Are they still needed for success in the charts? The key for becoming famous?

We all know in the last 5 years things changed drastically. Are they still a marketing institution???

Do you think, one could become #1 without a video???

A good waste of marketing and promotion money if you ask me.. but labels still feel obliged and usually give artist at least one per album. The only time I see videos is when I'm on the treadmill at the gym.

Videos have become obsolete.I don't even know why MTV still calls itself "music television" They don't give a damn about music videos anymore.

Yeah, definately. I say this because of the situation I'm in now. I'll just say that labels definately feel it's still worth while to promote videos. It's like this; If a song is a hit on it's own and the song is valid then labels believe the video will make that song even more successful. And people who dig the song will most likely want to see a video to go along with it. If for no other reason, that's what this generation has grown accustomed to seeing. And major labels, although they'll cut costs when a project doesn't warrant it, but at the same time, their all still on the belief that if u have a hit song, hurry up and attach a video to it. MTV can afford to not focus on videos 24 hours anymore largely because they have all of their other baby stations commited to videos; MTV2, MTVH, MTVJ, and then u have VH1 and of course BET Live. Yeah, the video is still considered to hold some water when it comes to marketing. Especially a new artist. Because if u hear a bangin' new cut on the radio, most folks are going to want to see what the artist looks like, how they perform, how they act, ect. If u have a nice video, for whatever the reason, but if people like what they see, it can still boost your sales for your cd. We're still very much in the video age. Moreso than ever. The internet and youtube is proof of that. It just depends on what kind of excitement your track or your video can generate.

graecophilos said:

Nope.. why? cause some artists have to be 'naked' to sell their music or it won't sell and labels know this.. ... the eye gate is the way.. 'eye candy' is 3x more popular than 'ear candy' .. record labels have become bootleg Hugh Hefner's that pimp out the artists.. the new style qualifications for upcoming artists of today are they don't have to know how to sing, just look good and show some skin... ...so yes, 'their' videos are in high demand... that's not so for all artists... but you know what I mean

blackguitaristz said:

I agree with you up to a point, but I wonder about the economic feasability of doing a number of music videos these days. While a new or indie artist will probably always have to find a creative way to come up with an exciting video to match their shoestring budget. I wonder how this applies to more established artists today. In the early days of MTV, it was easy to make a cheap music video that only took thousands of dollars to make, and the directors would make up for their low budget by using a lot of quick editing and unusual cinematography. But after Michael Jackson released his video for "Thriller", you had a lot of artists and music video directors who wanted to create something artistic and cimematic, so since the record labels were rolling in tons of cash, they were able to finance extravagant music videos. It even got to the point in the late 1990's and early 2000's that some music videos began to run into the seven-figure range to make. But with the music industry in financial freefall, it doesn't make sense to just throw money at any artist that wants to make a flashy video, so the labels have to pick and choose which artists and songs they finance. Having said that, there's something to be said for creativity. For every Michael Jackson "Black or White" music video that costs several millions of dollars to make, you have almost an equal number of "Ok Go! on a treadmill" videos that probably cost $500 to make but uses a lot of creativity to make something worth watching.

728huey said:

the thing is that everything has be done already, the medium of videos is useless, except for the fans of artists. Some still make artistic statements but many are just ways to throw $$ down the drain. Videos are starting to just die off in general, mainly because of the loss to the label and the artist, alot of video costs come out of the artists advances and pocket.

I think they have value for new artists just starting out so people can see what they look like and what their persona is. But for established artists they are obselete and a total waste of money and time.

728huey said:

The key is being CREATIVE. U can still have a bangin video without it costing a lot of money. IF...IF the song is bangin' and the artist has natural star appeal. U don't need all of the gimmicky trappings that make the video sky high in costs. If u have a legit hit that people straight up like because they like it, and the artist has that aura, then u don't need an expensive video.

mtv sucks now!

okay, but "Apologize" was a big hit, bt the video was reall cheap. So, do younger people expect a video for a hit song, but they're not very demanding??
I mean, many young people just download the video for their cell phones...

Is this the new way? Doing a video for the lead off single and the rest... You coud as well film your artist perform the song and put it on youtube if peopel really wanna see teh artist,.

But in general we can say, that videos for the most part are really cheap looking. In fact most videos of the past years just feature a black or white background with teh artist performing.

blackguitaristz said:

Videos mean more now than they ever did.
Visuals are an integral part of artist promotion. Unfortunately, it works against artists who are not aesthetically mainstream - especially women. Someone like Fantasia would have had a hard time without the pre-promotion of American Idol. Many others are not so lucky. America and to a lesser extent the rest of the world, has become more and more demanding with regards to visuals.

For big artists, plots and creativity seem to have gone out the door.

If the A listers could pick up their game and actually apply themselves, the music video would probably make a comeback.

Right now, they're mainly for youtube and youtube of course doesn't contribute to sales.

Glindathegood said:

I agree.Established artists should just make videos for the first single.The first single definitely needs a video to promote the entire project,but after that,videos aren't necessary.

graecophilos said:

no, they are not relevent, they are revealant( way too revealant). but in any case, the industry should really consider changing that if they want videos to be relevent. I want change I can believe in.

I think they are way too irrelevant and only work to some artists advantages once in awhile.

Sexyback for example is a great song, as are most of timbaland's current stuff, but the videos don't enhance the songs at all, they are fine as they are.

I think artists who dance well and look good are the only ones benefiting from music videos today, and even that won't last long anymore. The mtv age is very close to the end. People don't even watch it for videos anyway and TRL is ending. I think music videos that are a minute and a half being used to promote downloads for new singles will do the trick these days

All the music videos out today all look the same. They are way too overproduced and flashy. Same half naked women, same dancing, same colors, same bling, same boring ideas. I can't even watch modern videos anymore cause they all look the same to me. I think they try to be too creative and it just ends up looking like everything else.

LizaWoman08 said:

yeah exactly, and even if people try to make it innovative and different, it looks overdone and cheesy. Take Mariah's Touch My Body for example, it was funny but it's going to look sillier than it already is years from now.

Fuck a music video. After Michael Jackson, everyone try to be innovative and while that worked for a while, the videos don't have any backbone to them anymore. What's the use?
[Edited 9/22/08 11:13am]

even the idea of mj making huge music videos featuring big artists like pam anderson is laughable. I know YRMW was supposed to be a parody of his music videos, but no one got it and mj himself said he's tired of making music videos or pop album or something to that affect.

Most people copy and are inspired by mj moves in videos or mj like concepts in videos, but even that's getting redundant and music videos are useless now. Maybe in the next decade, people will go back to using their performing to sell like in the old days, except that performances are not very exciting these days anymore either. Rihanna is not a good performer at all, she just looks nice onstage and has good backup dancers, but she alone is not an artist or raw talent, so there's still a no-win situation.

BlaqueKnight said:

It don't matter to me. Too crappy.

alphastreet said:

I agree. This is why I never got the big idea about how what MJ did with MTV so groundbreaking when videos are a fragile movement as it is. And as MTV, BET and VH-1 keep on showing reality TV, everyone's gonna have to rely on the internet to get going commercially.

They are still relevant - but only on the internets... YouTube is the new MTV.