Thank Mickey Mouse and MTV for the good times
On August 1st 1981, at 12.01am MTV launched with footage of a space rocket being propelled into space and the words ‘Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll’. It’s this moment that has long been credited as the moment when the promotional video or “music promo”, as we know it today, was born. ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by the Bugles was the first video they played. Ironically, given the downfall of MTV ratings since the dawn of the internet, you can get your Bugles hit via this ‘YouTube’ link; it’s got nearly 900,000 views – proof that content is king.
Despite MTV’s role in making the music video famous in popular culture today, we must remember that they weren’t responsible for inventing the music video, of course not, oh and before you say it neither was Michael Jackson. Remarkably you could award the accolade of creating the first song length juxtaposition of music and pictures to Walt Disney’s legendary “Fantasia” . Or even further back, movie musicals of the 1930’s also could equally quality; as could The Beatles’ in “ A Hard Day’s night” and Elvis Presley in ”Jailhouse Rock” ; from the 60’s - both embraced rock’s visual side from the outset.
Until the 90’s MTV’s ratings weren’t actually great, especially in the UK; it was only available on Sky and no one had Sky in the 80’s because they didn’t invent Sky Sports and show football until the early around about 1992. And so it was about this time that MTV started playing an increased range of music beyond the rock it had originally been associated with.
The move to new genres would prove to be instrumental in creating a golden age for the music video. Hip-hop, Brit-pop, dance and even friendlier pop music, freed up filmmakers and directors and videos became more creative, funny and technically accomplished than those prior. The new freedom also brought a new generation of directors, masters in four-minute storytelling and technically adept at matching music and visual like never before. Whilst Michael Gondry , Spike Jonze , Chris Cunningham, Jonathan Glazer and a good friend of Mother, Garth Jennings; might be major players in moving image of all forms today, but they all cut their teeth during this decade.
So next time you see an awesome new music promo, give a quick thought to that ‘old’ youth TV channel – MTV; and do some crazy Mickey Mouse dancing with a broom as a nod to Fantasia.
Flat Eric was way ahead of his time
The rise of MTV and the pop promo during the golden 90’s came to the attention of commerce pretty quickly. And it’s fair to say looking at the crass attempts by Virgin Mobile and Polaroid in Lady Gaga’s Telephone video (Can you make their logos bigger please?), it’s fair to say that Levis and their attempts to associate themselves with music was way ahead of it’s time. Flat Eric anyone? Genius. Even Spaceman and Mr. Boombastic all brilliant. The 90’s was a time when ‘bought the jeans bought the CD (remember them) was the norm’; a time when single/album artwork adorned with ‘as seen on TV’ stickers. It was music and commerce colliding and contributing to culture never interrupting it.
You probably don’t need reminding how we feel at Mother about the importance of contribution to culture, especially when it comes to music we try our best. We’ll always have Boots’ ‘Here comes the girls’ , and we’ve also got our Ikea kitchens campaign. Remember that? We recreated Joe and Lewis classic ‘You’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties’ as a music video with new band Man Like Me, then cut it into a TV spot. More recently we’ve launched a music platform with make-up brand 17; commissioning emerging artists and bands to make new tracks around the feelings that 17’s make up products illicit. Watch the first video here by Summer Camp.
Thanks Flat Erik, and of course Mr Oizo who created ‘Flat Beat’; the killer track.
The YouTube Noughties
Of course the golden 90’s of the music promo is well and truly gone. And it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize MTV don’t quite get the same ratings (They no longer show pop promos apparentely). Yes we’re of course in the YouTube noughties. It’s the channel du jour for getting an all important viral hit; of course with help from online music blogs and sites like Antville , Pitchfork and Promo News .
The biggest viral pop promo we’ve seen in this time has to be OK GO’s first video ; which unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on whether you want to feel like yourself on a good day) was later parodied as an ad for Barocca; so is the nature of viral. They really kick-started a trend in bands consciously producing videos with the intent and hope that people would share them; and their subsequent music videos were made with this in mind. Their music was crap they were definitely better at making videos.
Of course unique to OK GO was that they did in fact make them for themselves, forget Gondry, the generation of recording artists make their own music videos in the noughties. It’s been born out of the DIY ethic of young people when it comes to media and tech; along with the cut, paste and remix culture that was spurned on YouTube. Take the artist Lana Del Ray she apparently self-shot her video for the recent single Video Games .
Given the intense budget constraints on music, perhaps crowdsourcing your video is better idea. Lets face it Katie Perry’s production company could have just turned to this fat kid singing her ‘I kissed a girl’ to promote that single. With well over a million hits and click to download included under the video – why not?
Taking the record sleeve to the next level
Well not strictly a pop promo, but certainly an aspect of music marketing we all remember fondly. The record sleeve, remember them. They too, like MTV have unfortunately been bitten by the digitization of the industry. They were often the essences of buying a new single or album – discovering new music through liking a cover. Yeah thank iTunes for that.
However with a bit of digging around, we can still get our record cover fix – just look at the continuing success of independent record shops like Rough Trade still selling 12”, 6” and CD’s (Oh they even have a tape section now too – yes vintage!). Thankfully Creative Review also celebrate it too – they have a monthly artist sleeve round up.
The discerning collector within us may even argue that it’s made the packaging of music even better; many artists have turned to releasing physical releases as special editions – collectors items definitely worth paying more for. Take the box set photographed, it was made to order from the world famous Warp Records , and is their celebration of 20 years release; it included CD’s, vinyl and even a book with all of the labels famous artwork over the years – a true collectors piece.
Still love album artwork? Then check out The Vinyl Factory ; luckily they’re not helping resurrect the sleeve, they are taking them to the next level.
New ways, good times ahead
Yes the beginnings of the pop promo were good times lets not forget that. But the digital world as also brought the pop promo new beginnings.
The interactive music video is of course here; it’s still a bit novelty and were not quite into a golden period yet but it shows promise The first worth noting) was Chris Milk’s much awarded interactive experience for Arcade Fire called The Wilderness Downtown. It was slightly clunky and you could only access via Google’s Chrome browser, but it pulled in images from Facebook and put you in the video – a nice idea but in practice not that impressive.
More recently there was Bjork’s venture into iPhone apps. Her Biophilia album was made using specially created apps and also distributed in app format. Essentially the album contains ten separate apps, all housed within one ‘mother’ app. Each of the smaller apps relates to a different track from the album, allowing people to explore and interact with the song’s themes or create a new version of them. Every app includes a game related to the song, the score of the song, animations as well as a musical essay. The Polyphonic spree has followed suit too with their single ‘Bullseye’ – but it shows less technically accomplishment than Bjorks work.
Whilst interactive videos aren’t quite there yet the web has allowed artists to release music and promote themselves in a number of different ways. Whether it be Radiohead’s now slightly dated ‘pay what you want’ album In Rainbows or The Kaiser Chief’s album The Future is Medieval where instead of simply allowing fans to download the pre-made album, the band instead employed a new policy of allowing fans to "create their own albums" by choosing 10 out of 20 songs, an idea actually created Mother’s Alex Holder and Oli Beale before they skipped across Shoreditch from W&K to the Biscuit Building.
Finally, the thing I’m digging right now is XX’s digital answer to the question ‘What will your next album sound like?’. They’ve release a tumblr of videos, images and sounds, in an attempt to build anticipation for their forthcoming release. Awesome.
