One purpose of a music video is to promote a new artist. This is done when an already famous artist collaborates with a new artist. An example of this would be the song ‘Fancy’ by Iggy Azalea featuring the not as known artist Charli XCX. As this song got really popular, Charlie XCX also got popular.
Another example of a music video promoting a new artist is ‘Stay With Me – Sam Smith’. As he sang in a popular song previously, people started to recognise his name. However, once he produced his own music video to his singles it promoted him as an artist as listeners could put a face to a voice.
Changing Direction
A music video can be helpful to change an artists direction. This can be either their style of music, appearance (etc). An example of this is obviously Miley Cyrus. She went from a cute Disney star to a rebellious diva; although her music is still under the genre of pop, it is now more explicit and definitely not Disney-like anymore. A specific song would be ‘We Can’t Stop’.
In Paramore's "Ain't it Fun" their style of music has changed from rock and roll to a more pop genre. You can tell this change has occurred as in their older music videos the colourings and themes are a lot darker. Whereas now, it’s more bright and fun.
Promoting A Single
Music videos can be used to promote a single, once a song becomes very popular a music video is made along with it. An example of this is seen at the start of the music video ‘Why’d you only call me when you’re high’ by Artic Monkeys, we enter a bar which is playing playing Artic Monkeys other recent song ‘Do I Wanna Know’.
Again, just like the Arctic Monkeys video, at the start of Bruno Mars’ ‘Just The Way You Are’ music video, we see a young women listening happily to the song though her headphones. This promotes the song before we even see the full video.
Promoting An Album
Each of Fall Out Boy’s songs from their album ‘Save Rock and Roll’ has a music video which links to the next. This on-going series of eleven songs and their music videos creates a mini film. Therefore, each song promotes the next, meaning a whole album has eventually been promoted.
Usher entitles both parts of his song ‘Confessions’ after his album which means the audience will easily find the entire album when searching for these songs. This is a common and subtle way of an artist promoting their album.
Promoting Another Product
Another purpose of music videos is to promote other media related products, this can be films, merchandise or tours (etc). An example of a music video promoting a product is seen in Chris Brown’s song ‘New Flame’. At the very start of video a women using the ‘beats’ app was shown. This is a clear demonstration of promoting a product.
Likewise, Nicki Minaj also promotes the ‘beats pill’ product in her ‘Anaconda’ video. They simply do this by showing the audience the product and as people support the artist they also support the things they promote.
Increasing Profile of an Artist
In Chris Brown's Wall to Wall, the music video is seen as raising his profile by at the start where a voiceover says "Please stand back, we're trying to make way for Chris Brown". Also later in the music video Chris Brown is seen flying across the room to a girl, this makes us believe he is different and has unique "powers" making him a person we want to be.
In Mariah Carey's "Obsessed" she is seen walking out of an expensive car, with her chauffeur opening the door for her, as she gets out she is swamped by a pack of screaming fans, raising her profile by making her seem popular.
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