Music Video Assessment

"Music videos are still important for artists to promote themselves to audiences."

How far do you agree with this statement?

In your answer you must consider: 

• Social, historical and cultural contexts of music videos 
• One Direction - History and Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
• Technological change including the internet

[20 marks]

I disagree with this statement to a certain extent as although music videos are still important due to the growth of the internet there are many other ways that artists can promote themselves to audiences.

Music videos are able to easily communicate to us, the audience what exactly the artists themselves are trying to portray to the audience along with allowing the audience to get to know the artists. Music videos allow for a lot more interaction between the audiences and artists and can act as a way for the audience to really understand the type of people the artists are along with their music. This may not be able to be achieved through the mere listening of a song meaning that the pairing of both visuals and vocals can really allow the artists to sell themselves to potential fans thus promoting themselves more which is how groups such as One Direction were able to keep themselves as popular as they were when they were still together. Even with their final song, History they were able to get 368M views (as the time of writing) on YouTube emphasising just how effective music videos are.

Both the Arctic Monkeys and One Direction ended up making music videos despite having a reasonably high fanbase so in that sense it could be said that the main reason for music videos really isn't for promoting artists anymore as the purpose may have previously suggested. I believe that at this point the purpose for music videos is really to interact with their current audience and to ensure that they are satisfied with the musical content they are putting out. Ultimately with these music videos they still end up receiving lots of new fans and so from that you can still say that the promotion aspect of music videos is still there. However, the fact that music videos aren't normally shown on TV anymore as they once were is proof of this as now we're more likely to deliberately search for a specific music video rather than to get advertised a music video. Thus showing that music videos are for the current fans rather than the artists promoting themselves.

Despite how effective music videos have proven to be, it still remains a fact that they aren't actually necessary to promote a band as proven by the Arctic Monkeys. It wasn't even necessary for the Arctic Monkeys to go to the lengths of making a video as their fans had already used P2P file sharing to spread the word about them and in that sense it could be said that the need for music videos is not at all necessary and actually can be seen as a waste of funds. The Arctic Monkeys emphasise the fact that as long as you are able to make good music and have a good relationship with your audience you're able to become just as successful as artists who have made music videos. With the growth of the internet this is being enforced as now as an artist you can easily promote yourself using social media which almost everyone is on making it a perfect platform to reach your audience or people who may be interested in your music as well.

Additionally, with One Direction they do have quite popular music videos but it wasn't their music videos that gave them their fame it was actually the X Factor show itself. By going on an already popular show which ought to have been seen by millions in the country and maybe even elsewhere it was expected that they too were to become popular. Even though they weren't the actual winners, the fact that they were all young and could sing quite well made them a target of entertainment especially for teenage girls. By them going on the show they were able to promote themselves (even if how they acted was a false representation of themselves) to a great extent making them one of the most recognisable bands in (dare I say) the world when they were together.

Therefore, I think that although music videos are still important for artists to promote themselves to audiences there are a lot more ways to do this with the growth of the internet that can get you the same if not better results.