Music Videos

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DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
Music videos: good, bad?

I generally dislike them because they impose some kind of narrative structure to a music piece where it is often inappropriate. Sometimes, when they are more abstract, they could create something greater than music by itself, a separate art piece. What really annoys me is that music could be listened to while doing lots of things but music videos make you sit there and watch the video. The whole critique of television could be applied here with the additional indictment that the video part is completely unnecessary.

Why do people bother? It's not like MTV shows them anymore.
 
T

tryptych

waiting for a time
I think I really like videos that have a narrative structure that is little or nothing to do with the music.. that Chemical Brothers vid a few years ago with the girl in the gymnastics competition springs to mind. Oh.. and the one Pleix made for Plaid http://www.pleix.net/films.html

So what do you think of the new VJ videomixing trend.. that gives a use for music videos, but also I guess might lead to people standing around in clubs watching rather than dancing, talking etc..
 
M

mms

sometimes
spackb0y said:
I think I really like videos that have a narrative structure that is little or nothing to do with the music.. that Chemical Brothers vid a few years ago with the girl in the gymnastics competition springs to mind. Oh.. and the one Pleix made for Plaid http://www.pleix.net/films.html

So what do you think of the new VJ videomixing trend.. that gives a use for music videos, but also I guess might lead to people standing around in clubs watching rather than dancing, talking etc..
Click to expand...

vjing is almost always a very bad idea, club dancefloors should be smoke, red and white light and sweat
 
D

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
Why should videos be constrained by narrative structure? Is this because video is an outgrowth of movies which came from plays? Why should this narrative piece then accompany a music piece that lacks any sort of narrative? It is distracting at best. The flipside of this: movies using music to signify emotions, underscore events etc. I dislike that as well. Movies would lose a lot of their hyper-reality, they would feel flatter but it's not such a bad thing.

I don't have a problem with VJ's using abstract images and creating interesting visual displays to express their feelings of the music. I don't think VJ's would need music videos to do this. A composer wouldn't need a copy of someone's album, a sample bank would do just fine.
 
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DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
I am with mms though about clubs, the ideal decor is no decor with just a strobe and a red light or something equally dim for illumination. Safety hazard but if it needs to be insured it's already not ideal.
 
W

wonk_vitesse

radio eros
I'm no fan but sometimes watching them in the Cinema can be great. The 'Future Shorts' series which tours London monthly show a vid in amongst some short films. Daft Punk's 'Around the World' & a recent animated Radiohead one both looked wonderful on a big screen.

As for my fave probably 'Close to Me' by the Cure, concept/song/makeup what a treat!
 
S

seahorsegenius

It's just me.
I'm sorry but I just don't get that point of view. Music is an art form, as is film, moving pictures. It's all the same. Looking at something, the lighting, the colors, the pace, these are all things that go into making music and film (and paintings and photography, etc.) It's the overall mood of the subject.
 
C

carlos

manos de piedra
DigitalDjigit said:
Why do people bother? It's not like MTV shows them anymore.
Click to expand...

MTV2 (aka M2) shows tons of videos- judging from the high production values i see on there- people do still care. the hiphop top 20 countdown on sunday mornings is a good way to start the day. if only to catch a glimpse of ciara...
 
D

DavidD

can't be stopped
BET has the best "after-school" video lineup with rap city followed by 106 and park, although the new rap city dude is pretty charisma-free.
 
T

tryptych

waiting for a time
I'm talking about those Pioneer decks that allow you to mix DVDs like CDs, with pitch control etc for the video.

DigitalDjigit said:
I don't have a problem with VJ's using abstract images and creating interesting visual displays to express their feelings of the music. I don't think VJ's would need music videos to do this. A composer wouldn't need a copy of someone's album, a sample bank would do just fine.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but we're not talking about composers, this is VJs as opposed to DJs. By the same analogy, a DJ wouldn't need a copy of someone's album/record, just a bank of samples. DJing and composing are two different things, although the lines are often blurred, can't we have the same distinction for VJs and video directors?
 
D

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
spackb0y said:
I'm talking about those Pioneer decks that allow you to mix DVDs like CDs, with pitch control etc for the video.



Yeah, but we're not talking about composers, this is VJs as opposed to DJs. By the same analogy, a DJ wouldn't need a copy of someone's album/record, just a bank of samples. DJing and composing are two different things, although the lines are often blurred, can't we have the same distinction for VJs and video directors?
Click to expand...

It would seem pretty boring to me, cut up a movie into pieces? It's like taking a couple books and taking a page from each and pasting them together. Music is just way too different from film. It's like I keep saying, film has a narrative structure and music doesn't. Videos usually show stuff that is not too different from your everyday experience, even something like "Around the World" , yeah it's weird but it's just people walking around on stage. Music is like from another dimension.
 
D

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
There are music videos I enjoy. "Interstella 5555" that was just one long video and I liked that very much. But it's an exception. How many times can you watch a music video? Maybe a few times and then it gets boring but a piece of music you can listen to for a long time.
 
D

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
Abstract music calls for abstract images. Why keep using cameras and scripts and all that film baggage. It should be dynamically generated with computers or those oil machines the hippies used or fractal generators, whatever. The winamp Geist plugin is a much better accompaniment than anything Chris Cunningham can cook up.
 
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P

puretokyo

Mercury Blues
There are a million examples of where a video with strong musician involvement leads to an amazing combination, that adds to the original music. Some standouts off the top of my head (excuse the extraordinarily uncool bands, this is what used to show on our videos programme) include

Massive Attack - Angel
Faith No More - Evidence
Bjork - All is Full of Love
Squarepusher - Come on My Selector
Massive Attack - Inertia Creeps

and even

Rammstein - Du Hast
NIN - The Perfect Drug
Fatboy Slim - Praise You
Audio Bullies - whatever their one hit was

Some have narratives, others just imagery, the Faith one is just showing the band playing in a bar. All add to the music. Just cause a lot of shit videos go around doesn't mean they can't be done well.

Rammstein are an example of a band where the visual side almost precedes the music - neither stands without the other. In fact, probably my favourite video ever is their video for 'Stripped', it's a perfect video constructed from footage from Leni Riefenstahl's 'Olympia', the Nazi Olympics promo film.
 
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