When MTV blasted its first video little did we know
that not only would the video kill the radio star, MTV would for the most part
kill the music world as well. Maybe not at first, but as the popularity of the
music video grew the quality of the music seemed to wane.
When I was
younger and first started listening to music there was very few media available
to see the artist I enjoyed hearing. So when I was first exposed to MTV it was
like a dream come true. Since there was not very many artists doing videos the
pickings were slim and the rotation was small. But a couple of years in and MTV
started broadcasting live music and the best thing that ever happened to music
was happening right in front of my eyes.
Then there was Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Guns
and Roses “November Rain” and the video took over the music. In 1975 Queen had
the first video that was used to promote a song. “Bohemian Rhapsody” was the
first official music video, and since then you could say it’s been all downhill
since.
People were
more concerned with the video than with the quality of the music. There were
several bands that could be consider “one hit” wonder because of the popularity
of their video. Let me say this, in some regard if it was not for MTV I would
not have been exposed to some and let me emphasize “some” music I would have
just ignored had it not been because of the video.
But the video became the story instead of the
band. In the beginning you would be able to see the band perform the song
(Though it may have just been lip-synched) you still saw the band. After the
success of the two previous mentioned videos you hardly saw the performer. It
was an interpretation of the song by the director. It just seemed that the
music took a back seat to the graphics. Many a bands image was built by what
you would see in the video and not hear on the audio. Because of that many
bands would write a song with the idea of how they could make a video. They
seemed to forget that a song was built out of the heart and soul of the writer,
not the eyes of a director.
Now it has been over 25 years since the video killed
the radio star, and it seemed like the video killed itself, as the last I heard
they don’t even play music videos on MTV anymore. Imagine that!
Markley's Blog 