The importance of music videos in the digital age

The importance of music videos in the digital age

The importance of making a music video has increased due to the digital age where most things can be accessed through a portable device on the internet. This means that things need to stand out more if they don’t want to get lost in the sea of similar ideas and products. One way music can stand out is by having a music video, preferably one that causes controversy so that it will attract more media attention. Prior to the digital age, music videos would only be made for songs that were lead singles on an album and were thought to have success in the charts. Nowadays, it is becoming more and more common to have 3 or 4 music videos per album because they are a huge part of marketing now that shows like ‘Top of the Pops’ don’t exist anymore to give artists TV coverage. Music videos allow people to have full access to a product (the song) without even purchasing it. Many music videos are available to watch 24/7 online through sites like YouTube which can be a disadvantage to the music industry as you don’t have to ever buy a hard copy of the song/album. This is why record companies initially began to fight against sites such as these by blocking any music videos that were uploaded of their artists. Not long after, they began to utilize the online streaming tool by creating record company channels and individual artist channels where they could upload their content such as live versions of songs and official videos/audio. A good thing about sites such as YouTube is that videos are able to reach a wide audience and people may be led to the video by watching similar videos and being suggested a particular artist to watch.