Questions

1. The main purpose of a music video is to promote the artist and the song. For example, Hit Boy's video for his song 'Jay-Z Interview' shows his life and what he does. He uses the video as an opportunity to promote what he does in his life, giving people a chance to see what he is about and also a chance to envy him.

2. Other purposes of a music video might include: publicity, advertisement, to deliver a political message or to even cause controversy. Lady Gaga is a fine example of an artist who uses music videos for publicity. They're always wacky and over the top and always feature something that hasn't been seen before.

Some music videos are used to deliver a political message. Artists do this so they can get a powerful message across to everyone who views the video. A good example of this is Radiohead's song 'All I Need' which features two young boys from separate parts of the world. One of them lives in a comfortable middle-class western country, the other works in a shoe factory in a third-world country.

It gives out an extremely strong message and was widely recognised for doing so.

3. An artist could extend their income from a music video by promoting a certain brand in the video. E.g. artists will wear a certain brand of clothing or drink a certain drink during their video. Rick Ross often promotes 'Ciroc Vodka' through his music videos. In the video for his song 'Diced Pineapples' (below) we see a bottle of the drink at 35 seconds.

4. When a band is on tour, they are unable to go everywhere, therefore they create music videos for fans to enjoy who cannot make it to any of their performances, it gives people a chance to visually enjoy their music. It also gives the artist more publicity, they wont only be seen wherever it is they're playing, they'll be seen all over the world by people watching their music videos.

5.  In the 1960's more artists began to create music videos due to 'Scopitones' which were effectively Music Video Jukeboxes. Moving on to the 70's, music videos were becoming more and more popular and were becoming more different. Artist were experimenting, such as Peter Gabriel in the 1980's with his music video for 'Sledgehammer' (below).

The music video for 'Sledgehammer' was a big risk but hugely successful, and definitely worth Peter Gabriel laying under a sheet of glass for 16 hours straight.


To this day, music videos are still becoming more and more popular. This is largely due to YouTube which makes it simple for artists to get their music videos across to the world, and to even cause controversy or deliver a political message.