and mysterious others wear jackets and jeans and headband alot to representselves as rebels or outcasts.
Music videos are now using alot of intertextuality within their music videos. Intertextuality is where you reference films, books, tv shows within your music video. A good example of intertextuality is Rockwell's I always feel like someones watching me. Within the music video Rockwell references the movie psycho within the lyrics and within the visuals shows reference to many Japanese horror films including the ring and the grudge as well as zombie films.
Music videos now have many outlets from which they can be viewed, one of these is tv. Their are now many Music TV stations each specialise on playing music videos of a certain genre. Scuzz and Kerrang play rock, indie and heavy metal music, whereas clubland tv plays disco and techno music etc. The downside to music tv stations is that you never know what music video will play next, it might be one you like, it could be one you can't stand.
Many websites including youtube, google player and realplayer have access to many music videos, however the downside to these websites is that are thousands of search results for each song so its not easy to find the right music video for the track your looking for, as you may find three or four fan made music videos before finding the correct video. However the benefit to youtube and google player is that is free to watch the music video and you can type in artist/band into the search bar instead of waiting for the video to be played on tv. Music videos can also be downloaded from i player and other music download sites. The benefit of to these sites is that you usually get the search right first time and dont have to worry about fan made material. However the downside is you have to pay to download and watch the music video. Also as you have to download the music video you have to wait for download to finish before you can view it.
Record companies now set aside a fund for the music videos for each artist. They always release a music video to go alongside the CD release of a new album. Sometimes they release two or three more music videos from the same album. However the first music video is always the most expensive to make and then the second and third tend to be about the half cost of the first video. The reason record companies do this is because first music video aids the sales of the CD and is aired on tv and available online weeks before the CD release. They then release the other music videos some months after the CD release, to boost even more sales of the CD however because the CD has been released already record companies dont make as much return from the music video, which is why the second and third music video budject isnt as much as the first. The reason record companies do this is keep the artist/band within the public eye for as long as possible so that they make a reasonable return for the amount of the money it costs to make the music video.
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