From the inception of MTV in 1981 to the present, defining what is a music video and what is not has become difficult to delineate (Vernallis, 2013). Prior to the Internet era, music videos required traditional post-production – studios, production teams, lighting, special effects, etc. – and could only be viewed on a few satellite services and TV channels. However, nowadays, independent artists only need creativity, camera equipment and the internet to make their music videos available to audiences. Also, it used to be only well-known musicians from around the world could create and release their own music videos, anyone can now do so on social media sites like Youtube. For example, Rich Brain’s hit song Dat Stick was produced on a low budget by himself and released on Youtube.

Vernallis points out that since the launch of the first music videos in the 80s, the era of ‘the mixing board aesthetic’ has been entered, where the music video is a mix of music, set design, animation and special effects, narrative, performance and dance, etc. all mixed into a video about maybe 4-5 minutes (Vernallis, 2013). However, some music videos are more focused on design, animation and special effects and some are more narrative, so I will give two examples of two completely different kinds of music videos to help understand contemporary music videos.

The music video for Coldplay’s Up& Up is a great example of combining music, design, animation and special effects, with over 3 million views on the day the video went live and went viral on social media. Musically, the song is very good and it’s worth noting that it features harmonies by Beyoncé, Annabelle Wallis and Merry Clayton. The music video uses surrealism and symbolism to its fullest extent, with each scene having a deeper meaning behind it, which is divided into five themes. Excluding the Coldplay scenes themselves, there are approximately 64 scenes, all of which are abstractions or adaptations of historical events and social phenomena from the 20th century. In the scene Technology, the car runs on the halo of Saturn, a scene that shows the history of human exploration of space (Figure 1). The environmental pollution scene shows McDonald’s cups straddling a river, indicating that white pollution is increasing (Figure 2). There are also scenes of people surfing, fish flying in the sky (Figure 3), and children in the Middle East walking on land while fish swim over them (Figure 4) showing the harmony between man and nature and the problems of water shortage and children in the Middle East respectively. Therefore, I think this music video by Coldplay is an excellent example of a modern music video that focuses on design, animation, and special effects.

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Korean idol group Red Velvet’s music videos are all very narrative, especially Peek a boo. This music video is roughly about five teenage girls (possibly five split personalities) who kill a pizza delivery boy. This mv is wonderful in that it has many hints, all hinting at where the whole story is going. For example, two members of the group, Seulgi and Irene, appear shortly after the ‘story’ begins, with Seulgi sitting in a chair and Irene holding a razor to Seulgi‘s neck. (Figure 5 & 6) The two elements, the person in the chair and the razor make the audience think of Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd, the barber, is a serial killer in a British novel. He sets up a trap in a chair in a barber shop and slits the throats of rich people with a razor to kill them and rob them of their money, so this image implies that these two girls are playing Barber Todd’s ‘killing game’. There are many more of these hints driving the story in this music video.

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All in all, with these music videos as an example, it is clear that digital platforms have given many artists opportunities and enriched the music industry with different content. Also, as Vernallis expresses, audio and visual elements co-exist in the music video, with a “hybrid aesthetic” that pleases the viewer’s eye.

Reference

Vernallis, C. (2013). Unruly media : YouTube, music video, and the new digital cinema. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, Cop.

Videos & Images References

Brain, R. (2016). Rich Brian – Dat $tick (Official Video). [online] http://www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzc3_b_KnHc [Accessed 25 Nov. 2022].

Coldplay (2016). Coldplay – Up&Up (Official Video). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPNTC7uZYrI.

SMTOWN (2017). Red Velvet 레드벨벳 ‘피카부 (Peek-A-Boo)’ MV. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uJf2IT2Zh8 [Accessed 25 Nov. 2022].

YARUI XIAO