Lyrical Analysis

Song

I have chosen the song Baptism by Crystal Castles, the band are an experimental, electronic band from Toronto . Recognised for their brutal on stage performances and careless attitudes. Also, their style has been described as "ferocious, asphyxiating sheets of warped two-dimensional Gameboy glitches and bruising drum bombast that pierces your skull with their sheer shrill force, burrowing deep into the brain like a fever", this makes me think that my video just has to be hard hitting.

History of Music Videos.

History of the Music Video                                                                Ellie Davis

Over time music videos have become increasingly important to the sales and hype of an artist. Whether it be an abstract expression or a chance to project the musicians image they are vital to the modern music industry.

Long before the marketing ideal of a ‘music industry’ in 1894 a single entitled ‘The Little Lost Child’ was played over a series of still images (like a slideshow) during live performance.  Although at its raw stages the idea of using an image to accompany music i.e music video was beginning to form. Much later in 1926 we are presented again with a structure similar to what we know today as a music video, Vitapphone shorts and Spooney Melodies are early examples of imagery being combined with a performer singing.

The next significant move in the life of the music video was the surge in popularity of musical feature films. Around 1955 stars of rock and roll such as Elvis, began to release these types of films, in which the musician would play a character within the narrative. The idea was that his music could be heard in every single corner of the globe and would be as out-stretched as his growing reputation and musical prominence. Elvis never toured out of America so the movies offered everyone to see the artist they loved and the songs they loved, as close to live as they could. Ultimately the films were to promote the image that was tailor made by the label, through the films the labels projected the person they wanted Elvis to be. In the clean cut era of the 50’s it was also an opportunity for Elvis to play a squeaky clean southern boy in the hope that people would buy in to him as a brand, and they did.

This style of promotional film approach was also used not only in America but British artists like Cliff Richard tried it too. He like Elvis played a character within a narrative in the film summer holiday, with the hopes of the same outcome.

In 1964 The Beatles were having worldwide success and can probably due to their popularity be pin pointed as the beginnings of music really becoming the business that it is today. They, similar to Elvis and Cliff Richard before them, released musical films, although at a contract to their priors they were not playing a character but playing themselves within a pre-determined narrative. It offered with their first film ‘Hard Day’s Night’ an insight into the life of a Beatle. Along with the film ‘Help!’ directors began to assemble the performance scenes as what we know as music videos, the performance scenes created that effect. In Help they perform ‘you’ve got to hide your love away’ a range of shots and angles are used moreover there is a lack of continuity in a montage style. Like the films were the artists played characters The Beatles were to spoon feed the fans the fun loving friendly gang they wanted or imagined them to be. However, the band turned all this on its side with their release of their final film. Magical Mystery tour was released in 1967 on BBC 1 a year post stopping touring. The Beatles had changed, a reckless drug taking party lifestyle had tinged their clean image and with the film they challenged the values instead of being the innocent images we have seen in the previous steps toward the conventional music video.

Not too dissimilar to the final Beatle, the director D.A. Pennabaker made a documentary fill entitled ‘Don’t look Back’ about Bob Dylan. The films aim was to challenge the authority. In the opening sequence Dylan is drawing the viewer’s attention to the lyrics of his then single Subterranean Homesick Blues. Dylan showed himself in the films, it was a simple representation and fitted in with the free spirited ideology of the summer of love 1967.

It was not until nine years later that a short film/video was made by Queen for Bohemian Rhapsody that we are taken to the intrinsic ideas and structure of a music video and it is regarded as one of the first. The video was a self-contained, continuity lacking, live performance short film, made so that the band would never have to mime on the only music show of the time Top of the Pops.

After Queen there was a high demand for the short films and the marketing hype of the music video. In 1981 MTV was born, with its inspiration coming from the early Beatle films. The first words spoken on the channel were ‘ladies and gentlemen, lets rock and roll’, paving a new way, things had changed MTV was the hub of the music videos in the quest to become as and if not more important than the songs.

In the ever struggling music industry the music video in a key promotional, hype creating tool, whether it be the abstract style of Radiohead or the ground breakingevents the release of Gaga’s videos have become, they are all a tool. They offer us a lifestyle, ideology or image that everyday people are buying into.