Growing up, my family had a near-nightly tradition. After dinner and showers, we would gather around the TV in the family room and watch my mom’s favorite music videos from days past.
It was a family-wide event, with my siblings and I taking turns choosing the next mini-movie, analyzing the story it told and copying dance moves we saw onscreen.
The general quality of music videos has decreased dramatically in recent years. It went from being an art form where the artist could convey the meaning behind their music, to nothing more than a five-second silent snippet that plays on repeat while you listen to the track on Spotify.
So what makes a good music video, and why has general appreciation for and quality of them decreased in the past decade?
One of the first things to think of when discussing a good music video is that it tells a story. A gold star example of this is Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Reading almost like a short film, it tells the story of Jackson and a woman (Ola Ray) on a spooky, slightly confusing date, featuring a notable plot twist at the end.
That video was a staple come Halloween in my household. Our living room, adorned with decorations, became a movie theater for the duration of the 13-minute film.
Even moving into the 2000’s, Weezer kept the spirit of storytelling alive with “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To.” In a town full of character copies of Weezer members (I know — added to my dream vacation list too), a woman shows up, and in an attempt to impress her, the band members do increasingly odd and dangerous stunts.
This type of story added a new layer to the art. It provided a visual to explain what the artists were thinking while making the song.
There was also a wow factor, or intentionality, that we no longer see in music videos. With the rise of short-form content, a creator can promote their work in a 15-second clip on TikTok or Instagram and gain fans instantly, all while still in their pajamas.
A now-deleted Reddit account supports this new method of promotion, in a comment on popular music subreddit R/Popheads.
“Why bother making an expensive music video that people will see once, when you can make loads of short videos that don’t even need a budget, and so many people will see?” the user said.
But that “why bother?” attitude is what is directly hurting the art of music videos. They are a visual language, a way of expressing the meaning or story behind a song. When a music video is reduced to a 30-second-long TikTok, we lose the innovation that once made MTV the powerhouse that defined pop culture for decades.
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The problem is also almost directly correlated to the waning attention spans of audiences. Hannah TW, an artist manager and the former head of music videos at production company Somesuch, describes the problem they face in their attempt to keep music videos in their true form alive in an article by The Guardian.
“Asking people to stay on one page for the full length of a track in an era of scrolling is really difficult,” T-W said. “It’s now not a normal viewing practice. People are used to much shorter clips and devouring things really quickly.”
Without a budget, an internal vision or viewer patience, the video stops being a companion to the music and simply becomes an advertisement for it.
hannaer@miamioh.edu
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