What Makes Music Videos So Important And Influential?

Nowadays, the music video is as important as the song itself, sometimes even deciding the success of a song or artist. The music video is seen as more then just a promotional method now, it is seen as an art. Music videos need to appeal to their audience, advertise the artist, portray the music in the best way they can, be artistic and be effective. Each genre of music has a general convention of music video content, RNB and dance ususally include nightclub shots and female sex appeal, Pop music is ususally a simple narrative that links with the song with the band/artist acting in this, indie music videos usually contain eerie or strange narrative/shots which compliment the song nicely. A good music video that stays in the audiences mind can ensure good song sales as the song will stick in their minds more if the music video has an impact on them as they will remember it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3CxhBIrBho - Basshunter's Angel In The Night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GYSei66Rh4&feature=channel - Snoop dog's drop it like it's hot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h76uVRSJ5bc - McFly's Five Colours In Her Hair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zh5mXvkaMk - Kings Of Leon's Sex Is On Fire.

As you can see from watching the different videos that each genre does have conventions, e.g. the dance and RnB use sex appeal in their videos, the girls in basshunter are focused on and also girl's wearing little clothing and looking 'sexy' are used in the Snoop Dog video. Whereas the McFly video also uses a girl but she is dressed innocently and it has a simple narrative which would appeal to the target audience who like Mcfly - mostly young teenagers.