Pop music videos: 1980s – now Music videos are short films for particular songs, which was first used in the late 1970’s/ early 1980’s. A prime example of this would be “Video Killed The Radio Star” by The Buggles. Where history was made; changing our lives, when MTV made it the first broadcasted music video on August 1, 1981 at 12:01am. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8rtXRLazs
Music videos have come a very long way since then with better graphics, more money & extravagant sets. And not only have the videos changed but the music to go with it to. Take November 20th 2016 number 1 for example: Rockabye by Clean Bandit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=papuvlVeZg8
Rockabye’s video was released on 21st November 2016 compared to Video killed the radio star which was released on 1st August 1981 and there are many noticale diffrences in the video & music. First of all, clearly in Clean bandit’s song there is multiple, bigger & better locations. Along with this the camera quality is significatly better, with wider shots to give a fuller view of the location filmed. However, in Video killed the radio star, the video seemed to be a lot more abstract and maybe even more creative. And this leads on to a point, where a lot of present day pop music videos seem to have lost their originality and creativity compared to other decade videos. In Rockabye there seems to be more electronic noises with a greater amount of instrumental breaks. As well as this it is a colab with rap where video killed the radio star is not, in which present day pop seems to include more rap than in the past. Additionlly, in present day pop the lyrics mostly seem to consist of women, sex and drugs, and tend to be repetative in context. Throughout the decades we’ve had many significant music videos for pop hit sensations. Lets start with 1980’s Atomic by Blondie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tko1G6XRiQ
This song seems to be about a guy and maybe how attractive he is. And how together they would be shockingly good as a atomic bomb. However it is mostt likely about sex and how good it would be, being a popular occurace in pop music. The location of this music video seems to be a postapocalyptc nightclub; linking back to the idea of sex as a feature in the lyrics. The videos main focus is the singer, where we have Debbie Harry wearing a garbadge bag to portray a futuristic and punk costume. Seems to have mixed narartive, fragmented with hints to a performance video to. It is full of special effects from the very eggining, in which we see blondie stepping out a car into her gig and a knight on his horse riding to her performance. We also see cuts to an Atomic Bomb, linking to the name of the song. It seems to pan frequently through the band & from the audience – band or visa versa. With mostly low angles & slanted, with song eye level. And the video mainly uses Mid shots, with close up and wide shots to, zooming on the singer frequently. And this song has few words, counting to 53, consisting mainly of instumental. Ten years down the line in the 1990’s we were blessed with Snap!’s song The Power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm6DO_7px1I The German group’s The Power is a performance video packed with various angels of the famous dance moves and singing. These include slanted, low, high and eye level shots to empathise the artist. Also, the camera shots vary to maybe create the sense of lacked control over the camera, which could be how the dancers and singers are fighting for the said power. It has mostly mid shots, with wide, close up & extreme close up shots to the rapper. The video switches between dancers, the rapper & the singer, with mainly close-ups of the rapper. The set however is no so clear as it’s very simple with screens of clips in the background and a podium. This could be relating to what the song is all about. Saying how ‘hectic’ politics are as they are also wearing suits to portray this. On the other hand, the opening line ‘I’ve got the power’ (Which you could say is somewhat enigmatic) could be to do with how Russians seem to love power, using the rest of the song to describe how they deal with it as German’s have a brutal past with Russia. This song and video is very different to Blondie’s Atomic as there is rapping, (where rapping was said to first become popular in 1979 with The Sugarhill Gang's song "Rapper's Delight") And the style of video is very different, with more angles and camera shots. As well as this ‘Atomic’ had a narrative where ‘The Power’ does not.
Skipping to the millennium year 2000, the world was hit with Britneys (now classic) Oops…I did it again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CduA0TULnow
Oops…I did it again, was a mixture of both narrative and performance, with performance within the story, which was greatly focused on. With many camera effects including, a multiple image shot on screen & mirror like shots. It included many different camera shots with: birds eye, wide shot, mid shot, medium close, close & extra close ups. As well as this it had various camera angles for example, eye level, high angle, birds eyes and low. It switches between people in the narrative, from Britney (Singer), spaceman & the space station, also showing the background around them. Where Britney is the main vocal point, with frequent close ups to her lip sinking. The video included many pans during the dance performance with the possibility of some dolly/tracking shots to. You can clearly see how technology has improve and the bigger budget compared to the other two examples (‘Atomic’ and ‘The Powe’r). As they have very simple sets compared to the many locations in ‘Oops…I did it again’. Including: The alien territory, space station and mars. This video is all about leading people on – making them think you like them more then you do, which is a common occurrence in everyday life, and is always a current and popular theme. It’s also about how he thinks she’s innocent but in fact she is not. Which is shown I costume as she is wearing a red cat suit, linking to the devil as well as the space theme, with the other dancers in space like clothing to. And that could be why it is set on mars as mars is red and could be an evil planet. So, this video depicts spears on mars and is about an astronaut in love with Britney. This is different to ‘Atomic’ and ‘The powe’r because the story/narrative is much more detailed than ‘atomic’ and they are more people as well as effects compared to both The Power and Atomic.
Looking at the 2010’s another prime pop video is Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPf0YbXqDm0 Uptown funk is a Collab with Mark Ronson (An English musician, DJ, singer, songwriter, and record producer), including many different shots: wide shot, mid shot, medium close up, close up, extreme close up and cut in. It also includes many different angles: Eye-level, high, low and slanted. The music video continuously pans throughout and jump cuts to many close ups, furthermore there are many camera effects used, for example spinning the video. The style of the music video is a mixture of Performance and narrative; however, it is mainly performance with some narrative aspects. You can tell there is a similar or better budget than Britney in ‘Oops…I did it again’, with extravagant sets, a quality music video and multiple locations. And these include the streets of New York, hair salon , shoe shiner, car & club/gig. And it was filmed at Century
Fox Studio's "New York street" backlot in Los Angeles, California. You could say that the song is “effectively instrumental” as it has no particular meaning, showing how lyrics in pop are becoming less meaningful and is just purely there for fun and entertainment. On the other hand, the whole video is actually a tribute to 1970’s era of ‘macho sophistication’. ‘Uptown’ term indicates areas of certain cities, take New York for example. Which is where Mark Ronson studied and DJ, so he might have used ‘uptown’ as a reference from that time of his life and funk to obviously do with the type of music. And there are play on words used as well, like ‘Uptown funk you up’, being used instead of ‘Fuck you up’ as a pun and could be to be more ‘family friendly’. This video is different from ‘Atomic’ and ‘The power’ as the video is much higher quality, however compared to Oops…I did it again as well, the lyrics seem to have less meaning and many other lyrical sounds were included that the other examples do not include, like “haaaa”. Pop has changed a lot throughout the ages as you can use my examples to see the changes. Firstly, looking at ‘Atomic’ and comparing it to ‘The power’, you can tell that pop has become a lot more varied, for example the usage of rap widely contributes to pop more than ever but back in 1980’s it was hardly seen. Also, the lyrics seemed to be more meaningful back then, whereas now days a lot of the lyrics are just there to make people money, with next to none meaning to them. Adding to that many pop songs sound similar or the same, for example, By Your Side (feat. Raye) by Jonas Blue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ4MQ_uhBSs & The Chainsmokers - Setting Fires ft. XYLØ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6IAJOOmDMg have a very similar beat. Some people may argue though, that it’s what the pop audience want, so artist will oblige to suit them. Many pop songs contribute to the lack of originality to songs compared to earlier years as we are constantly making remixes or covering old songs more than ever. Like The Mack (feat. Mark Morrison & Fetty Wap) Nevada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cy78b9uvBs. Adding to this there is a lot more money in pop music for example ‘Uptown funk’ & Galantis & Hook N Sling - Love On Me in 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gz9NsNH96Q. Compared to tainted love by soft cell in 1981. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZVpR3Pk-r8. Which is far more famous than ‘Love on me’.
However, pop is very different in other countries. Take South Korea for example. Most of Their pop videos consist of mainly performance, with strong dedication to the dance routine. DOPE(쩔어) by BTS(방탄소년단) is a prime example as BTS are one of the top Kpop (Korean pop) groups, and the video shows a performance at its best. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=BVwAVbKYYeM. Another thing you can notice from kpop is that the groups are much larger than English speaking pop. With EXO (Possibly Considered the top kpop group) who was 9 members, which you can see in this clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=KSH-FVVtTf0 MONSTER by EXO. There are some similarities though, as both kpop and pop have a lot of money brought into them, like Dream Girls by I.O.I. for
example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BVV9UqELbA&list=PLTDluH66q5mpmBsq3GlwjMOHITt2bwXE
Also, Jpop (Japanese pop) is very different to. With a greater interest in electronic voice effects. You can see this in SEKAI NO OWARI’s song「RPG. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Mi9uNu35Gmk&index=16&list=PLkXJ6qy8Cwfj7kD4p03Ca89_CS_46YEBR. Other differences would include that a lot more of jpop has meaning to it compared to pop, as well this jpop does not revolve around sex, and other topics like it, just to be catchy, unlike pop. And jpop has a lot of innocence in terms of both lyrics, and dancing/music videos. You can see pure meaning in this example https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=e4rg15tsWHs&list=PLkXJ6qy8Cwfj7kD4p03Ca89_CS_46YEBR&index=24. And you can notice that jpop uses manga (Japanese comic books and graphic novels), in their video, where pop does not. And stereotypically people would say that jpop is very weird and different. Another difference is that big jpop songs are found in anime (Japanese animations). Like amazarashi’s Seasons die one after another. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=wtJcLWeY114&index=49&list=PLkXJ6qy8Cwfj7kD4p03Ca89_CS_46YEBR. And a lot of jpop videos has a strong narrative. A similarity is the same as kpop, there is a lot of money put into jpop. On the other hand, you could say that pop has a larger audience than jpop though.