Friday, January 20, 2012

Did it?

Did video kill the radio star?

I say no on instinct. Think of the success of President Carter's recent Cash Money Records derived Young Money signature through radio and video. Acts like those of Britney Spears,T-Pain, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rihanna, Eminem, Kanye West, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, or 311 might all have still attained popular name recognition independent of their video presence.

Plainly both music independent and hinged to video are still alive. Radio has transitioned from the days of exclusively providing auditory drama, news, and some music programming with a schedule of limited hours...

...to broadcasting 24-7 over satellite and the internet with virtually limitless content. Now that commercial music videos exists less as an entertainment medium on cable TV and more through the internet the experience of watching video has gone miniature and mobile. Much more passive was the experience of couch surfing than the kind of social cell phone passing to provide each member in a group a chance to dj momentarily. I would guess that broadcast radio still serves to inform consumers of what videos to watch, albums to purchase and mp3s to download as it provides the pulse to the circulatory system of our domestic economic organism: by which I mean the highway transportation system.


Could I argue yes?


Upon a little examination of music videos emergence on MTV the format may have wounded the radio star for a time but youtube and the prevalence of portable video may put the radio star down.

Nowadays the size of too many a human individual's cosmos is defined by the first screen in front of them. -The Skunkape (most elusive)

In essence divide those who enjoy the sound of music for the sound and those who enjoy the music for all the image that surrounds popular music, clubs/lights/concerts/drinking/drugs/image/fashion/luxury/ and an elite "Rock n Roll" fantasy.

One and the same and seperate sometimes the lyrics and the image of a video are... one to one

Other times they are completely unrelated do not even include the artists as a guiding focal point
some are even live performance footage like this...
...and not the dressed up perfectly lit studio work: maybe call these raw.

studio/abstract/raw/synthesis of each

Different people will have different tastes and within each aesthetic preference there may by those who don't mind not observing every moment of a video continuously. This option of video for the ones who want it and music for those who just want music may become widely available in a new digital format. Music visualizing software provide improvised music videos from mathematical algorithms for any song without a video, and before long a visualizer like the XBox 360s may always be available on portable music peripherals. I've observed many an instance in which youtube windows in browsers sit tabbed in the background while the music plays on.
Any of the songs from these three video categories might still be successful on radio where video
limits the associative capability of the musical landscape to a single visual referent.

In the end I think there are those who want to be able to do active things while they enjoy music. The video format doesn't accommodate this if requisite focus for the length of an entire song by the viewer is necessitated to have a satisfactory entertainment experience. No one who enjoys listening to their music collection during an outdoor exercise like cross country running needs a video screen preventing them from focusing on their path. Videos for treadmill runners and weight lifters and other captive audiences however make sense.

Piracy and technology will define the next chapter.