I rarely watch TV, so I barely see music videos that always air on VH1 or MTV. So whenever I decide to watch a video on the Tube is because I heard it on the radio or because it might be a song by one of my favorite artists. I recently fell in love with Leona Lewis’s song, ‘Bleeding Love’ and so one day I decided to watch her music video. I was excited and I already had a pretty good idea of what it was going to be like. Man, was I disappointed! I didn’t expect the video to end up like that and in a way I lost my love for the song (Of course, I’ve gotten over it and I still like the song).
From the previous example, I noticed how much a music video has effect on a person like me. It really can make or break a song. Another example is Jennifer Lopez’s ‘Do It Well’ music video. The first time I saw it I was thinking, “What the hell was that???!” Again, I learned to forgive Jennifer Lopez, well actually David LaChapelle, the director of the whole video. But for a while I didn’t want to listen to the song just because the video destroyed my liking for the single.
Then there’s those awesome music videos like Britney Spears’ ‘Me Against the Music’ and Beyonce’s ‘Crazy In Love’ that make me love the song even more than I did before I saw it. Of course, this all based on my personal opinion, but I do think music videos have a lot power to raise the song’s popularity, but in many cases can work against it too.
I understand why some directors and producers have a hard time creating great music videos because they have to explain a story in 3-5 minutes. When they over think it too much, the video just turns into a disaster, but they do need to take great deal of consideration when creating the video as well. This is going back to JLo’s ‘Do It Well’ video and I have to say that the video and song didn’t match at all. She’s singing about a man that can “Do it well,” but in the video she’s beating up people and rescuing a little boy in the club. David LaChapelle, you’ve totally lost me!
I think the best music videos are the ones that are simple with the artist singing with a little bit of the story put together in the background. Like Avril Lavigne’s ‘My Happy Ending.’
I guess I’m writing this post to warn artists and directors that there are picky fans like me that hate videos that don’t do the song justice. Why make a disaster out of a great song?
By: Chloe Jones
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