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Music Videos - what's the point?


There doesn't have to be a point, you love them. If you don't, you do.





In the music industry as we know it today, music videos have become a vital part of it, especially with platforms like YouTube (which we're all very much familiar with) that cater to streaming music videos. Apparently 55% of YouTube users watch music videos everyday (it's me, I'm users). The significance of music videos can be observed in the way award shows now have categories for them - Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography and there's too many to list. So, I daresay, for people of mainstream pop-culture, it's grown to become a competition with artists setting and breaking records for views.





Music videos, though initially made to promote artists or films, do a lot more than just that now. Prominent artists, with their large fanbases, in the industry dominate charts worldwide each time they make a comeback and drop an MV. These music videos address a variety of things:





They could address or shed light on an issue - a global subject, cultural or societal issues - in a symbolic way





They could have a specific concept that would help the artist express their art and their lyrics in a more dynamic and unique way, adding their own colour to it.





They could simply be a narrative, purely for entertainment - like a movie but 3-4 minutes long.





Or it could just be glitz and glam, lot's of visual effects, animations, magnificently colourful or "vibey", or simply performance videos.


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