A music video is a visual representation of a song, and this is often an artist's newest single off of their current album. Usually a music video is purely to promote the song and the artist, which causes an increase in sales for the musician and their team. Videos also provide a link between an artist and their audience, as they are who the music is targeted towards.
However, a music video
can also do other things. An artist may try to stir up controversy with their
music video which leads to much more publicity for themselves along with
reviews and articles written about them. It can also lead to the video becoming
"iconic" and "legendary". An example of this is Madonna's
earliest work, such as "Like a Virgin" where she used a lot of nudity
as well as a lot of religious imagery which a lot of people didn't like and
deemed disrespectful. A more recent example would be "Anaconda" by
Nicki Minaj. It features a lot of barely covered women dancing, phallic imagery
and her dancing on Drake. This shows that this has been a recurring theme in music videos, and
it has definitely benefitted the artists.
Music videos can also have a message (which is often political)
to send to the masses. An example of this is "They Don't Really Care About
Us" by Michael Jackson. The song was about race and the government, and
also mentioned police brutality and the sexual abuse allegations towards him. He had to film
two videos as a lot of people disliked the original, which featured him in a
prison, which reinforced his message against police brutality. The other was
him visiting Brazil, which is also a country with a lot of racism. Michael
Jackson is well known for his political videos, with "The Earth Song"
and "Black or White" as two other examples.
- Jess
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