I want my MTV on VEVO! An analysis of the music video of the 1980s and 2010s as an object of study

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Introduction

"I feel like right now people experience music differently. I remember seeing 'Thriller' on TV with my family, it was an event. We all sat around the TV and I'm now looking back, I was so lucky I was born around that time. I miss that immersive experience, now people only listen to a few seconds of a song on their iPods, they don't really invest in a whole album. It's all about the single and the hype, it's so much that gets between the music and the artist and the fans.”

-Beyoncé (Self-Titled, Part 1)

On December 13, 2013, artist Beyoncé surprised the world by releasing her audio-visual album Beyoncé on iTunes. The audio-visual album was exclusively available on iTunes and contained fourteen tracks accompanied by seventeen videos. In the first three days, Beyoncé sold over 828,773 copies of her album and achieved a leading position on the Billboard 200 chart. The announcement of the new album was remarkable, because it happened with just one post on Beyoncé’s Instagram with the title ‘Surprise!’ and from there on the news spread over the world (Huba n.pag.). With her audio-visual album, Beyoncé wanted to recall the immersive experience she had in her childhood, when she watched the premiere of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ on television, a major media event. Beyoncé observes a difference in how contemporary music videos are being experienced, but little has been written about the contemporary music video.

Maura Edmond has begun mapping the music videos in relation to emerging theories of new and social media in her article ‘Here We Go Again: Music Videos after YouTube’. Edmond offers an outline of the changes that have occurred as music videos have moved from television to the Internet and she notes the impact that digital convergence has had on music videos. She compares these new developments with the functioning of the music video industry during the MTV-dominated era of the 1980s (Edmond 306). Edmond tends to create a sharp contrast between music videos of the MTV-era and the contemporary music video. Edmond’s work is questionable, because her analysis of the contemporary music video is limited. Furthermore similarities with the music video of the 1980s can still be found in the contemporary music video. But with the introduction of digital media, it is necessary to track the possible changes of how the music video can be approached as an object of study. This

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can be explored with the following question: How can the music video be approached as an

object of study during the 1980s and 2010s in its institutional context, as a part of a culture and as a part of stardom?

This question will be central in my research on the music video of the 1980s and the 2010s as an object of study. I will approach the music video from three perspectives, namely the music video in its institutional context, the music video as a part of culture and the music video as part of stardom. These three perspectives will act as the guiding principles on which this thesis is based, reoccurring in every chapter.

My research will partly focus on the institutional context of the music video, because the music video has moved from television to the Internet. The 1980s are described as the golden years for music videos or the MTV-dominated era (Edmond 306). During the 1980s the music industry invested in the music video, because they functioned as promotional tools for artists. Since the late 1990s there has been a decrease in the profits for the music industry and the music videos did not get the support from the industry that they once used to have (Edmond 305). Nowadays the music video circulates on the internet and has become a profitable resource for major music groups.

The music video as a part of culture will be the second perspective to approach the music video, because postmodernism has been of a great importance for the study of the music video of the 1980s. I will do this by using the work of E. Ann Kaplan (1987). Kaplan discusses postmodernism in relation to MTV in her book Rocking Around the Clock and describes how MTV makes use of avant-garde techniques. As the music video has moved to the Internet, it raises the question whether the music video still can be considered as a part of postmodern culture. Critics such as Henry Jenkins, argue that music videos now can be considered as ‘spreadable media’ and that music videos have become a part of a networked culture (4).

Stardom is the third perspective to approach the music video as an object of study, because in the 1980s music videos were used by the music industry to construct a star-text. Andrew Goodwin describes the meaning that is given to a star persona with the use of music videos as the ‘metanarrative of stardom’. In his book Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992), Goodwin offers a variety of ways how to understand the construction of the star persona in music videos and I will use his work to discuss the music video of the 1980s and 2010s as a part of stardom. Nowadays the music industry also invests in social media to establish their artists. By using the work of Sarah Thomas and Alice Marwick & Danah Boyd I will discuss how artists use social media as a tool for the communication between artists and

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fans.

In order to answer the research question, I will divide my thesis in two parts. The first part consists of the first two chapters, in which I will first discuss the situation of the music video of the 1980s. In the second chapter I will perform a case study on Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ (1982) and Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ (1984). I have chosen these music videos, because Jackson and Madonna were the two biggest names in the music industry during the 1980s and their music videos set an example for other artists (Marks 345). For the analysis of the music video ‘Thriller’ I will use the article ‘Monster Metaphors: Notes on Michael

Jackson’ by Kobena Mercer. In his article Mercer interprets the music video ‘Thriller’ from the point of view of the questions that were raised by the popularity of Jackson (29). For the analysis of the music video ‘Material Girl’ I will elaborate on the work of Kaplan, Fiske and Goodwin who all have dedicated a part of their writings to Madonna’s music video. Kaplan and Fiske discuss ‘Material Girl’ in relation to postmodernism, connecting ‘Material Girl’ to the ideology of postmodern feminism. Goodwin discusses ‘Material Girl’, because he

considers the music video as a notable case of the dominance of star-text over narrative (99). The second part of my thesis is constructed the same way as the first part of my thesis. In the third chapter I will discuss the situation of the music video of the 2010s and in the fourth chapter I will perform a case study on the audio-visual album Beyoncé. The choice to perform a case study on Beyoncé, is because she is a well-known artist and has received a lot of media attention with the release of her audio-visual album on iTunes, which was

considered as a new phenomenon in the music industry. I will analyse the audio-visual album partially by using the work of Edmond, because she analysed how new technologies and changing platforms have shaped the production of music videos in comparison to the 1980s. By already discussing the audio-visual in relation to the music video of the 1980s a bridge is established to my conclusion. In which I will argue that even though the music video has encountered different technologies over the years, the approach of the music video as an object of study will largely remain the same.

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1. Video killed the radio star

Music videos in the 1980s

“One night I got a phone call from Frank Beard, our drummer. He said, ‘Hey, there’s a good concert on TV. Check it out.’ So a couple of hours went by while I watched TV, and I called him back and said, ‘How long does this concert last?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ Twelve hours later, we were still glued to the TV. Finally somebody said, ‘No it’s this twenty-four-hour music channel.’ I said, ‘Whaaaaat?’ MTV appeared suddenly – unheralded, unannounced, un-anything.”

-Billy Gibbons, ZZ Top (Marks & Tannenbaum 29)

The 1980s are often described as the golden years for music videos, an era which is also referred to as the MTV dominated era (Edmond 306). MTV is the most visible and most often discussed embodiment of music television, because it was the first 24-hour, non-stop

commercial television channel that was dedicated to broadcast music videos around the clock via satellite across the United States (Kaplan 1). MTV was unique for two reasons: First, it offered a service and a form of content that was not offered anywhere else on television, namely the transmission of music videos that happened in the same way as music on the radio with video deejays and playlists (Johnson n. pag). Second, MTV was especially aimed at an high-end audience of young consumers between the 15 and 34 years old, whose interests had been overlooked: ‘John Lack who started MTV, called teenagers “the demographic group least interested in TV,” because TV wasn’t interested in teens’ (Marks & Tannenbaum 14). The first video that was aired on MTV was ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by Buggles, which characterized MTV as an evolution in human entertainment, by combining sight with sound. ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ suggested that ‘MTV is part of a naturally evolving progression from the gramophone and radio to television and cable’ (Johnson n. pag). MTV became the epicentre of pop culture, in which the channel functioned as the dominant arbiter of

celebrities, for example the constant airplay of Michael Jackson videos that helped to make his album Thriller a huge success (Marks & Tannenbaum 15). At first MTV was all about music videos and in order to stand out, eye-catching, and memorable min-movies were

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created, which made the production of music videos an art form (Rosewarne n. pag). Because the music video served different interests, it raises questions about how to evaluate the music video of the 1980s as an object. Should it be seen as a product of television, a soundtrack for a video, or just a promotional tool for the artist? In order to answer these questions, I will discuss the situation of the 1980s and I will do this in three steps. First, I will discuss the institutional context of how music videos were presented. As said, because the 1980s are also referred to as the MTV dominated era, I will discuss the establishment of MTV and what this meant for the production and use of music videos. During the 1980s, scholars described MTV and music videos as ‘fragmented’ and referred to them as postmodern media, because of the quantity and variety of their visual content, and the absurdist and often fast cutting between content (Edmond 312). This leads me to the second step, in which I will discuss how music videos were perceived as a part of postmodern

culture. Finally, I will discuss how music videos were seen as a part of stardom and how they attributed in creating star personae.

1.1 Institutional context of the music video as promotional tool in the 1980s

The music video has become an important component of the music industry. Since the 1970s, leading record companies in the United States already had international divisions which made music videos to promote their acts in the United Kingdom and Europe. Nevertheless, record companies were not entirely dedicated to music videos until after the launch of MTV (Banks 293). MTV was launched on August 1, 1981, by Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment (WASE), a joint venture between Warner Communications and American Express. In 1983 Viacom formed a joint venture with WASE and Warner Communications and continued buying a larger part of the share in MTV Networks in 1985, which contained the channels MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite. MTV took a stance towards the history and culture of the ‘adult’ generation by mocking rock music. In doing so, it ironically compared itself to the first moon landing during the first broadcast and marketed out the space of MTV as an entire different world then network television (Johnson n. pag). MTV marked two trends in the 1980s, namely the rock audience that has aged and the rise of a youth culture that was not centred on music like the rock audience (Goodwin 39).

In its beginning, MTV had some problems with convincing record companies of the viability and profitability of promotional clips. The music industry was fearful of the

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investment needed in the clips and that music television eventually would just be a fad (Goodwin 38). The development of music television by MTV was led by the world of advertising. In 1986 MTV reached over 28 million households, and, since its beginning in 1981, it has attracted a lot of advertisers. It took 20 million dollars to support the beginning of MTV and in the first eighteen months MTV generated a 7 million advertisement revenue. In 1983, MTV already attracted 125 advertisers such as Kellogg’s and Pepsico, who showcased around 200 products and bought airtime between the 30 and 120 seconds, at costs from prices ranging between the 1500 and 6000 dollars. By 1984 MTV reached an audience of 22 million households and generated a revenue of one million dollars a week (Kaplan 1-2). MTV’s business strategy was delivering advertisers an attractive audience that the television networks, who dominated the market share at that time, could not provide. This way MTV was granted with a standard economic model of television broadcasting as a ‘dual-product’ market, the first product was the programme service that was being sold to the audience and the second product was the audience itself, what was sold to advertisers (Doyle qtd. In Johnson n. pag).

MTV also needed to convince cable operators to carry it as a channel in order to reach a bigger audience and subsequently be more attractive to advertisers. Because MTV only had a small number of viewers in a limited part of the country, it could not only depend on constructing its brand on the screen: ‘to overcome this, MTV developed an innovative promotional campaign that it ran on free-to-air networks which was designed to mobilize viewers as advocates on behalf of the channel’ (Johnson n. pag). Pop stars of that time

featured in the advertisements, for example David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, Mick Jagger, and the Police shouted into the camera ‘America…Call your cable company and say “I want my MTV!”’ (Johnson n. pag). The campaign reinforced the idea that MTV was a new form of television and it made an effort to inspire the viewer to feel a sense of ownership and loyalty towards the channel. The advertisement reinforced the belief that MTV belonged to the youth of America and that American television networks were failing to provide the youth with their culture.

The budgets for the production of music videos were underwritten by the expectation that the videos would attract an audience of young consumers (Goodwin 38). Most record companies saw no promising future in the sale of music videos directly to the public, and were hesitant towards the development of an expensive and exclusively promotional format. In process of time the music industry developed a commitment to the production of music videos and it obtained an import role in the sale and significance of pop music. The music

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industry started to use music videos as ‘adverts’ to promote records and, as the reliance on music videos was so extensive, music videos were seen as a necessity to break singles into the music charts (Mercer 29). Most music videos were made to promote pop singles and were shot in a small amount of time, frequently in just two or three days, this time frame occurred partially to reduce the budget for making the music video. Another reason is that music videos were not produced until there was an expectation of the chart success. This resulted in a very quick production to keep with the brief active sales life of a pop single. Promotional clips were not cheap to makeand can be considered as an expensive form of television, when the cost per hour basis are taken into account. But the difference is that music videos have a greater repeatability in comparison to broadcast TV programs and successful music videos can circulate on an international scale, because most pop lyrics are in English (Goodwin 41). Furthermore, music videos could be unified in packages and sold or rented as video cassettes, and sometimes generate revenue via television distribution, for example by integrating music videos into television programs and documentaries. In contrast to other cultural products, music videos are a promotional form instead of a commodity, as a result companies began to re-orientate themselves as ‘right exploiters’ rather than ‘commodity producers’. Record companies did get a small share back from their investments through sales to consumers and license fees paid by TV and cable stations. But the costs of a music video were mostly written off against advertising or promotional budgets. Nevertheless there were also artists who funded the music videos themselves with the increase of future record sales in the back of their minds. Conclusively, music videos were paid by increased record sales, instead of the success of the music video itself (Goodwin 42).

According to Goodwin, an unusual situation occurred due to the increase of consumer interest in music videos. Media consumers were freely paying for a part of the costs, what in first place was considered as promotional material, through cable TV subscriptions and sales and rentals of home videos. ‘This may eventually lead music television into a new economic relationship with the music industry and a role as fourth ‘configuration’, but currently direct sales are usually limited to only the most devoted fans of a particular act’ (Goodwin 42). The changing role of music video also had its influence on the conflict between record companies and media institutions about license fees to screen music videos. Television companies believed that they did not have to pay for the videos, because they saw it as free advertising. However, the record companies argued that the consumer demand for music videos was so high, that payment is self-evident, because music videos boost ratings and preserve whole cable stations and large divisions of network and broadcast TV programming (Goodwin 42).

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In the discussion of the institutional context of the music video, the establishment of MTV in particular is useful for further research. By discussing the channel in its infancy, it will be easier to explore the visual album, which is also located in an early stage of its development. It has become evident that the economic model and technology have played an important part in the changing role of music videos during the 1980s and I expect it also will be determining factors for the establishment of Beyoncé’s visual album, which I will analyse later on in this thesis.

1.2 The music video as product of postmodernist culture in the 1980s

As stated, throughout the 1980s scholars referred to music videos and music television as postmodern media (Edmond 312). According to these scholars, MTV is the perfect

postmodern text: ‘Fragmentation, segmentation, superficiality, stylistic jumbling, the blurring of mediation and reality, the collapse of past and future into the moment of the present, the elevation of hedonism, the dominance of the visual over the verbal’ (Teztlaff qtd. in Goodwin 15). By the time that the program titled ‘Post Modern MTV’ appeared on MTV in August 1988 and a new category of ‘post-modern video’ had been established at the MTV Video Music Awards of 1990, it seemed to be the final confirmation of MTV as the perfect postmodern text (Goodwin 15).

Kaplan draws on the work of Frederic Jameson (1984) and Jean Baudrillard (1985) to examine MTV as a special example of television as postmodernism. She argues that: ‘MTV blurs previous distinctions between past, present, and future, along with its blurring of separations such as those between popular and avant-garde art, between different aesthetic genres and artistic modes’ (144). Kaplan is involved with discourse about MTV and postmodernism on a number of different levels. First, she argues that music television is television at its most televisual: ‘MTV’s programming strategies embody the extremes of what is inherent in the televisual apparatus’ (Kaplan 4). Due to the series of very short texts, MTV hypnotizes more than other channels that leave viewers in an excited state of

expectation. The ‘coming up next’ mechanism is an elemental aspect of the minute-by-minute MTV watching, which convinces viewers to keep watching. This flow of short texts, by which the viewer is captivated, is a phenomenon that characterizes most of television. Kaplan describes this as a ‘decentering’ experience of viewing produced by the continuous variation, which is intensified on MTV, because the longest text is the four-minute video (5). This

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decenteredness, often referred to as ‘postmodernist’ is a part of the reading formation for MTV, because Kaplan argues that it structures the mental and social lives of teenagers, but also their entertainment experience of watching television (32).

Kaplan is also involved with postmodernism on an aesthetic level, where she explores the technical and formal strategies that appear to embody postmodernism. She examines the techniques that seem avant-garde, by starting with the abandonment of traditional narrational devices of most popular culture so far. The relations between cause-effect, time-space and the conceptions of character and continuity relationships are frequently disrupted. Music videos which seem to contain a sort of storyline that is routinely disrupted by editing devices which violate the classical Hollywood codes such as ‘shot/counter shot, the 180 degree rule, the 30 degree angle rule, eye line matches etc.’ (Kaplan 33). Rock music videos often rely on classical Hollywood film genres, whether it be inclusion, parody, pastiche, or caricature of representations from dominant cinema that is going on. ‘Pastiche’ is common in postmodern analyses and it is used to label the practice whereby music videos use a variety of ways in which they ‘quote’ from other texts, Kaplan uses this in order to illustrate the postmodern nature of the music video. The music video of Queen ‘Radio Ga Ga’ is an example, ‘where both the quotation of extracts from the Fritz Lang movie Metropolis and the referencing of discourses of Nazism from films such as The Triumph of the Will are presented as part of the video, without providing for any apparent position from which to view them’ (Kaplan qtd. in Goodwin 160).

A lot of videos seemed to mock standard genres, for example the music video ‘Thriller’ that used and imitated the horror genre (Kaplan 34). Kaplan argues that music videos are ‘routinely, and increasingly, self-reflexive’, for example the viewer can see the music video being played in a TV monitor within the framework. The music video can also set the viewer in the production room where the music video is being made and eventually seems to be the music video the viewer is watching (Kaplan 34). Another phenomenon is the representation of the production of music, whereby the viewer can catch glimpses of how a song is being produced. This is done by showing different components and technology the band or artist uses to produce the music itself (Kaplan 37). Throughout her book, Kaplan offers a lot of examples of elements what makes music videos postmodernist, but Kaplan defines the characterization of the postmodernist music video as follows:

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‘What characterizes the postmodern video is its refusal to take a clear position vis-à-vis its images, its habit of hedging along the line of not communicating a clear

signified. In postmodernist videos, as not in the other specific types, each element of a text is undercut by others: narrative is undercut by pastiche, signifying is undercut by images that do not line up in a coherent chain; the text is flattened out, creating a two-dimensional effect and the refusal of a clear position for the spectator within the filmic world. This leaves him/her decentered, perhaps confused, perhaps fixated on one particular image or image-series, but most likely unsatisfied and eager for the next video where perhaps closure will take place’ (63).

The basis of Kaplan’s argument is that in postmodern videos the ambiguity of the image and pastiche are the most apparent (63). Goodwin disagrees with such a postmodernist analysis of music television: ‘While there is a good case to be made for seeing some cultural forms in terms of postmodernity (e.g., twentieth-century architecture, postwar literature, 1980s political discourse), the current fashion for conflating the specificities of different media and genre into a ragbag category of ‘postmodernism’ does injustice in equal measure to both the conceptual field and the object of study’ (Goodwin 16-17). Goodwin is not against the idea of discussing contemporary pop music in terms of new postmodern relation, but he argues that music videos in general and MTV in particular represent poor choices of case studies for the scholars who support postmodern theory, such as Kaplan. Goodwin argues that the

postmodern analysis is problematic, because it is not grounded in an understanding of pop music debates. It lacks a detailed discussion of the music itself, and its relation to image is not explored (Goodwin 17). Goodwin and Kaplan seem to agree that analyses of music videos need to be combined with studies of how the performers are constituted and their personae constructed. Kaplan elaborates on postmodern feminism, what can be defined as the ‘sexual ambiguity of many of the rock star personas, combined with a seemingly ambivalent attitude toward what could be considered as classic themes leads to a genderless address and multiple identificatory positions’ (Scheibler 69). Goodwin argues that the analysis of the music video is less difficult, when narrative and star identity are taken into account and I will discuss how Goodwin describes the function of stardom in music videos in the next sub chapter.

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1.3 The music video as part of metanarrative of stardom in the 1980s

The general objective of the music industry with music videos was certainly to establish higher sales through the widespread distribution and circulation of artists’ music videos on music television as well other places, like night clubs and record stores which displayed music videos on monitors. However, the music industry also used music videos in a more unique way to develop their artists. Music videos established and propagated a certain image for an artist and they were used to change and established the public identity of an artist as well (Banks 296). Stardom has an important role in pop and rock music, as it allows us to see that ‘characterization, fiction, and perhaps even narrative itself exist in popular music at the point of narration, outside the diegesis of individual songs, live performances, or video clips, through the persona of the pop star’ (Goodwin 103). Stardom is important in two ways. First, the creation of character identities for pop stars offers viewers a point of identification. Second, the creation of the star’s identity is essential for the economics of the music industry, because established identity’s identities can guarantee career longevity for their investments. The music industry is aware of the problem that the taste of the public is not predictable when it comes to music. Unlike the sale of commodities where consumers can be shaped to spend their money on certain goods and services. The music industry tries to overcome this problem with different strategies and the construction and maintenance of a star-text is one of them (Goodwin 103).The meaning given to any star persona can be made up or be true in a way that it builds on the real-life circumstances of the artist. Either way, it involves a high degree of manipulation on the side of the culture industries, for example the music business or media critics. This manipulation functions in different ways in music videos, for example giving the viewer the idea that artists are more successful than they actually are in real life. This could happen by incorporating arranged performances of the artists in front of huge audiences and hereby giving the viewer the idea that the artists can pull off that number of people (106). Artists with minimal technical skills or musical talent were able to create successful songs due to the assistance of an attractive music video. The pop group Milli Vanilli are an example of how visual appearance can persuade the public without a significance of their musical abilities. Milli Vanilli’s debut album sold over more than six million copies and this was assigned to the group’s attractive performance in their music videos. Milli Vanilli’s music video ‘Girl You Know It’s True’, was added to MTV’s playlist while the group was still anonymous. Their music video was played three or four times a day and they became stars:

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‘Milli Vanilli in an interview said they feel seventy to eighty percent of their success was attributable to MTV’ (Goldberg qtd. in Banks 303). After the group sold millions of albums and won a Grammy for ‘Best New Artist of the Year’, they were accused of fraud, because they did not play or sing any of their own songs. Milli Vanilli became stars, largely because of their trendy looks and dancing abilities that were showed in their music videos. Until Milli Vanilli’s secret was revealed, their lack of talent was no obstruction.

Music videos can also function as ‘pseudodocumentaries’, which are produced by advertising agencies, ‘in which televisual and cinematic discourses associated with factual appeals (cinema verité, the TV interview) are used to promote idealized fantasies about the music industry’ (Goodwin 108). For example, life as a working musician can be arduous and members of certain acts only see each other when they have to perform and promote their music. Nonetheless, music videos often give the idea that pop groups are a group of close friends and having fun while doing their hard work. Goodwin explains that the content of the song lyrics and the narrative of the music video are not related to each other, because the essential narrative component of the music video lies in the star-text that frames the music video. Goodwin notes the level of ‘characterization’ that ‘lives outside any musical video, in the metanarratives of stardom set up within the music industry’ (110). These narratives function in different ways, sometimes artists adopt a persona to the degree of seeming to become that character. Other artists take on a consistent image, other stars may also take on an consistent image but a one that is not that prominent. On the other side, there are those stars who are constantly changing their personas, where they frequently change their

appearance and clothing (Goodwin 110). The sorts of images of persona and stardom that are constructed in video clips obviously relate to career structure, ‘because it is the storyteller, rather than the story itself, that is the central fiction in popular music, the construction of personality and identity around pop musicians is fundamental to success’ (Goodwin 114).

To summarize this chapter, it is made clear that since the launch of MTV in 1981, the music industry became committed to the production of music videos. The music industry came to understand that music videos were viable and profitable, which made them use music videos as adverts to promote records. Music videos seem to become necessary if an artist wanted to break through the music charts. The development of music videos was led by the world of advertisement, where MTV was granted with a standard economic model of

television broadcasting as a ‘dual-product’. MTV could sell their services to the audience, and in turn MTV could sell its audience to advertisers. In order to stand out between the variety of music videos circulating on MTV, eye-catching music videos were produced. MTV and the

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music videos of the 1980s are often discussed in relation to postmodernism, because the music videos did not had one dominant and singular meaning. MTV and its programming created a flow of short four-minute texts, which left the viewer ‘decentered’, which Kaplan refers to as postmodernist. According to Kaplan, music videos abandon the traditional narrational devices and are self-reflexive and pastiche, as they quote from other texts and mock other genres. The analysis of music videos has to be combined with how artists are constructed, because music videos in the 1980s were also used to develop artists. In order to attract and keep audiences interested in artists, the music industry tried to construct and maintain star-texts. Artists adopted a persona, which could be false or true in a way that is was based on their real life circumstances.

What I discussed in this chapter makes clear that the evaluation of the music video of the 1980s involves different perspectives and in this chapter I offered three steps to explain the situation of the music video during that time. In the next chapter I will perform a case study on the music videos of the two biggest pop stars of the 1980s, using the same approach as I used in this chapter.

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2. Case Study: ‘Thriller’ & ‘Material Girl’

‘Until Michael Jackson and Madonna, we didn’t have an act who was truly a video artist. We, without shame, flogged Michael Jackson videos, because we wanted other artists to see how you should do a video. We wanted to advance the art form. If you look at videos prior to ‘Thriller’ and after ‘Thriller’, there was a marked change. Every artist wanted to do that kind of video. Three guys standing on a stage began to look pretty lame [emphasis in original].’

-Bob Pittman, founder of MTV (qtd. in Marks & Tannenbaum 346)

Michael Jackson and Madonna were two of the biggest names in the music industry during the 1980s. After watching Jackson and Madonna, sceptical record executives were guaranteed that an expensive video could be a good investment (Marks 345). American artist also became aware of the potential of a good music video, so they started to shoot on film as well and music videos became more expensive (Taylor qtd. in Marks 328). Jackson and Madonna learned themselves, and other artists, how important music videos were in promoting

themselves and establishing a certain image. According to Marks, Jackson was the first video artist and Madonna was second, which makes their music videos suitable for a case study on music videos of the 1980s (330).

In this chapter I will analyse two music videos. First the music video ‘Thriller’ (1982), because it was the most elaborate music video ever made and it ended MTV’s policy of playing only rock artists (Marks 302). The analysis of ‘Thriller’ will be supported by the article ‘Monster Metaphors: Notes On Michael Jackson’ by Kobena Mercer, in which he offers a reading of the music video from the point of view of the questions that were raised by the phenomenal popularity of Jackson (29). Second, I will analyse the music video ‘Material Girl’ (1984) of Madonna, because this music video in particular received a lot of attention of academic scholars in the discussion of postmodern feminism. Madonna was the first who used music videos as a forum for provocation, but some academics argue that there lies a deeper meaning in her provocative music videos and connect it to the ideology of postmodern feminism (Marks 330). I will elaborate on this by using the work of Kaplan and Fiske, because they both dedicated a part of their writings to an analysis of Madonna’s ‘Material

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Girl’. The music video ‘Material Girl’ also received attention from Goodwin in his writings about the metanarrative of stardom, because he considers ‘Material Girl’ to be a remarkable case of the dominance of star-text over narrative (99).

As mentioned before, for the analysis I will use the same three steps as the previous chapter. First I will discuss the music videos as promotional tools within the institutional context of the 1980s, second I will discuss how the music videos could be considered as a part of postmodern culture and third, how the music videos function as a metanarrative of

Madonna’s and Jackson’s stardom.

2.1 ‘Material Girl’ and ‘Thriller’ as promotional tools in the 1980s

Madonna and Jackson both owe their success to MTV, which heavily promoted their music videos. Madonna became a celebrity during 1985 and sold millions of albums worldwide due to her stylish and sexy music videos that displayed her strong personality (Billboard

Madonna). Madonna’s success and popularity are inextricably linked to the birth of the cable television MTV, as The New York Times reported in 1991: ‘Music video has created a new kind of star, exemplified by Madonna, whose meticulously crafted four-minute fantasies shake the electronic media as easily as she shimmies her hips’ (Pareles qtd. in Benson 205). The MTV format and Madonna’s style went well together: ‘The quick cuts and brash iconoclasm that made MTV the voice and look of a generation found a perfect match in Madonna’ (Ayers qtd. in Benson 205). Madonna partnered up with MTV in the very beginning of her career. Her first self-titled album Madonna sold reasonable at first, but thanks to the circulation of Madonna’s videos on MTV, she obtained national exposure. As a result her album reached number eight on the Billboard chart and Madonna went platinum five times (Anderson & Kupp). Madonna’s second album Like a Virgin was released at the end of 1984 and her career took off really fast after the title track hit became number one in the music charts. Her second single ‘Material Girl’ was released on 30 November 1984 and also became a commercial success. It reached the top five in music charts in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Japan and the United Kingdom. In the United States it reached the second position of the Billboard Hot 100 (Caulfield n.p.).

Before the release of the ‘Thriller’ video, Jackson’s album Thriller was already available for about a year. The album had a rough start in terms of sales, but after the rotation of the Jackson’s music videos ‘Billy Jean’ and ‘Beat it’ on MTV and the memorable

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moonwalk, the album finally became a huge success. The circulation of the ‘Thriller’ music video on MTV increased album sales drastically and, after its release, Jackson’s label Epic sold a million copies a week (Hebblethwaite). Jackson’s album Thriller turned out to be the best-selling album of all time, selling 29 million copies in the United States and around another 20 million copies around the world (Billboard Michael Jackson). Thriller was the perfect way for MTV to obtain a reputation as a new ‘cultural force’, because Michael

Jackson was the first black artist to break through the racial boundaries of MTV, which had an implicit policy of excluding black artists, although MTV always denied it (Mercer 26;

Hebblethwaite). During the beginning of the 1980s, 83 percent of the music videos shown on MTV were featured by white males, 11 percent of the music videos had central figures who were female and this number was even lower for black artists (Kaplan 115). Jackson and Madonna were both ground-breaking with their music videos, because they paved the way for artists that in first place seemed disadvantaged to air on MTV due to their race or gender. Secondly, Jackson and Madonna helped to shape the future of music videos.

Jackson is known as one of the first artists who turned his music video into a true event. Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ went beyond the established conventions and limitations of the music video during the 1980s. These conventions are owed to the economic importance of the music video, because the visuals were overruled by the soundtrack, they were just there to promote the soundtrack. Second, the music video as a promotional tool ‘immediately

inherited an aesthetic and a set of techniques from the pre-existing and highly developed form of television commercials’ (Laing qtd. in Mercer 30). For his music video, Jackson

approached movie director John Landis in 1983, whether he was interested in making the music video ‘Thriller’. Landis also known for his feature films Animal House, American

Werewolf in London and Twilight Zone, agreed to do the music video and a short film of 14

minutes was the result (Kinder 2). During the filming of the video clip in October 1983, famous people such as Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire, Rock Hudson and Jackie Kennedy Onassis showed up on set, and on the private premiere a month later, Eddie Murphy, Prince and Diana Ross were also sighted. On 21 November it was first shown to the public and in order to qualify for an Oscar nomination, it needed a one-week theatrical release. Landis arranged that ‘Thriller’ opened for Disney’s Fantasia in a theatre in Los Angeles

(Hebblethwaite). ‘Thriller’ was also innovative, because it gave rise to the ‘making of’ genre of documentary. Newsweek reported in 1984 that the documentary film Making Michael

Jackson’s Thriller sold 450.000 video cassettes, even though it was just a spin-off. Finally, it

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whenever they wanted, rather than waiting in front of the TV until it was showcased (Hebblethwaite). However, making the ‘Thriller’ video was expensive. Landis and Jackson found a way to fund the 900.000 dollar costs for filming, effects and dance rehearsals. George Folsey Junior, Landis’ producer, came up with the idea to make a ‘making-of’ documentary which could be sold to networks: ‘MTV paid 250.000 dollar and Showtime 300.000 for the rights to the documentary, Jackson would take care of upfront costs, and the video was able to go ahead, with the label coughing up 100.000 dollar. When the documentary was released on VHS, selling for 29,95 dollar, it attracted more than 100.000 advance orders in its own right’ (Hebblethwaite).

By discussing the music videos ‘Thriller’ and ‘Material Girl’ in the institutional context of the 1980s, it has become clear that Jackson and Madonna can be seen as pioneers of their time, who discovered and explored the new and different possibilities of the music video as promotional tool. By drawing on the institutional context of these two music videos in particular, I aim to make the comparison with Beyoncé’s visual album later on in this thesis, since Beyoncé’s popularity is similar to that of Jackson and Madonna during the 1980s.

2.2 ‘Material Girl’ and ‘Thriller’ as part of postmodern culture in the 1980s

With their remarkable music videos, Madonna and Michael Jackson pushed the limits of what was acceptable for a music video during the 1980s. By blurring traditional categories and questioning ideologies, Jackson and Madonna have built their identity with use of their music videos: “The likes of Madonna and Jackson aim to offer what can only be called the total egocentric experience: they control every aspect of their acts, and are willing to dissolve the line where art ends and reality begins. Their acts incorporate their private lives and vice versa” (McGregor 3). During the beginning of her career, Madonna was seen as an artist who had to exploit her sexuality in order to make money, ‘a position which she occupied in a patriarchy which polarized femininity in opposing concepts, such as Virgin-Angel and Whore-Devil’ (Fiske 309). Madonna used her music videos to consciously and periodically exploit these contradictions, questioning the validity of these binary oppositions as a practice of conceptualizing woman (Fiske 309). ‘Material Girl’ was a pastiche of a scene from the movie Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953) featuring Marilyn Monroe, an intertextual reference to another star who was also seen as a woman who owed her success to her role as object for masculine desires (Fiske 304-305). The music video takes a specific part of the movie as a

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starting point: the dance sequence in which Marlin Monroe performs the song ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ on stage. Monroe’s character is a shallow woman who places a lot of value on a man’s wealth and her main objective is catching a rich man. At first sight,

Madonna seems to resemble Monroe’s character in her music video ‘Material Girl’, but in the visual narrative of ‘Material Girl’ a different situation is established. In ‘Material Girl’ a movie producer, played by Keith Carradine, is longing for a movie star, played by Madonna, who is featuring in a film in which she is rehearsing a dance routine. As the rehearsal

continues, the director discovers that she is not a ‘material girl’, because he sees her rejecting her admirers who are trying to impress her with expensive gifts. The director decides to pretend he is poor and eventually wins Madonna’s heart (Goodwin 99). The song ‘Material Girl’ is about a girl who only wants to date men who give her ‘proper credit’ and for her love is reduced to money, but the visual narrative is telling another story with respect to the director. Fiske refers to the puns in Madonna’s lyrics which he defines as ‘one signifier has simultaneous but different signifieds according to its discourse’ (312). The most recognizable puns are ‘give me proper credit’, ‘raise my interest’, ‘experience has made me rich’. The less recognizable puns are ‘’the boy with the cold hard cash’’ or ‘only boys that save their pennies make my rainy day’. The puns ‘perform an ideological work by associating economic success with sexual success, a common strategy of popular culture in patriarchal capitalism’, claiming that woman have the ability to achieve sexual-economic independence (Fiske 313). Madonna embodies the new ‘postmodern feminist’ heroine in her remarkable combination of

seductiveness and courageous sort of independence (Kaplan 117). This postmodern feminism is a part of a larger postmodernist phenomenon ‘which her video also embodies in its blurring of hitherto sacrosanct boundaries and polarities. The usual bipolar categories- male/female, high art/pop art, film/TV, fiction/reality, private/public, interior/exterior, etc. – simply no longer apply to ‘Material Girl’’(Kaplan 126).

According to Kaplan, ‘Material Girl’ also violates the traditional conventions of the classical cinematic gaze and look. In the movie Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Kaplan recognizes the familiar Hollywood situation in the sequence in which Monroe performs her dance

routine: ‘the woman’s performing permits her double articulation as spectacle for the male gaze (i.e. she is object of desire for both the male spectator in the diegetic audience and for the spectator in the cinema watching the film)’ (119). The situation is far more complicated when we look at the music video, because it violates the traditional conventions of the classical cinematic gaze and look, which paradoxically was a source of inspiration for the music video (Kaplan 123). Even though the music video seems to foreground these traditional

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conventions, it does not comment on them, which makes the music video more pastiche than parody (Kaplan 120). Despite that the music video seem to remain within those conventions on the surface, Kaplan argues that in contrast to the movie the space relations are not clear and that it is uncertain who is constructing the shots in the music video. Kaplan discusses four options of who this could be: first, Madonna as a historical star subject, second Madonna I the movie star and central figure within the ‘framing’ diegesis, third Madonna II the character within the dance sequence and fourth the director who has fallen in love with the image and is longing to get a hold of her (Kaplan 119). Kaplan analyses the entire music video, but I will shortly discus one example of the gaze of the director. Visually, the gaze of the director gives the impression that it is structuring a part of the shots, but this is not happening consistently as the cinematic gaze in the Monroe sequence. There is a scene in the music video in which Madonna I is talking on the phone about a present she received from her admirer. There has been no narrative preparation for this new space, but it gets clear from the conversation of Madonna that it is her dressing room. During her phone call, the camera is slowly moving backwards to the door of her room where it reveals that the director is overhearing her phone call. This makes it questionable whether it was the director’s gaze that was structuring the shot all the time. When the camera reveals the director, it becomes his gaze and Madonna I its object (121). The blurring of diegetic spaces in the music video causes disorientation with the viewers, which further suggests postmodernism, as does the ambiguous representation of the female image (Kaplan 126).

Similar to Madonna, Jackson’s sexuality has also been the focus of public fascination, and his ambiguous sexual preference in particular. Jackson had an androgynous image that was neither masculine nor feminine and Jackson uses his music video to bring up the ambiguous representation of his image (Mercer 29). White male stars during that time, such as Mick Jagger and David Bowie, used androgyny and sexual ambiguity as a characteristic of their image and were thereby questioning dominant definitions of male sexuality and sexual identity (Mercer 42). What makes Jackson’s work different is that it is located in the Afro-American tradition of popular music and must be considered in the context of the

representation of black men and black male sexuality. Besides that Jackson questions dominant stereotypes of black masculinity in his music video, he also turns away from the settled categories of different ‘types’ of black men: ‘If we regard his face, not as the manifestation of personality traits but as a surface of artistic and social inscription, the

ambiguities of Jackson’s image call into question received ideas about what male black artists in popular music should look like’ (Mercer 42-43).

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Because the album Thriller already was a commercial success before ‘Thriller’ was released as a single, there was no pressure to sell a high number of the single. This gave Jackson the freedom to use the music video to showcase himself as an actor by using

cinematic codes and structures (Mercer 30). Landis incorporated two important elements from film into the music video: ‘a narrative direction of the flow of images and special-effects techniques associated with the pleasure of the horror film’ (Mercer 33). In the music video, Jackson plays different roles and engages in a comical parody of the conventions and

stereotypes of the horror movie genre. The music video is a story in a story. In the first story, Jackson transforms into a werewolf and in the second story into a zombie. ‘Thriller’ violates the conventional film plot, because the visual narrative that is structuring the music video has no story to tell: ‘Rather it creates a simulacrum of a story, a parody of a story, in its stylistic sendup of genre conventions’ (Mercer 37). The lyrics of the song ‘Thriller’ call forth to the quotations and references to the ‘horror’ genre in order to play with the meaning of the word ‘thrill’. In the song the word ‘thrill’ is linked to physical sexuality, which is considered as a characteristic of the soul tradition. This soul tradition is also reflected in the rap, performed by Vincent Price, a well-known white actor. Vincent Price calls upon the parody of ‘horror’, but the song also has a sense of humour when the white Price delivers a rap, which is seen as a black urban cultural form. Price quotes soul jargon like ‘get down’, ‘funk of forty thousand years’, and ‘y’awl’s neighbourhood’ in a completely different context of horror movies (Mercer 32). Other literary aspects of the music video can also be considered as parody, for example the use the use of special sound effects such as creaking doors and howling dogs as a parody of the horror film genre

2.3 ‘Material Girl’ and ‘Thriller’ as part of metanarrative of stardom in the

1980s

Madonna and Jackson were both subject of speculation and rumour spread through the media, which contributed to the construction of their image. Both ‘Thriller’ as ‘Material Girl’ relate to their career and play with the images created by the media Most critics did not had a lot of good things to say about Madonna, but they had a lot to say about her image, also referred to as ‘the Madonna look’. As previous stated, it is said that Madonna owes her success in the 1980s to her music videos, in which she uses her sexuality to make as much as money possible. It was also claimed that she would earn her income from the most helpless and exploited group, namely young girls. Even though her music videos exploit sexuality by

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showing her body in a seductive way which is often subordinate to men with particular postures, Fiske beliefs that this belief is indisputable (304). According to Fiske, Madonna knows the importance of ‘the look’, a concept that involves: ‘how she looks (what she looks like), how she looks (how she gazes at others-the camera in particular), and how others look at her’ (Fiske 315). Generally looking is associated with the control of men and the male look has been fundamental in the patriarchal control over women. Madonna’s look was

self-defining, an attitude that was difficult for other woman to achieve, but she showed other woman that they could take control over the look if they wanted to be in charge of their own meanings within patriarchy (Fiske 315; Bordo 268). Madonna had created a persona that was connected to the desire to provoke and this could also explain that her rebellious sexuality was so appealing to teenage girls, but her image was more than an ideological role model for young girls. It could also be viewed as ‘a site of semiotic struggle between the forces of patriarchal control and feminine resistance, of capitalism and the subordinate, of the adult, and the young’ (Fiske 305). Madonna created her first persona between 1983-1985 and it was called ‘Boy Toy’ a name what Madonna picked for herself. The persona was promoted by the movie Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) starring Madonna, in which she plays a character that was a typical girl from New York and very underground. She wears ‘black leather and silver metal belts, with buckles bearing the inscription Boy Toy, superimposed heterogeneous necklaces, beads, crucifixes, cut-off gloves, black leather, black lace, dozens of cheap

bracelets, and garish make up’ (Guilbert 30).

‘Material Girl’ and Desperately Seeking Susan were released shortly after each other and ‘Material Girl’ was designed to establish Madonna’s image as an authentic star (Goodwin 100). This happened in the first place by the intertextual reference to Monroe who was known as a cultural icon of the 1950s (Fiske 310). Furthermore, the establishment of Madonna’s image as an authentic star becomes even more evident in the beginning of the visual narrative of ‘Material Girl’. The music video opens with a dialogue between the movie director and his co-partner, watching Madonna on the big screen:

‘Director: She’s fantastic, I knew she would be a star.

Producer: She could be, she could be great, she could be a major star. Director: She is a star.

Producer: The biggest star in the universe right now as we speak.’

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because Desperately Seeking Susan was about to be released and Madonna stood on the edge of breaking through as a movie star. This makes the music video function as a metanarrative of stardom, because the music video ‘Material Girl’ is star-centred and relates to the story of Madonna and her career (Goodwin 128). Even though there are a lot of similarities between Monroe and Madonna in the music video, the differences are more forward. During the dance sequence, Madonna collects jewellery from the men standing around her and sings that men with money only have a chance with her, resembling Monroe’s performance, but Madonna is actually playing around. She shows that the jewellery the men gave to her, did not bought any power over her, which is contrary to the performance of Monroe (Fiske 310). Madonna presents herself as a woman who is in charge of her own image and her excessiveness in ‘Material Girl’ invites the viewer to question certain ideologies. Madonna’s music videos refer to the production of the image of woman, but also make the control over the production of the image a part of the music video (Fiske 311-312).

Just like Madonna, Jackson’s image was also an important element to his success. Jackson stood out with his individual style, which was characterized by his ‘ankle-cut jeans, the single-gloved hand and above all, the wet-look-hair-style which have become his

trademarks, have influenced the sartorial repertoires of black and white youth cultures and been incorporated into mainstream fashion’ (Mercer 27). The changes in Jackson his looks and physical appearance throughout his life are noteworthy. Jackson began as a member of the Jackson 5 as a cute, Afro-American child with a big afro hairstyle. He gradually turned into a young adult with a light skin tone, a nose which seemed sharper, more hooked and less round than the ‘African’ nose he used to have and his lips seemed thinner. His huge afro hairstyle, had made place for a curly wet-look which became his new stylistic trademark. The transformation that Jackson went through was remarkable, which triggered the media to build a mythology around it. As a result the media had fabricated a ‘persona’ behind the image of Jackson, which caused a lot of speculation and rumours. The media could not pin Jackson down, he was ‘neither child nor man, not clearly either black or white and with an

androgynous image, that is neither masculine nor feminine, Jackson’s star-image is a “social hieroglyph”’(Mercer 28-29). The music video ‘Thriller’ functions as a metanarrative of stardom, because the rumours about Jackson are reflected in the visual narrative of the music video. The music video deals with Jackson’s ‘freaky’ image by showing Jackson in various guises Jackson’s role of a movie star in the beginning of the video is the role the audience is familiar with, namely Jackson as the ‘star’. This is emphasized by his outfit and stylistic trademarks such as his wet-look hairstyle and ankle-cut jeans. When Jackson says he is

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‘different’ from the other guys, it reveals some confusion about the role Jackson is playing. According to Mercer, this warning can be read as a reference to Jackson’s sexuality and functions as a supplementary commentary on the sexuality and sexual identity of Jackson (38). Mercer links and understands the transformations of Jackson into a werewolf and zombie in the music video, as signs of male sexuality. The werewolf demonstrates the male sexuality as ‘naturally’, bestial, predatory, aggressive, and violent, in one word ‘monstrous’. This monster could suggest that beneath Jackson’s image there is a ‘real’ man that wants to break through. In the middle section of the music video, before his second transformation, Jackson takes on the imagery that copies the publicity images of Jackson as a stage performer and becomes ‘himself’ again (Mercer 39). In his second transformation, Jackson becomes a zombie and begins the spectacular dance sequence in the music video. Different from the werewolf, the zombie does not represent sexuality, because it is an undead corpse. The zombie represents asexuality and the dance sequence can be read as ‘cryptic writing on this ‘sexual vagueness’ of Jackson’s body in movement, in counterpoint to the androgyny of his image’ (Mercer 40). The dance sequence can also be read as a commentary on the messages of the media, that Jackson would only ‘come alive’ when he is performing on stage (Mercer 40). The media build a construction of a Peter Pan figure, because the image of Jackson would hide a lonesome, ‘lost boy’ who has a life that is led by fears and nasty obsessions. This person would have a life like a hermit and would only come alive when he performed on stage in front of his fans (Mercer 28). Finally, Mercer sees Jackson his transformations into a werewolf and monster in the music video ‘Thriller’, as ‘a metaphor for the aesthetic

reconstruction of Jackson’s face: ‘the literal construction of the fantastic monster-masks refers to other images of the star: the referent of the mask, a sign in its own right, is a commonplace publicity image taken from the cover of a magazine’ (41).

Michael Jackson is an example of an artist who is mixing the consistent and contradictory personas in his music videos. He was known for being an unusual and extravagant artist, which the music videos from his album Bad (1987) seem to spread even further. For example the music videos ‘Bad’ and ‘The way you make me feel’ present Jackson handling with the though street life and ‘Man in the mirror’ shows how Jackson is involved with the less fortunate. These videos are in contrast to, for example ‘Thriller’, in which Jackson plays an extraordinary role (Goodwin 112).

Conclusion

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which heavily promoted their music videos. Jackson and Madonna were both ground-breaking with their music videos, because they paved the way for artists that in first place seemed disadvantaged to air on MTV due to their race or gender. Madonna and Jackson have been the focus of public fascination due to their sexuality. Madonna used ‘Material Girl’ and other of her music videos to consciously and periodically exploit the polarized contradictions of femininity, questioning the validity of these binary oppositions as a practice of

conceptualizing woman (Fiske 309). ‘Material Girl’ also functions as a metanarrative of stardom, because the music video is star-centred and relates to the story of Madonna and to her career (Goodwin 128). Jackson used his music video ‘Thriller’ to question dominant stereotypes of black masculinity and he brings up the ambiguous representation of his image that was much discussed in the media (Mercer 29). By dealing with the rumours in the music video and showing Jackson in various guises, such as Jackson the ‘movie star’ or Jackson ‘the performer’, makes the music video ‘Thriller’ functions as a metanarrative of stardom.

In the next chapter I will discuss the contemporary music video, to provide a sense of what the situation is of the online music video.

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3. Internet killed the video star?

Music videos in the 2010s

‘Sex, music and sports are the only entertainment categories on the planet that people love that can build audiences at the scale of billions of people, I'm in the business of connecting billions of people to music.’

-Rio Caraeff, founder of VEVO (qtd. in Halliday n. page)

In the late 1990s, the music industry was faced with declining revenues due to the introduction of MP3 files, file-sharing networks such as Napster and digital piracy. As a consequence, music videos could no longer count on the financial support of the music industry that they once used to have (Edmond 305). MTV slowly moved away from broadcasting music videos to reality television programming in order to get higher ratings, and even dropped the words ‘music television’ from its logo (Pareles qtd. in Edmond 307). Since MTV’s first broadcast in 1981, the music video has encountered different technologies and ways of audience engagement have changed (Vernallis 45). This chapter aims to provide a sense of what the situation is of the online music video.

I will do this in three steps, first I will discuss how online music videos are now considered as tools to generate revenue streams and how major media groups repositioned themselves as video exhibition platforms. For this step and the subsequent steps throughout this chapter, I will elaborate on the article of Maura Edmond ‘Here We Go Again: Music Videos after YouTube’. Edmond offers an outline of the changes that have occurred as music videos have moved from television to the Internet and she notes the impact that digital

convergence has had on music videos (Edmond 306). Secondly, I will discuss how the music video is a part of networked culture, because ‘viral videos’ are being acknowledged next to traditional music videos. I will do this by using the work of Henry Jenkins and Anna Munster, as they discuss how the online video can be considered as a part of a networked culture. Thirdly, I will discuss how social media are considered as an effective tool for the communication between artists and fans, by using the works of Sarah Thomas and Alice Marwick & Danah Boyd. Finally I will briefly discuss the release of Britney Spears her single

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‘Hold it Against Me’ as an example of how social media are used for viral marketing of music videos.

3.1 The online music video as a revenue stream

As discussed in the first chapter, MTV’s business strategy for music videos during the 1980s was straightforward. In exchange for the expense of a music video, record companies could show their music videos, whishing that they could generate more revenue from this exposure and increase their sales. The value of a music video for a record company was at that time entirely promotional, but nowadays music videos are considered as tools to generate revenue streams. There are different strategies to generate income from new releases as well as from existing music video and this happens in different ways, for example through paid downloads via third-party online stores such as iTunes (Edmond 308). Apple’s iTunes is known for its ‘pay-per-song’ model, in which you can download a song from the iTunes music store since 2003. The average price per song is €0,99 and once a song is bought, it can be played on up to five computers, burned to a CD, and downloaded to portable MP3 players without breaking any copyright or piracy laws (Allison qtd. in Hracs 451). Since September 2011, iTunes extended their service with a video download service where users can download movies, TV shows and music videos for the price of €1,99. From that moment, iTunes has become the market leader of the internet video market (NPD). Although users have the choice between millions of song titles, the iTunes store promotes the top 40 hit singles heavily. Additionally, with the ‘pay-per-song’ model, iTunes gives hit singles an advantage over entire albums, which further promotes the most marketed (music video) songs (Hracs 452).

During the 1980s, record companies distributed music videos to exhibitors and the exhibitors were the ones who tried to make money out of it in any way they could. Music television providers, for example, tried to generate revenue in the form of ‘advertising, sponsorship, pay-per-views, and subscriptions’ (Edmond 309). Due to the shift from the music video as a promotional tool to a tool that could generate income, major media groups repositioned themselves as video exhibition platforms (Edmond 309). Record companies became partners with other media companies to develop integrated syndication hubs, which challenges the traditional distribution between music television networks and record

companies (Edmond 310). The biggest syndication hub is VEVO, and was a response to the growing popularity of music videos on YouTube:

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‘Vevo was launched in 2009 as a joint venture between UMG, Sony Music

Entertainment, Abu Dhabi Media Company, and in partnership with Google/YouTube. In December 2009, VEVO also negotiated a licensing deal with EMI, whereas Warner Music signed a deal with Hulu, another joint-venture syndication hub incorporating NBC, Fox, and Disney/ABC’ (Edmond 310). VEVO offers music video content on its website and this content is managed by the major music groups and they are also the exclusive distributor of that content. VEVO is syndicating music video content to AOL, YouTube, Yahoo! and MTV.com’ (Edmond 310).

VEVO’s business strategy is about providing users with free music video content, which is funded by advertising, and hereby giving users an alternative to owning songs (Sweney n. pag). This is also profitable, because it provides valuable data about its users and can cultivate emotional loyalty (Edmond 309). In February 2015, VEVO released statistics that were a true landmark, namely ten billion monthly views, 10,335,997,898 to be precise. According to the company, they increased an 86 percent in viewership in comparison to February 2014 (Flanagan n. page). Rio Caraeff, founder of VEVO, believes that the future of music is about access and not ownership: ‘We're not trying to sell people music; our customers are not the small amount of people that want to buy music. We are about providing access: it is the only scalable model for the music industry; the question is, how do you do that and make money?’ (Caraeff qtd. in Sweney). Edmond argues that a syndication hub like VEVO is an answer to the two problems that the music industry has, dealing with music videos online. First, how to obtain licensing payments from sites like YouTube and second, how to make money with the popularity of music videos online without turning off audiences (Edmond 310).

Even though, VEVO challenges the traditional role of music television networks and their established relationships with record companies, the company is now trying to recreate MTV at its prime time in the 1980s with the introduction of VEVO TV. VEVO launched a 24-hour digital music channel in 2011, and is currently only available in the United States, Canada and Germany. With the channel, VEVO shows a selection of live concerts, music videos and original programming. Rio Caraeff argues that the shift towards portable devices shows that the form a linear experience that we know from MTV during 1980s, is still relevant to the digital generation, he argues: ‘It's really about a return to how it used to be. What we've learned is that there's a time and a place for on-demand and there's also a time and a place for a programmed, linear experience’ (Careaff qtd. in Halliday).