Assignment One; Task One - Understanding the purpose of Music Videos

Task One: Understanding the purpose of Music Videos
Availability of The Artist
The Music video is an amazing tool for artists. The Music video has changed in purpose to what it had been used for and what it is used for more recently. The Music video when introduced for the first time allowed a channel to play this video on the television without needing the artists to be on stage in real life. A television programme conveniently named 'Top of the Pops' was a show that would bring artists on to play their most recent songs on stage, however every so often the artists wouldn't have been available. The Top of the Pops channel did have a dance group that would quickly rehearse a dance routine to go along with the music on stage if an artist was unavailable, these dances were usually quickly assembled and wouldn't be showing the artist's true visions to what their song would be about and wouldn't work as they would've planned.

Promotional Uses
The first music video was originally created by the Beatles band group through promotional clips for their new movie called 'A Hard Day's Night' which in turn was also the name of their album. The promotional clips showed the Beatles band members running away from fans with music playing in the background which may appeal visually to the audiences.

Music videos also appeal to a visual audience and can be used to grab a bigger audience, audience members can share music videos to one another which would give them something to talk about. A good example of a popular music video is PSY's 'Gangnam Style' which on YouTube is the highest viewed video with over 2 Billion views (at the time of this post).

The Music video now is used as a promotional tool for artists by allowing many viewers to see their videos, this will allow for more sales from viewers going out of their way to buy the records. Music videos were also used to create a brand for the artists and were a promotional tool for their brands. A interesting brand created from music would be 'The Spice Girls' with each member having their own identity such as 'Posh Spice' and 'Sporty Spice', many of the younger generation of girls would've had the spice girls as role models and would want to be like one of the Spices; this would mean buying their merchandise too.
Artists can all make their own brand by creating an image associated with them for example award winning artist 'Adele' created an image where she would make realistic music videos and songs to be easily associated with most of the viewers, however artist 'Lady Gaga' would be completely different by having a strange and random feel to her content from creating music video with very strange visuals and unique, random ideas.

Extension of Outlets
In present times you may be able to find many outlets which allow you to see music videos such as television channels or even by the internet through websites like YouTube and Vevo. You may even buy music in different outlets for example you can get music through CD/DVDs or even digitally through outlets such as iTunes, iTunes is on both Macintosh (computers) and iPhones which use a shared account that once a song is bought it can be heard on all platforms. Artists can gain income through direct sales of their songs or through advertisement income on internet websites from many views on their videos. One bad thing about music in the modern era is 'piracy' (The art of pirating content by sharing Peer To Peer between users on the internet) this means that there is income for the artists from pirated content as they didn't sell their content.

Social Media sites really help spread the news around, most music actually gets famous through the talk of people through sites such as these.

Synergy
Two mediums can use synergy for a mutual benefit. Music videos can even work together with Television Shows and Films by promoting one another, for example an artist could make a song for a television show/film that would be played in the film introducing two audiences to one another. An example of this had happened recently when the artist Adele made a James Bond theme song called 'Skyfall' that was played in the latest James Bond movie also called 'Skyfall'.

 Producing Strategies
There are three types of artists;
Major Label - These artists are working with a major record label which dominate the music industry. The most dominant major record labels are Universal, Sony Music, Warner Brothers and EMI. The majority of these companies are owned through different investors which own stakes in the company and have a say in the production of the company. Each label have signed contracts with artists to have them on their team and tell the artists the type of song to make as well as what type of image to portray.
These Major labels often own/licence smaller subsidiary groups that are often used to use different genres of music to gain different types of audiences. These subsidiary groups are called Major-Independents.
Major labels have different strategies in order to sell their music and one of the strategies is by using VEVO. VEVO is a internet website which includes links to each artists song videos, each video watched is an opportunity for advertisement and is a source of income for website owners. VEVO offers music from the three of the four major labels. VEVO is owned by Universal Music Group, Google, Sony Music Entertainment, and Abu Dhabi Music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_(record_label)

Independents - These are smaller groups that have no financial connection to any major record labels and often concentrate on a small genre of music such as Pop/Electronica/Dance etc...
Independent artists or 'Indie' artists often find their music as a type of art form rather than an opportunity for advertisement of the music industry. There are many independents and a famous group would probably be 'Warp Records'.

Since independents don't have a criteria that they have to follow for their videos they can use their own creative prowess. Often you may find people such as 'Spike Jonze' who is an American director, songwriter and producer that had a shot to fame with his music video that he had created with Fat Boy Slim such as 'Praise You' and 'The Rockafeller Skank'.

Spike Jonze has used independent music makers to gain his fame and head on to work on bigger things such as working in film and television producing advertisements as well as making his own feature films such as 'Being John Malkovich' and 'Her'.
Artists Self-Produced - These artists often use the easiest route to produce music and often have the lowest budget videos. These artists utilise websites such as YouTube for self-promotion for an early career. Artists have gone down this route and have got famous, an example would be Justin Bieber who was found at 16 on YouTube by American Talent Manager Scooter Braun who had then became his manager. Justin Bieber then got his fame from getting a viral video that was first with view on YouTube until 'Gangnam Style' by PSY had overtaken it.