I Miss My MTV
I love music videos. They were a big part of my formative years, and as you all know, my best friends were television and music. Music videos are not movies and not music, a new type of medium that serves its own purpose. Yes, music videos are still made, but their function has changed. Classic MTV, VH1, and Much Music created a container for a way to train ourselves to become acolytes of our favorite musicians. As a medium, they can be evaluated as narratives, media ecology technologies, production, celebrity, parasocial relationships.
For here, I won’t get all cultural scholar on you (OR WILL I?) and I want to talk about music videos, 1980-2010. I feel like after 2010 they changed almost completely as a cultural function.
Someone posted a clip of this Billy Ocean video and I PLOTZED.
First, Billy Ocean is still with us and it still touring the world. (Well, we’ll see.) And this song is a jam. That’s probably why Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito and Kathleen fricking Turner are the backup singers in the video. What? it’s a clever little cross-promotion for Jewel of the Nile, on which this song appeared on the soundtrack. It was of a time when soundtracks ruled and the music videos for them tied into the film, in some of the most earnest, cloying ways. Watch towards the end, when the three actors really get INTO IT.
Sometimes, the video just dropped some random shots of the film with no context. Like this Madonna video for “I Remember” where in the studio she watched clips of the film With Honors in which a Harvard student befriends a homeless man who may or may not suffer from health issues. Okay. And of course, that Goo Goo Dolls song from City of Angels that if I hear again, I may drop dead.
Sometimes, the artist will go full conceptual and act out some of the premises of the movie, going so far as to interact with the cast members themselves. Always doing her thing, never compromising, the dame Cyndi Lauper has her own Goonies adventure.
Sometimes it feels, a bit forced. You can see the annoyance of Adrien Grenier and Melissa Joan Hart mix drinks (?) in the video for Crazy, for their epic teen romp, Drive Me Crazy.
Perhaps this trend died out when the soundtrack went the way of the CD…that is, it doesn’t seem that Soundtracks are specifically marketed for a film, unless it is the work of one artist, like Trent Reznor, Tom Yorke.
Or, in one of the best videos from a soundtrack, Aimee Mann’s “Save Me” from Magnolia (1999). it was also directed by Paul Thomas Anderson who seemed to have the foresight to film parts for the video as he filmed the movie.
Or, watching it now, I feel like they may have CGI’ed her into the screen? Can Tom Cruise stay that still and keep eye contact for that long? Maybe.
Next time: A dissertation-length analysis of Guns ‘N Roses “November Rain.”
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