Video Killed the Radio Star Essay
On August, 1st, MTV came out over the airways with the opening, “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll. “(Peake) The name MTV is a contraction of “Music Television” and the purpose is to play music videos 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. (“Music Video”) Although this concept is yet to be familiar to us, for sure, for better or worse; this one channel will change the history of music.
As all such matters have pros and cons, this new genre, music videos, also have both. To me, it seems to have more cons than its pros. Music video’s merit, I would say, is now we not only listen to the music but also see the music, visual satisfaction.However, I think that this visual merit can also be a demerit of music videos. Due to the characteristics of TV media, viewer ratings are the income source and purpose. (Jarod) Furthermore, since it is not easy to hold TV audiences’ attention for a long time with music videos, producers and artists would want to make more provocative and more suggestive videos to attract people’s attention. Therefore, how interesting the music video is and how excellent it is in a visual way will be emphasized rather than music’s real quality.
It will begin to interrupt the way the music listeners make the right judgments of music. Eventually, it will cause the fall of the quality of music. Music videos also limit the music listener’s own imagination of the music. When we hear music, we use our own imagination and feeling by matching the melody, lyrics, our emotion and experience. I think this is the real way to “enjoy” music and “feel” music.
However, once we watch music videos, it is hard to draw our own picture of the music because those music videos, made by other people, replace our emotion with false images.Do you want to enjoy and feel music in your own way? Then you’d better not watch music videos. It is my conjecture that only when the producers and artists focus on their music rather than on the visual facet and when music videos are used for just one of the subsidiary promotional methods, the future music industry will be developed in better way. In addition, if we want to listen to better music, we, as TV audiences and music listeners, need to cultivate the abilities to judge what is good music or bad music by its quality not by visual excellence.
