Music Video’s Second Aesthetic?

Abstract

Abstract This article appears in the Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics edited by John Richardson, Claudia Gorbman, and Carol Vernallis. MTV’s launch happened thirty years ago. Since then music video has undergone shifts in technologies and platforms, financial booms and busts, and changing levels of audience engagement. While music videos hit a low point at the start of the millennium, they have reemerged as a key driver of popular culture. This resurgence resembles MTV’s first moment: it’s again worth asking what music video can do and where it fits. A variety of styles, genres, and tropes marks both the eighties and today. The traditional definition of music video - a record-company product that puts images to a pop record in order to sell the song — has become too narrow. Instead we might describe music videos as containing heightened sound/image relations we recognize as such. Today's videos can reflect great technical proficiency. But in the eighties an attempt at an audiovisual connection often left a trace of the performers’ and director’s efforts. This gave videos a special charm. Today’s videos, however, may also reflect a full flowering of the genre. Many directors have labored in the industry and weathered its transitions: their experiences inform today’s music videos. This chapter looks at what this thirty-year history might add up to.

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