Launched in 1981, MTV revolutionized the distribution and promotion of popular music by providing a visual platform for music videos. Since then, MTV has expanded its offerings and diversified its channels to cater to different audiences and genres. With the rise of social media platforms like YouTube, music videos have become more accessible and widely distributed, allowing artists to reach a global audience and gather valuable data and analytics. Along with simultaneous technological developments, this shift has also led to a more varied and challenging approach to music video aesthetics and representation. According to Vernallis, the music videos after 1980s belong to a new era called the “mixing board aesthetic,” which is characterized by “new digital technologies, new kinds of cross media authorship and new transmedia potentials for expression (Vernallis, 2013, pp.5-6).” From acting as just a promotional tool for music and celebrity persona, music videos’ association with digital technologies allow artists to showcase their music’s plurality, enabling them to use their platform in diverse ways such as communicating their political views, commenting on celebrity culture, etc. (Arnold et al., 2017). 

For example, the South-Korean band BTS uses digital intermediates for colour management and CGI to provide added value to their self-reflexive song ‘Idol’ that comments on the South Korean ‘idol culture’ and their position in it. Along with using colour to loudly proclaim their capacity for hyper control, the band members dress in traditional Korean Hanboks to echo the song’s use of traditional Korean instruments (Vernallis, 2013, pp.209–220). They also use CGI to create Korean Pavillion and Chinese landscape paintings as the backdrop. With lyrics like “Sometimes like a superhero, I’m your Anpanman” and “There are hundreds of me inside of me, I’m facing a new me again today,” they reference their identity crisis caused by the ‘idol culture’ that encourages conformity to a specific heroic image set by the entertainment agencies (BTS, 2018). This is further exemplified through the use of CGI that creates various versions of them in the background as they sing the lyrics (Wong, 2021). With wide angle shots, quick cuts and kaliedoscopic images, it ends with a footage of Tik Tok videos showcasing various viewers engaging in the ‘idol-dance challenge’ to promote the song’s user engagement on other social media platforms. Thus, ‘Idol’ acts as a reflection of digital aesthetics and their ability to enable “new innovation, new music, and new vocabularies of meaning (Arnold et al., 2017).”

Sources:

Arnold, G., Cookney, D., Fairclough, K. and Goddard, M. (2017). Introduction: The Persistence of the Music Video Form from MTV to Twenty-First-Century Social Media. In: Music/Video: Histories Aesthetics, Media. UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, pp.1–14.

BTS (2018). Idol. [Streamed] South Korea: Big Hit Entertainment.

Vernallis, C. (2013). Unruly Media : YouTube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, Cop, pp.2–233.

Wong, V. (2021). The Real Meaning Behind BTS’ ‘Idol’ – Nicki Swift. [online] NickiSwift.com. Available at: https://www.nickiswift.com/422919/the-real-meaning-behind-bts-idol/.

– Navya Gupta (33711097)