Music videos have been around for generations, and whilst early music videos were only seen as promotion for the music itself, MTV’s introduction in the early 1980s resulted in a mass industrialisation of music videos. This led to the possibility of music videos being produced with large budgets and in turn the use of digital effects and the marriage between live footage and animation. For example, Dire Straights’ ‘Money For Nothing’ (1985) featured live recordings of the band performing, with animation and CGI effects overlayed on to the video, to create a blend of reality and digitally manufactured images. The unpredictability of these CGI images coming and going contributes to Vernallis’ concept of the mixing board aesthetic (2013).

When looking at current examples of animation and CGI overlays being used, the mixing board aesthetic is prevalent in ‘YT’ and ‘Lancey Foux’s’ ’Black & Tan’ (2024). Throughout the video, the rappers (YT, Lancey Foux) are seen dancing in surreal looking scenery that has clearly been superimposed with the use of green screens, additionally we see the use of animation to create digital visual effects that suddenly cut in and out of the foreground, resulting in each scene constantly transforming. As well as this, the video has been edited in a nostalgic way in which it is made to look like it’s decades old, despite being produced in 2024.

It’s interesting that whilst the techniques to edit music videos have changed, the effects seen are visually similar to those that debuted in the MTV era. Vernallis (2013) also suggests that music video visuals can both complement and contrast the audio itself, which is clear to see within ‘Black & Tan’, as the audio is aesthetically very modern, with the artists only gaining mainstream success very recently, yet the video has been edited to look outdated and old. Dire Straights’ ‘Money For Nothing’ would have felt futuristic for the time, yet ‘Black & Tan’ feels like the opposite, as a result of this mixing board aesthetic remaining popular throughout history and the visual effects themselves looking so similar.

DIRE STRAIGHTS, Money For Nothing (Official Music Video). Youtube Video. February 23, 2010. (Originally Debuting on MTV July 3, 1985). Music Video. 4:38 .YouTube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0

VERNALLIS, CAROL. Unruly media: YouTube, music video, and the new digital cinema. Oxford University Press, 2013 https://www.vlebooks.com/Product/Index/314100?page=0&startBookmarkId=-1

YT. Black & Tan ft. Lancey Foux. Youtube Video. June 19, 2024. Music Video. 2:45. YOUTUBE.com/watch?v=ek6dQ9IGOvQ

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