Critical Essay
David Erde
Ready Camera One
How Television Changed the Rules of Music
In human history music is one of the earliest art forms, over the centuries developing and expanding while creating a timeless masterpiece here and there. But in the tumultuous 20th century, it took so many sharp turns so quickly it seems at a glance like it happened in an instant when you examine the history of music. What could have been the catalyst towards this? Despite the fact it was quite a revolutionary time politically it really seems it was the creation of the television that created a new world for the music industry that hasn’t faded- rather grown completely dependant on the very survival of the music market today.
As time went on these televised music appearances evolved with the rapidly changing technology and publically accepted aesthetics for a rapidly changing television audience. The constant purpose of these appearances of course was to boost ratings on channels showcasing artists who in turn would see boosts from record sales keeping their label happy. So the visual demands to capture an audience became more complex and vicious, making a simple live television talk show appearance not as enthralling as it used to be. So promotional videos came out in bits and pieces, taking steps here and there to do something different when arguably one of the most important video’s, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, was released, showing many the power a video that went a step beyond could give a band’s popularity. This was a power that some could say drove“…records labels [to] consider music videos solely as commercial rather than artistic endeavors…”(Banks 269) so with more money to be gained a channel music videos and music news was conceived, and the success of MTV rocketed this medium so high it’s never had time to look down. If it weren’t for those who played with the medium of television and sound very early on then it seems unlikely anyone would have figured to expand upon the comparatively smaller successes of these early experiments, especially when money was on the line.
Before television though, there were musical artists in film. People like The Andrew Sisters or Duke Ellington were quite popular in films generally unrelated to them. These little snippets seemed just thrown in for the sake of it, removing the viewer completely from the plot as the characters of the film witnessed a musical act going on. Naturally it’s advantageous to pad ones film with talented musicians letting fans see them on the big screen instead of catching them in concert or giving newcomers a musical treat naturally for label publicity. The relative success of many of these moments led to separate short films called ‘Soundies’ featuring many jazz artists at the time. ‘Soundies’ played with the idea of narrative occasionally such as in Duke Ellington’s “C Jam Blues”, where the Duke meets a bunch of his friends in a bar as they play music and then he leaves them for some pretty girls, but for the most part were exactly like the scenes in films shot like a musical number in a movie.
Musical performance on TV was clearly an essential part of many programs whether the performers were guests or not. Two people in particular noticed this and gave individual attempts at their own take on it. First was Duke Ellington with his attempt at a musical special using a work he created called “A Drum is a Woman”. The fact that this happened was very surprising as such a show was very experimental in nature and pushed a lot other cultural buttons, “the program was…daring in it’s depiction of black sexuality on screen, with many moments highlighting the beautiful [half-naked] bodies…”(Spigel 54). Unfortunately it was universally panned by many critics and wasn’t much of a success. On the other hand was a man named Ernie Kovacs, a comedian who was given a primetime slot. The Ernie Kovacs show was so unique for its time and its audience considered themselves of highbrow taste. His bizarre sense of humor along with unique choices in music and costumes led to quite the phenomena of a cult audience. He was popular but not necessarily mainstream and the program was considered very successful for it’s time in a way that, “Kovac’s commercial viability shows that sponsors were not antagonistic to innovation and experimentation; instead, innovation was crucial to television’s commercial logic…artistic experimentation and commercial imperatives were actually joined together and could in fact be mutually lucrative.”(Spigel 205) What is of mention here is his work with musical sequences. There were many of them usually set to classical music with the visual orchestration of almost anything, they could contain toy monkeys or a woman in a diaper with a bottle but everything was intended to be synced to the music. These pieces could be considered one of the earliest if not the first examples of audiovisual experimentation.
When television came out a lot of these jazz artists featured on programs performed classic songs, and it only seemed natural that eventually up-and-coming artists of all kinds would be featured on TV shows as well. This exciting venture grew into it’s own, talk shows having new artists with every episode. These live musical acts required more complicated camera changes if the show wished to capitalize on the energy of the performance giving an engaging experience for viewers at home, thusly gaining a sense of rhythm cinematically that differed from anything on television unrelated to music at the time. These performances continued on for a very long time and today are still a very vital part for a band’s exposure. Because television’s audience was growing so rapidly, music was being spread at a rate that made it an extremely impressionable force. The amount of artists who started out solely because of performances seen on television is insurmountable, and the creative growth this had on many propelled music, especially for the young people, forward straight into the rock ‘n roll era.
With this new attitude a whole new demographic was becoming a dominant audience, so music on TV began to change for what was popular and as the music changed so did the program’s sets, hosts, and perspective on how to film a live performance. The wild and reckless nature of rock ‘n roll began to be seen through certain bands such as The Who, who on the Smother Brothers Hour smashed and blew explosives off on the set causing absolute chaos. It’s difficult to imagine the effect this must’ve had on people, some being absolutely mortified while others must’ve been positively ecstatic. It was also at this time that the few artists began to tape very stylized high quality performances with intentional set design or lighting. The Animals “House of the Rising Sun” screams to mind as a very early one along with The Doors “Break on Through to the Other Side”, with the fairly experimental “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan holding his famous cue cards. The appeal of these pre-recorded videos grew and soon it wasn’t that uncommon for a single released off an album to have a promotional video. It became a big deal though only after Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” displayed quite a bit of innovation, the video having no sense of stage performance for moments, which was something all videos relied on. The financial benefits are quite obvious as a video could be broadcast on channels everywhere and given to stations in foreign countries to air, no talk show appearance overseas plane tickets needed. So once everyone was getting in on the cash cow, capitalizing on the medium itself was the next logical step as soon as, “the industry realized…that television was a potentially fundamental component of the star-making machinery whatever the music involved…”(Frirth 279)
MTV was in a word revolutionary. The concept alone was a gamble, a very well researched gamble but the fact of the matter was this was still a very young and unpolished medium. Music videos had commercial reliability but only when the directors didn’t take any risks, and the greatest successes were the risk-takers. At it’s birth MTV aired a lot of music videos with a performance mentality of the 70’s videos but with the now safe sentiment of giving the band things to do or places to be in occasionally telling small stories. The Pretenders “Brass in Pocket” demonstrated a lot of these modern sentimentalities. At no time did the band ever appear with their instruments, the video mostly taking place in a fictional diner the singer works at and is visited by the band mates who meet up with girls they leave with. The songs seductive lyrics show a dynamic from the video, while the song makes the singer sound upbeat and confident we see her try for attention from the guys and fail making the song seem like a natural companion to the scene despite the dissonance. Here is where we finally see a narrative becoming a theme in many videos, usually balanced by in some way a performance aspect. The two can exist side by side in varying degrees or be completely separate at this point.
As videos everywhere inch slowly forward to discovering the supposed ‘do’s and don’ts’ of music video creation, “Thriller” is released with an explosive response in 1983. The fourteen-minute feature had a higher budget, choreography, and bigger names than any video before it, “strengthening the link between music video and mainstream film-making”(Kinder 2). The song isn’t heard until four minutes in and chorus only at the very end, the cinematic qualities give the viewer the feel they aren’t just seeing some promotional video but watching a short film, and it’s paced to deliver at just the right times. It truly was defining- arguably nothing had been so different and so successful in television history at that point. So now that the medium had a huge icon the desirability for music videos pushing barriers put it in a place of artistic respect. A year after “Thriller” the MTV Awards were created for music videos, the winners of the first five years carrying a similar theme of all being massive technical achievements at the time in terms of visual effects. And while they are certainly entertaining something about them feels gimmicky because of their emphasis on effects, which by today’s standards are fairly simple and cheap. The creativity is undeniable though, such as with Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”- a series of still shots depicting many bizarre things going on as the singer stares at the camera for most of the video. These selected few are important because even though they may not be seen as amazing today they demonstrate the evolving aesthetic like a time capsule due to being voted the most popular by the people of the time making them a product of the people.
So with the history behind us, what have we learnt about the audio-visual medium in it’s many forms? From the very beginning the filming of musical moments was always punctuated by a new sort of rhythm. The competitive nature of television provided companies with a more aggressive desire to have the next big thing naturally giving them top dog status. So when it came to promotional videos there was this constant struggle of experimentation versus commercial safety. While no two songs were the same, videos attempted to capitalize on past trends, “to pander to MTV’s tastes…[with] videos that have the same visual style and content as videos that received heavy play…”(Banks 269). Every song has it’s own rules, so it’s a dynamic of finding the perfect companion to the music. Synch points were a significant factor in this, such as a song like ‘Whip It’ by Devo contains a constant cracking of a whip throughout the song and when you see the video of a woman being steadily undressed by a whip that is the image forever connected to the music. As music evolved, it’s audio cues developed too- almost as if after abstract image was even vaguely understood as a norm for songs, music was being written with image in mind. This is how the idea of a narrative through the music itself grew. The idea of action to sound is what Kovacs experimented on, changing perspectives on classical pieces, but it was only till the late eighties where this began to be realized in contemporary music. One of my favorite examples is ‘Close to Me’ by The Cure. The creepy pop song starts out in a cabinet the entire band is stuffed in, as we slowly see aspects connecting to the song. One is clapping to a beat in the song, another playing the chords on a toy keyboard, and another playing the melody on a comb. This pseudo performance definitely harkens to the experimentation of Kovacs yet unlike him there isn’t anything inherently humorous about these weird connections.
The more labels felt comfortable leaving behind the safety zone of trying to depict something real in a situation where most all videos just laid the track over their performances anyways (generally lip-synced) showed a braveness to stop needing to have a central marketable image for people to look at. In anything else such abstract thinking would probably never get past the hypothetical stages, but such is not the case here. A music video isn’t much different than anything else filmed in its process for commercial viability, but it’s strange because of its length and circumstances to be organized. Possibly a mixture of a specific song for a specific artist with a specific director leads the entire vibe of the project feeling a sense of adventure. There is next to no consequences for failure besides loss of money, the worst thing a video could be is boring. Tremendously bad or good videos lend themselves to an equal level of publicity, more so lately than ever. It’s almost as if the music video was designed to be in a fiscal position where experimentation was the primal instinct.
Since I was young I’ve always had an interest in the combination of sound and image, I didn’t even particularly realize it. I watched MTV in my childhood and grew to love musical sequences in films, eventually I grew quite obsessed with both film and music and developed the two interested separately until near the end of high school I started to see music videos that were really beginning to blow my mind and the fusion of cinema and music that were amazing seemed like this perfect marriage that could go anywhere. The more I studied the more obsessed I became and developed my own ideas realizing through my own imagination the themes seen in development of many other music videos. My greatest admiration for the work is the fact that music videos need no audio work generally since, “none of the narration is propelled by dialogue…the music video’s image is fully liberated from the linearity normally imposed by sound.”(Chion 167) This simple idea of focus exclusively on image was what set me over the wall to really become keen to music video production personally.
If it weren’t for music videos the record industry may not have developed in the way it did, because of them it’s forever implanted with a visual component that is necessary for survival so the two forces just keep driving each other. The other large influence would be the attitude of editing, which was reflective of the fact the filmmaking of a music video was intended to be as a commercial, which was the only thing next to them which had cuts as fast. But this visual style became it’s own mindset also reflecting music that was becoming more hyperactive itself. Eventually this recognizable and deeply entrancing style fell into action films, which began to display faster editing to capture the pace of action scenes. These fast cuts have only developed to the point where it’s almost standard in most movies to have intense quickly cut sequences. The music video has always been a medium unafraid to be a product of what’s popular, it’s defining characteristic would be it’s emphasis on the most current aesthetic. This could be seen as their biggest crutch or blessing. When arts purpose is half commercial and half innovation, its goal will always be digging through what’s new and popular. And while that creates a standard of commercial stability for most, some use the opportunity to tap into a feeling cohesive yet new to the era- eventually bound to carry over generations since everything is just a product of what came before.