Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Wednesday 28 August 2013

Lists of Best/Worst Videos Ever Made

Lady Gaga features in both worst + best lists...
If seeking inspiration, why not learn from the best, or apply the lessons from the worst?
Here's a few lists, mainly subjective of course, and reflecting the audience of the site/publication, which may help you identify some useful vids to investigate further - or simply to browse and to come up with a list of what features make for a truly popular/great/awful music video.
If you look closely, you'll find certain directors appear repeatedly: Spike Jonze, Anton Corbijn, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry prominent amongst these.
If you've any lists you can recommend (or have made your own), add a link as a comment.

Some Useful Sites

RadarMusic: acts/labels actively seek out video-makers
There are many links lists on this blog, so rather than add to these, here's a few useful sites I've noticed recently:
For UK chart archives, The Official Charts Company offers a dropdown list by year, which then displays weekly clickable charts;
Although its for the US Billboard and only the year's top 20, this site is superb, with videos and iTunes links for each beside each single.
Odd URL (songs-old.com), but you get a random vid loaded up if you click on the homepage (likewise the homepage for music-old.com!). If you refresh the page a fresh random selection is made.

Top 40 vids right here;

The MTV Videos page is ... awful!

Director's Cut/Anniversary as promo tool: Nirvana

Picked this up from the Mojo website: Nirvana are issuing the 'director's cut' of Heart Shaped Box, borrowing a standard tool from the film toolkit to promote back catalogue sales:
An extended version of the Anton Corbijn-directed video for Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box has appeared online ahead of the release of the 20th Anniversary edition of In Utero (due out on September 24).
We’ve called on MOJO’s forensic unit to compare this Director’s Cut with the original film. Their analysis suggests three key areas where this new version differs, namely, more appearances from the small girl in the robe, more of the fleshy-body-suit woman and more Nirvana at their visceral best. 
[source: http://www.mojo4music.com/5909/nirvana-heart-shaped-box-directors-cut/]

The magazine is running its own tie-in, using the 20th anniversary of its release as a hook too:
And if that’s not enough of a Nirvana rarity for you, you can always check out the band’s original 1988 recording contract with Sub Pop. As the label says, “Six hundred bucks well spent. Not that we had it at the time.”
And don’t forget – you can read Jon Savage’s mammoth 1993 interview with Kurt Cobain in the current issue of MOJO magazine – on sale now. 
[ibid.]

THE POINT IS...
Good example of another strategy used by record co's/bands to promote back catalogue, but also a good idea for you to consider making a vid for a track released 10/20/25 (etc) years ago, as there is likely to be increased media attention and possibly a re-release/re-packaging/compilation to go with it.
You can look for inspiration by viewing past charts (eg at http://www.officialcharts.com/archive/music/). Another great site, which features all the vids (with iTunes purchase links) for top 20s of each year in the 70s/80s/90s (US charts) is http://www.songs-old.com/Top-20-Songs-Billboard-Charts.html.

Here's the vid cited: