Music Video History

VIRAL VIDEOS:

• A viral video is a video that becomes popular through means of internet sharing; particularly video sharing website, email and social networking.
• The technique of viral marketing is often heavily helped by the use of word-of-mouth also. It is like a 'snowball' effect, once one person has seen or liked a video, they then pass on the information to other people, and then they do the same, and so the hype and the popularity of the video increasingly becomes bigger and bigger. 
• Viral videos don't necessarily have to be music videos, they may be comedy/spoof - related or may even be live footage of big eyewitness events. 
• The use of media, technology, and most of all, the internet is essential in helping modern artists, musicians or bands to gain interest and popularity.
• Pop stars such as Justin Bieber and Esme Denters launched their career by releasing footage of themselves singing on to YouTube. Once someone had seen a 'talent' in these videos, the views of such videos quickly spread as the videos were shared, and so launched the likes of these artists into a successful career in the music industry. 

Justin Bieber's mum posted this video of him singing at a competition on YouTube. He sang the song 'So Sick' by Ne-Yo. When he was just 13, the video was accidentally clicked on by big American talent manager Scooter Braun, but he was impressed and contacted the singer's mother. She agreed for Justin to fly to America with Scooter where he recorded some demo tapes. He was then signed up to R&B singer Usher and Scooters joint record label Raymond Braun Media Group. Bieber, now 19, has more than 47 MILLION followers on Twitter, 3 studio albums, 4 compilation albums, 29 singles and 24 music videos, yet interestingly, only one of his singles have reached the #1 position in either the US or UK charts.

Do We Watch Music Videos For The Music Or For The Video Itself?

The biggest question to ask is whether we actually watch music videos because we like to listen to the music, or is it because of the 'virality' of the footage.

Every year some of the most weird and wonderful musicians of our generation create music videos which go 'viral', essentially performing so well even before the single's release, but this often drives sales and ensures the song reaches the top of the charts.

NAME THE SONG:

 

All of the above videos are so easily recognisable because they were classed as viral. 

How does a music video go viral?

• A video will go viral after it reaches millions, or billions (or more) of views after the link is continuously forwarded on to other people.
• Rosanna E. Guadagno of America's National Science Foundation, conducted research on to how music videos go viral. 
• She suggested that videos are more likely to go viral depending on the emotion provoked by the clip.
• She recruited 256 university study to watch one of ten hits on YouTube. She then asked them how they felt and whether they planned to forward the video to others.
• They developed the 'arousal hierarchy' where videos provoking positive emotions were placed at the top, and videos provoking negative emotions were placed near the bottom of the hierarchy. 
• Videos which provoke alertness or attentiveness are placed in the middle.