Bat Bites: Music Videos... Art or Marketing?

My husband and I have the laptop hooked up to the plasma screen and we're watching music videos. It's very interesting how music videos have evolved from the height of MTV to the current day when you have to seek them out on YouTube or other places online, unless you're into hip hop videos and watch VH-1 at 8am (we're too cheap to have the extended cable with video channels ;-)

Today's videos just don't seem to have the same heart. The editing is much faster, the graphics are slicker but I sort of miss all the weird imagery (and bad synth) of the 80s... like She Bop from Cyndi Lauper and Safety Dance from Men Without Hats and Take on Me from A-Ha. Rock of Ages and Photograph from Def Leppard are 2 favorites. Other honorable mentions are Ratt's Round & Round and Guns & Roses Welcome to the Jungle. Hot for Teacher by Van Halen... now that was a great video! Okay, you've caught me... hair bands are a guilty pleasure.

It seems like it's tough to get a good video seen these days. With desktop editing systems so inexpensive any band can create a slick music video. Back in the day, an Avid would cost $50k, now you can get a full Final Cut Studio suite for $1300. Adobe's stuff is around the same cost. Render times are shorter, effects are more powerful. In my opinion, this has a lot to do with the glut of uninteresting music videos. All you need is to make your band look cool... who needs a good concept just a quick video at the release of the song... something to upload to MySpace.

I know, I sound like the crotchety old man yelling at those damn kids to get off my lawn, but there are a lot of good videos out there, you just have to know where to look. Here's one new video that I really dig: Ida Maria's I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked. Besides being a fantastically catchy tune with a great title, this has some fun 80's style motion graphics (and that speak to me... haha). I love the color scheme and the newsprint type dots are great over the green screen footage.



I thought I'd share a few places I get my music video fix online.

• IF:MV - probably my favorite site for new music videos
• Feed Here - Great resource for vfx and motion graphics, and often have some great music videos.
• MTV Music Video Picks
• Antville - A huge list of the lastest music videos that are user submitted.
• Video Static - News about what's in production and links to videos that are just out.
• Dazed Digital - Music, fashion and more. Nice site as well.
• Daily Motion - New videos and older ones, and lots of French people on the site... nothing wrong with that of course, it just makes it tough to understand the comments if you don't parle vous.
• QOOB - Italian site with lots of good stuff.

If you have favorite sites you visit, please post the link in the comments. Also, if you're looking for any video editing or visual effects software or plug-ins, come talk to me. I am the czarina of video plug-ins. I am not kidding. That's an official title.