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Post by kds on Aug 28, 2019 14:48:08 GMT
Regarding Britney, I’ll say it: yes, 100%, she would not have been a star if she weren’t pretty and well marketed. SJS, you make a fatal flaw in your question about the listeners to her music in non-visual contexts (and actually kind of an ironic one considering the pushback you give me in our Brian Wilson solo career discussions). Think: whose music is it? The most AND LEAST important person in Britney Spears’ music career was Britney Spears. Without MTV (or more broadly, music magazines and TV in general), those songs might have been getting people out on the dance floor, but they would have been Max Martin songs. Or Some-Better-Singer songs. Without the visuals, there would have been no Britney Spears, even if some version of those songs existed coming out of someone else’s mouth. That is the impact of MTV, or the zeitgeist that made and sustained MTV. It existed to some extent before and since, but MTV was a game changer in that respect. As to the next part of the discussion, if it was so powerful, why did it go away? I think there were two main things, but this is my speculation. 1. The business model evolved, and maybe made a mistake. MTV went from Music Television to a pop culture station. You had the “I Love the [decade] kind of commentary shows, Pop-Up video type shows, reality TV, and even original programming. The focus spread, and became unfocused. They lost the story, basically. 2. The technology changed, and that changed the listening culture. People no longer were willing to sit down and watch television to wait for their favorite video (assuming the network was playing videos at that point anyway, which it wasn’t). The early 2000s were when downloading became so easy to do, and even some online video was happening (though durations were limited and quality was mediocre). But sitting around waiting for songs … that went away. The MTV model was an effective model for its time, but as always, times change. Plus, why sit in front of the TV and watch two music videos followed by a five minute block of commercials (at least that's what they do when I veg out to the "metal" video blocks on MTV Classic), when a fan can just pull up the latest Taylor Swift or Arianna Grande (another in the Brittney mold) on YouTube. So, music videos are still an important part of mainstream music culture. They're just mostly on the internet now. And, funnily enough, watching a music video on YouTube is counted as a part of the Billboard charts now. So, videos might be more important now than ever.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 28, 2019 14:55:23 GMT
Yes that’s back to my original message on the topic. Videos matter again.
But not still. There was that gap between prime mtv and YouTube. Mtv and videos faded because the tv and music landscape changed. With new technology it just changed again.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Aug 28, 2019 15:13:44 GMT
Well...all good points. Again it was a fun discussion. Thanks for griping about it, kds!
I guess I always viewed MTV as a marketing tool, nothing more and nothing less. With few exceptions, the videos were mostly handled by people outside the artists' range - the marketing, PR, the visual/image staff if you will. The artists wrote 'em and the record company promoted 'em. Did MTV help with record sales? A resounding hell yeah! Did we discover new artists because of MTV? Another resounding hell yeah! Did MTV influence marketing in today's music industry? A final hell yeah!
In addressing one of kds's main points, did MTV contribute to the decline in mainstream music today? I think minimally. I think MTV faded away more because of the decline in good songwriting, good production, and good performance rather than MTV being a fad and running its course. Mick & Keith stopped writing "Start Me Up". Ray and Dave Davies started fighting again. Split Enz then Crowded House broke up. Madonna, like every mega-superstar before her, ran her/its course. The "Hair Bands" turned 40. Eddie Van Halen had substance abuse problems. You had your one-hit wonders like any era. And on and on.
I think the biggest influence that MTV had was, in marketing anyway, it still lives on. Almost every popular artist today releases a single WITH an accompanying video? And if there isn't a video, their fans are outraged and ask "Why not?" A video is like a given. And I think that's a good thing. It can't hurt. You can take it or leave it.
I got a lot of entertainment out of MTV when it first came out. My younger sister and I used to sit in front of the TV with my early version of a VCR (cost me $1200) hooked up, and we would try to videotape our favorite videos as close to the beginning as possible. I would sit there with the VCR remote in my hand, and as soon as we recognized the beginning note, er, picture, I would hit "record". What really helped was that rocket launching at the top of every hour and the VJ announcing three artists/videos that would be appearing that hour. Those were the days...
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Post by kds on Aug 28, 2019 15:15:38 GMT
Yes that’s back to my original message on the topic. Videos matter again. But not still. There was that gap between prime mtv and YouTube. Mtv and videos faded because the tv and music landscape changed. With new technology it just changed again. That's true. And I've noticed now, more so that the 80s and 90s, some legacy artists just skip the whole thing all together. When The Who released their first album in 24 years, in 2006, they didn't release a single video. I don't think The Stones have done one in over 20 years. But, I think, unlike the 80s, groups of that ilk can get by without videos, as their core fanbase are going to by their music regardless.
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Post by kds on Aug 28, 2019 15:22:27 GMT
Well...all good points. Again it was a fun discussion. Thanks for griping about it, kds!
I guess I always viewed MTV as a marketing tool, nothing more and nothing less. With few exceptions, the videos were mostly handled by people outside the artists' range - the marketing, PR, the visual/image staff if you will. The artists wrote 'em and the record company promoted 'em. Did MTV help with record sales? A resounding hell yeah! Did we discover new artists because of MTV? Another resounding hell yeah! Did MTV influence marketing in today's music industry? A final hell yeah!
In addressing one of kds's main points, did MTV contribute to the decline in mainstream music today? I think minimally. I think MTV faded away more because of the decline in good songwriting, good production, and good performance rather than MTV being a fad and running its course. Mick & Keith stopped writing "Start Me Up". Ray and Dave Davies started fighting again. Split Enz then Crowded House broke up. Madonna, like every mega-superstar before her, ran her/its course. The "Hair Bands" turned 40. Eddie Van Halen had substance abuse problems. You had your one-hit wonders like any era. And on and on.
I think the biggest influence that MTV had was, in marketing anyway, it still lives on. Almost every popular artist today releases a single WITH an accompanying video? And if there isn't a video, their fans are outraged and ask "Why not?" A video is like a given. And I think that's a good thing. It can't hurt. You can take it or leave it.
I got a lot of entertainment out of MTV when it first came out. My younger sister and I used to sit in front of the TV with my early version of a VCR (cost me $1200) hooked up, and we would try to videotape our favorite videos as close to the beginning as possible. I would sit there with the VCR remote in my hand, and as soon as we recognized the beginning note, er, picture, I would hit "record". What really helped was that rocket launching at the top of every hour and the VJ announcing three artists/videos that would be appearing that hour. Those were the days... It's nice one of my "get off my lawn" rants generated some conversation. But, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree about MTV's impact on music as a whole. I feel like MTV, and music videos in general, were far more detrimental to mainstream music. In the wake of MTV, videos were far more than simply marketing gimmicks. Looking at the mainstream music, there's little to nothing in regards to rock music. Sure, the 80s rock scene wasn't sustainable, and by and large, most legacy acts are releasing "for hardcord fans only releases" that don't come close to their prime material, but I'd like to see something to get excited about for the future. Pop is littered with marginal talents assisted by autotune and pretty people. Even country music has gone in that direction. Country was absolutely the last genre I'd have expected to go full on pop.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 28, 2019 15:30:58 GMT
At the risk of pummeling this horse’s corpse, I do want to say a little more about how songwriting would inevitably be affected by MTV’s dominance. It’s the kind of thing I think about. In the ‘60s, Marshall McLuhan said “the medium is the message.” Without getting into detail about it, the basic idea for our purposes is that changes in technology—in the medium—inevitably affect the messages: how they are created, how they are transmitted, and how they are received. In the context of music, there are articles, books, and probably college courses detailing this. First, the invention of different musical instruments. When the pianoforte (our modern piano) was invented, it meant that a keyboardist could change his attack to alter volume, and thus seem more “expressive,” not to mention expanding the range to 8 octaves. (A harpsichord, by contrast, was basically “on” or “off” with each note, and didn’t allow touch sensitivity.) Recording comes around and people create music (or arrangements) to suit that technology. The specific media onto which people record, and things change again: the entire concepts of album, single, and B-side are products of technology, of “the medium.” Multitrack recording changes things. FM radio changes things. Every one of those developments alters what can be done creatively, how people use music, and thus how people make music. If the ability to layer one track over another track—a relatively simple change still working within a single sense [hearing]—changes things, it is absolutely incomprehensible that a massive shift like giving music a visual aspect wouldn’t or didn’t change things, especially considering the dominance that MTV and music videos had in the 80s and early 90s. Basically it would imply that musicians (and labels, etc.) were all either totally oblivious idiots or that they were somehow isolated and insulated from commercial pressures. Either way, absurd. Now one thing I do need to be clear about is, I’m not saying that therefore MTV or music videos ruined, or even hurt, the quality of music. That’s a matter of taste. Certain kinds of music could reasonably be expected to do better than others in the new media landscape of that era: dance music probably lends itself more to (you guessed it!) people dancing in videos, and people dancing might be more likely to be attractive (or could be selected for their attractiveness); conversely, music favored by old men wasn’t going to lend itself to this medium, especially since MTV chased a young demographic, and would require some creative video production to break through (e.g. the Grateful Dead’s “Touch of Grey”). This isn’t judgment so much as reality. The changes didn’t stop with MTV. “Must-see TV” disappeared, people cut the cable. People stopped buying music altogether and began downloading it in ridiculous quantities to be played at the click of a mouse. Then they began buying it again (for $.99 a pop) on iTunes, and then, as KDS and I mentioned, YouTube appears and there’s a whole new market for videos … it just no longer exists in the behemoth music industry that had existed 20 years earlier. MTV no longer was the power broker: the music and media environment had changed too much. But music is still being written for the new media. I heard a story on NPR recently talking about young musicians writing specifically for streaming services, understanding that opening with the refrain was a key to success (as you need to hook a would-be listener immediately and keep him or her long enough for the listen to register as a “play” to be monetized), and that short songs would be more successful than long ones (again, to have a better chance of people listening through long enough to register, and thus be monetized). So we’ve got a new era of short songs leading off with the hooks again, but for a whole new reason. If it isn’t quite true that the medium is the message, it’s undeniably true that the medium dramatically impacts the message.
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Post by B.E. on Aug 28, 2019 15:52:13 GMT
Great post, Kapitan. I'd just argue (perhaps, incorrectly) that "visuals" predate MTV and, even, music videos. I think it's been part of the package (via photos and live appearances) for almost 100 years. It's just become an increasingly important factor with the advent of music videos and the influence of MTV. Looking back, how many unattractive pop stars have there been? Even if stars of the past were generally less attractive/better singers, don't you think they still had an advantage over other less attractive/better singers of their day (people we've most likely never heard of).
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 28, 2019 15:56:03 GMT
Yes. I agree completely. But the changes are often more evolution than revolution. Different factors start meaning more or less, and even though they may not be new, the result of a shift can be dramatic.
MTV was preceded by television, magazines, and even just live performances. People like pretty people.
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Post by kds on Aug 28, 2019 16:09:21 GMT
Great post, Kapitan. I'd just argue (perhaps, incorrectly) that "visuals" predate MTV and, even, music videos. I think it's been part of the package (via photos and live appearances) for almost 100 years. It's just become an increasingly important factor with the advent of music videos and the influence of MTV. Looking back, how many unattractive pop stars have there been? Even if stars of the past were generally less attractive/better singers, don't you think they still had an advantage over other less attractive/better singers of their day (people we've most likely never heard of). It's true that the visual predated MTV, as bands were doing promo films (the early term for music video) as early as the 60s. But, I don't think it really became a driving force in the industry until MTV.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Aug 28, 2019 17:46:59 GMT
Great post, Kapitan. I'd just argue (perhaps, incorrectly) that "visuals" predate MTV and, even, music videos. I think it's been part of the package (via photos and live appearances) for almost 100 years. It's just become an increasingly important factor with the advent of music videos and the influence of MTV. Looking back, how many unattractive pop stars have there been? Even if stars of the past were generally less attractive/better singers, don't you think they still had an advantage over other less attractive/better singers of their day (people we've most likely never heard of). It's true that the visual predated MTV, as bands were doing promo films (the early term for music video) as early as the 60s. But, I don't think it really became a driving force in the industry until MTV. ...and cable TV. MTV was/is a cable TV channel. I'm sure there is a correlation between the growth of cable TV and MTV. It was part of a...cable TV package, a way to sell cable TV, a marketing tool.
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Post by kds on Aug 28, 2019 17:50:07 GMT
It's true that the visual predated MTV, as bands were doing promo films (the early term for music video) as early as the 60s. But, I don't think it really became a driving force in the industry until MTV. ...and cable TV. MTV was a cable TV channel. I'm sure there is a correlation between the growth of cable TV and MTV. It was part of a...cable TV package. I'm sure of it. Somehow I almost forgot about this Deep Purple song with a familiar name
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Aug 29, 2019 12:50:35 GMT
I didn't watch this year's VMAs but did you see that John Travolta messed up again as a presenter. This is a riot:
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Post by kds on Aug 29, 2019 12:56:45 GMT
They allowed somebody over 35 on the show?
I funny aside I remembered since Kapitan mentioned those pop culture commentary shows that Vh1 played in the 2000s. Many moods ago, when my core friends and I would get together on weekends, we were sitting around a few beers down, and one of my buddies said "We should film ourselves talking about music, TV shows, movies, and random stuff from the 1980s." We laughed. A year later, Vh1 aired the first I Love the 80s series. My friend was on to something, even if we're not C list celebrities.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 29, 2019 13:03:10 GMT
That’s how I felt the first time I saw Mystery Science Theater: “wait...this is US [minus the robots]!”
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Post by kds on Aug 29, 2019 13:16:09 GMT
Speaking of commentary like that, since Beavis and Butthead wasn't around a few years ago to lampoon videos from the 2010s, an unlikely duo took on that role - The Insane Clown Posse. It was on a cable network that I don't believe exists anymore, but Insane Clown Posse Theater was hilarious.
One of my favorite comments was on a Carrie Underwood video: "She's a mix of country and pop known as 'suck.' "
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