10. Wild Card

 Evolution of Music Videos

One of my favorite things about music is the video artists create to visually expand on the inspiration and meaning behind the song. Music videos originally were born from musical short films that became popular in the 1920s. Musician Louis Jordan was known for making short films for his songs. Historians say that this was the ancestor of music videos. The video below captures Jordan and his band performing his song “Let The Good Times Roll” (1946).

Since then we see music videos become more and more popular. It wasn’t until the 1980s that music videos became mainstream. This is all thanks to MTV. MTV, Music Television, first launched in 1981. This channel changed the way consumers saw and listened to music. Come to find out, the first music video aired on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles which is so fitting. This video just so happens to be one of my favorite music videos ever. I love that it is so weird and has depth to it.

From then on, artists began pushing out 3-4 music videos per album. Music videos started to become more about metaphors and symbols. Although MTV changed the way we listen to music after MTV switched its focus to reality shows Youtube became the major platform to support music videos. One of the first official music videos posted on Youtube was Red Hot Chili Peppers' “Snow (Hey Oh).” It was first uploaded in 2007, only two short years after Youtube was created. 

After MTV, music videos became a tool that management used to market their clients. Music videos began to generate revenue. Product brands and companies saw this as an opportunity to start product placing. Lady Gaga’s music video for “Telephone” ft. Beyonce included twelve brand placements. This isn’t the first time Lady Gaga used her music video to sell ad space. In her music video for “Bad Romance”, she had 8 different product placements. Next time you watch any of her videos, see if you can spot some of the placements. Below is her music video for “Telephone.”

Today most artists use Youtube to share their music videos. Some use Vimeo, but it is less common. Music videos have grown and expanded to become this huge genre of entertainment. About once a month I’ll find myself catching up on all the music videos that I missed. I know music is always up for interpretation, which is why it is so universal, but I love that music videos give you a little insight into what is going on inside the artist's mind. 

Of course, you know I can’t finish a Wild Card paper without mentioning Harry Styles. Styles came through and released a new music video just in time for me to write this paper. He is known for metaphorical music videos that have a bunch of symbols. I genuinely could write a thousand-word position paper about the outfits alone in this music video.