Do Music Videos Still Matter?

Ok Go recently released the video for their new single All Is Not Lost, and within minutes it was making YouTube-shaped waves around social media outlets. This follows previous music video infamy, where the band members majestically jog, bounce and slide around on treadmills for their track Here It Goes Again that creates a whole new reason to go to the gym.

Sticking with being highly original, with equal measures of surprising and funny, the newest video has the band wearing skin-tight green lycra suits, making shapes and doing stunts on a transparent floor. While the tightness in certain areas is sometimes a little distracting, the video delivers some impressive visuals that actually made me like the song a whole lot more than I expect I would have done if I had only engaged my ears.

This, of course is the whole point of the music video. A form that grew out of musicals and band feature films (think more A Hard Day’s Night than Spice World), the business took off in the eighties and nineties when people went mad for the likes of Michael Jackson’s Thriller; an epic work that is inseparable from the actual track.

Even when the nineties had come and gone, taking the multi-character goofball genius of Foo Fighters‘ Learn To Fly with it, I remember an embarrassing amount of hours were spent in my teenagedom watching the reems of music video channels that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. With Britney Spears wearing her tiny knickers over her jeans and sweating a lot, and J-Lo‘s arse, just, being there, they were still a big deal.

But, now, who really cares? Apart from Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Rihanna, who are unlikely to be watched purely for their musical assets, the music video just doesn’t fit with people’s lifestyles any more. Now, it’s all about music on the go, music streaming, music live – not music on the TV being unconvincingly mimed.

For the music video to survive, people will have to start thinking outside the box. In this case, Ok Go have been successful, and I hope others are encouraged to do the same.

Now, treat yourself, have a watch.