when did the golden age of music video end?

The MTV book stops at the Real World in 1992, but obviously some stuff happens after that (the effects of the Pellington/Bayer look, Spike Jonze, the Romanek blockbuster era, Gondry, Total Request Live, etc)

i kind of wanna say the OK Go treadmill video was the nail in the coffin in 2006, kind of defining the video's new role from "a ubiquitous, relentlessly repeated television commercial" to "something affordable that should hold your attention for one viewing on YouTube."

VEVO

when Hype Williams died.

i kind of wanna say the OK Go treadmill video was the nail in the coffin in 2006, kind of defining the video's new role from "a ubiquitous, relentlessly repeated television commercial" to "something affordable that should hold your attention for one viewing on YouTube."

Move Your Feet was specifically designed to be a small enough file to be emailed

when mtv stopped playing them

78.

To my mind, Music Video is so intimately tied to MTV, and the experience of watching MTV, that yes, its Golden Age ended when MTV stopped showing them IN SPITE OF THE FACT that (for a time) post-Golden Age videos were actually better by most metrics. (While they were more awesome, their awesomeness meant a whole lot less.)

i think music video still has its moments these days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpaPBCBjSVc

Ha, that's great

To my mind, Music Video is so intimately tied to MTV, and the experience of watching MTV, that yes, its Golden Age ended when MTV stopped showing them IN SPITE OF THE FACT that (for a time) post-Golden Age videos were actually better by most metrics. (While they were more awesome, their awesomeness meant a whole lot less.)

since my prime video watching period (and i'm guessing whiney's) goes past the real world moment, it's kind of hard to admit a "golden age" had passed without us noticing. but i definitely think that whenever MTV first did a weekend marathon of something that wasn't music videos should be considered as a drop-off point.

another reason to think 1992 is the cut-off along with the real world: it's the year of the first mtv movie awards

while videos still remained part of the package, it's pretty clear MTV was chasing bigger game at that point

so if we're going to call spike jonze a "silver age" video director - which feels right to me - when does THAT period end?

arguments for 2002:
Carson Daly leaves TRL
Michael Jackson and G'n'R humiliate themselves at VMAs while the Hives and the Vines celebrate the future of rock
The Osbournes debuts

christ just look at this

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band — "The Rising"
Pink — "Just Like a Pill"
Ja Rule, Ashanti and Nas — "Down 4 U"/"One Mic"
Shakira — "Objection (Tango)"
Eminem — "White America"/"Cleanin' Out My Closet"
P. Diddy (featuring Busta Rhymes, Ginuwine, Pharrell and Usher) — "Bad Boy for Life"/"I Need a Girl (Part One)/"I Need a Girl (Part Two)"/"Pass the Courvoisier, Part II"
Sheryl Crow — "Safe and Sound"
The Hives — "Main Offender"
The Vines — "Get Free"
Justin Timberlake (featuring Clipse) — "Like I Love You"
Guns N' Roses — "Welcome to the Jungle"/"Madagascar"/"Paradise City"

And from the perspective of history I'm all "Since when did G'n'R do a soundtrack title song for THAT franchise?"

since my prime video watching period (and i'm guessing whiney's) goes past the real world moment, it's kind of hard to admit a "golden age" had passed without us noticing.

think the deal is that the "golden age of music video" ends when you wake up one morning and notice that that you don't really give a shit about music videos any more

i still give a shit about music videos!

I mean definitely the end is not exactly "when mtv stopped playing videos" (they still play videos! albeit for like two hours a day maybe); but when MTV's focus on music videos shrunk to the point where watching music videos was less of cultural touchstone.

I often think about how easy it is for a Family Guy/Simpsons/Weird Al to just make jokes about "Thriller" or "Take on Me" or "Money for Nothing" or "Sledgehammer" and then I think just exactly how many ICONIC (ie, bigger than music nerds) music videos have there even been in the 00s? Once with imagery that lots of people outside of ILX would regonize?

END OF THE MUSIC VIDEO ERA REMNANTS
D'Angelo - Untitled
Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice
White Stripes - Fell in Love With A Girl
White Stripes - Hardest Button to Button

*2005 to 2007 is dead zone except the OK Go treadmill video*

THROWBACK/VIRAL ERA
a handful of Lada Gaga videos (Bad Romance, Telephone, Paparazzi)
Beyonce - Single Ladies
Katy Perry - California Gurls

I almost thing this is evidence that "Hardest Button to Button" was end of an era. They probably could pull this off for anyother video until "Single Ladies" like FIVE YEARS LATER, when there was a whole new model for video distro set up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLxtOk5ojlI&feature=related

...maybe, but that Gondry-style of arty "DVD single" style of video making was '96 onward, no? The first videos I remember seeing that were more than a) glitzy commercials or b) live footage are like "It's oh so quiet", "Sabotage", Rockafeller Skank"

Or maybe I'm being uncharitable to the artfulness of "Heart-shaped box". (Also I guess "Sabotage" was '94, whoops)

It probably ended sometime in the 90's when Beavis and Butthead were all over MTV making fun of videos, it was around that time that people started taking videos less seriously and they went from being EVENTS to just another form of disposable entertainment.

Or maybe I'm being uncharitable to the artfulness of "Heart-shaped box" "Estranged".

bbbbut "Estranged" is exactly the glitzy commercial I'm talking about, see also "Scream", you know?

I guess "Sledgehammer" and "Take on me" are pretty video art tho, I dunno

just exactly how many ICONIC (ie, bigger than music nerds) music videos have there even been in the 00s? Once with imagery that lots of people outside of ILX would regonize?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM1fkHQP_Pw

xp: no, I know. but it was "supposed" to be a big art thing. I mean, that was the mythology around it.

Im on my phone and can't see what YouTube crut posted. Is it Rebecca Black ?

i don't think hsb is much different though, fwiw.

I really want novaselic's pants though wow!

xposts it's fatboy slim - "weapon of choice" from 2001, a song that entered into mainstream consciousness purely through its video - people probably don't even remember the song, they just remember christopher walken dancing - this probably places it more in the OK Go! side of the spectrum tho, also it was 2001 so that's barely even the 00s I guess - pre-youtube, pre-9/11

There's very few songs anymore that you cant seperate from the video. Back in the day, you couldn't seperate 75% of the Billboard top 20! The only song I can't seperate from the video right now is Katy Perry. I'm sure the Gotye might do that to some ppl too ( not me)

i guess "bad romance" would qualify as an iconic video w/ instantly recognizable imagery

"Weapon of Choice" and "Bad Romance" we're both in my post above btw

Pretty sure the "Call me maybe" moustache + photo booth video is as culturally resonant as any other video mentioned here

"Countdown" even if it wasn't "Single Ladies"

Man I miss Missy videos I could watch them all day

would fan videos count? i feel like conditions are right for a fan video creative explosion.

Yeah, OK, that's the end of the golden age for me, when Tommy Lee shows up in "Lose Control". Eminem hasn't made a good one since then either. Youtube started business and there was two solid years of college freshmen lip-syncing to Backstreet Boys. 2005 was the end.

it's fatboy slim - "weapon of choice" from 2001, a song that entered into mainstream consciousness purely through its video

Yeah, at some point in the 90's, you had acts like Fatboy Slim and Jamiroquai who became huge video stars without being huge stars or selling all that many records (e.g. "Travelling Without Moving" was only 1x platinum in the US, but everyone remembers the videos from the album). Before that, you more likely had to be a cultural (and sales) phenomenon on the Madonna/Michael Jackson/Nirvana to have iconic videos.

I think you should also consider a couple of other Katy Perry videos, too: "Firework" (sparkling boobs) and "Last Friday Night" (headgear + 80s homage)

I don't know how true this is for anyone else but I also feel strong song/video correlation for the first few Kanye singles (esp. "All Falls Down" and "Jesus Walks")

feel like the golden age of music videos was the mid to late 90s when record companies still had enough money to regularly produce excessive rococo vidz with non-musical interludes and shit the apotheosis of these being like the video for will smiths wild wild west

most videos from the late 80s are total garbage but maybe you had to watch them on tvs idk

I guess by "golden age," I really meant "the music video era" aka 1981- ?

before it began

Re: my original query. But feel free to think about when the actual golden age was too!

yeah imm 'golden age of music videos' is distinct from the golden age of mtv and from 'the time when people watched music videos' i guess? i agree generally with your timeline upthread tho

I wasn't trolling - well not completely - by saying that cause i was thinking of the proto/early days before music video became formalized, roughly 1978-82 when the first wave of stuff that showed up on MTV during its launch was coming out. at the dawn of the 80s all the post-cbgb/max's rock clubs in NYC installed screens or TVs that played videos in between bands. the menu was a catch-all of mostly English new wave videos, what would become the initial MTV playlist (minus REO Speedwagon etc) essentially what was out there. before "Billie Jean"/big budgets but as cheap as many of the videos were there was a wide-open creativity at play too. of course it helps if you think this music has aged surprisingly well like I do.

Yeah, at some point in the 90's, you had acts like Fatboy Slim and Jamiroquai who became huge video stars without being huge stars or selling all that many records (e.g. "Travelling Without Moving" was only 1x platinum in the US, but everyone remembers the videos from the album). Before that, you more likely had to be a cultural (and sales) phenomenon on the Madonna/Michael Jackson/Nirvana to have iconic videos.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Sunday, August 12, 2012 9:34 AM (1 hour ago)

i don't think this is really true. in the early days of MTV, comparably marginal bands often produced "iconic" videos that earned them most of what notice they received. twisted sister, for example.

i think big part of the problem with deducing this is that if you're an ilxor in your late 20s/early 30s you obviously gave a colossal fuck about '90s music videos and weren't really there for the mid-80s.

so it's like "yeah, yeah, flock of seagulls, OH MAN WHO CAN FORGET JAMIROQUAI"

i think the late '90s - gondry, jonze, cunningham, etc - was definitely some kind of golden age, ppl talked about those videos like crazy!

but 'thriller' etc was kind of its own golden age too.

i like splitting it 82-92 "golden age"/92-02 "silver age" to give respect to kids who remember when MTV only played videos and kids who remember when MTV started putting "dir." in the credits

and comics kids should know silver age can be better than golden age, it's just what came first

just checked and director credits started in late 1992 so there you go

i think the late '90s - gondry, jonze, cunningham, etc - was definitely some kind of golden age, ppl talked about those videos like crazy!

videos have appealed to the pop audience in pretty much the same way since they became a force in the early 80s. they've always been "viral", in a sense, tools to create excitement memes that would be passed around by a young, engaged and excited audience. most have always been crap, and against that field, a few stand out and attract special notice.

i don't think this is really true. in the early days of MTV, comparably marginal bands often produced "iconic" videos that earned them most of what notice they received. twisted sister, for example.

― contenderizer, Sunday, August 12, 2012 9:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

After I posted that, I also thought of Twisted Sister as an counterexample ... but they still sold millions on the back of that single. A-ha are remembered as a one-hit wonder in the US, but it was a #1 hit and everyone remembers the song (and video). Jamiroquai somehow didn't sell nearly as many records, it was mainly the video that was a hit.

*2005 to 2007 is dead zone except the OK Go treadmill video*

Eminem - "Mosh"
LONELY ISLAND

we're all in agreement that the reason the golden age ended is people stopped buying records, right

golden age seems really hard to quantify -- i feel like right now is actually a pretty good time to make a video if that's what you want to do.

how about what's the most expensive age of music video?

in the wikipedia top 39(?) most expensive videos of all time list, you've got one pre-82, 10 from 82-1991, 18 from 1992-2001 and 10 from 2002-2012. Three of the ten in the last decade are for Ayumi Hamaski, so I think it's pretty clearly that 90s run.

but they still sold millions on the back of that single. A-ha are remembered as a one-hit wonder in the US, but it was a #1 hit and everyone remembers the song (and video). Jamiroquai somehow didn't sell nearly as many records, it was mainly the video that was a hit.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Sunday, August 12, 2012 11:54 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, traveling without moving was only a modest hit in the states, but it did quite well internationally. maybe more a quirk of US taste than anything else.

Lonely Island is the perfect example of the age of music video being dead. A fake comedy music video getting more traction than anything Madonna was doing that year!

by the time Carson skipped off TRL, MTV didn't give a fuck about videos and the internet made them equal in standing to any other clip

you could even argue that the "modern age" of videos starts around the time youtube pops up in 2005 and people like Beyonce, Lady Gaga and OK Go realize that they're really competing with videos of babies laughing and fails.

"Three of the ten in the last decade are for Ayumi Hamaski"

the jpop/kpop video scene does seem to dominate nowadays in terms of throwing a lot of money at something.

we're all in agreement that the reason the golden age ended is people stopped buying records, right

yeah i think record co. finances are as much a reason for the end of that 92-02 run as carson leaving trl

i do think tho that w/o youtube or a similar platform vidz wld p much dead but i think theres been a resurgence in people caring abt/making 'cool' music videos again

every video on the list after 2002 that isn't ayumi was under $1.5 except George Michael's "Freek!" and Madonna's "Give Me All Your Lovin'"

under $1.5m, i mean

the jpop/kpop video scene does seem to dominate nowadays in terms of throwing a lot of money at something.

Indeed. This thread's title needs to have the words **for white Westerners** appended to it.

yeah i think record co. finances are as much a reason for the end of that 92-02 run as carson leaving trl

i'm really using carson heading off for later as a signpost rather than the cause, gimme some credit

This thread's title needs to have the words **for white Westerners** appended to it.

i get westerner but not white

i thought it said **for wim wenderers**

well obviously the golden age of video for wim wenderers is U2's "Stay (Far Away, So Close!)" through the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDyDz8WeiM4

i'm really using carson heading off for later as a signpost rather than the cause, gimme some credit

haha no i get that but i figured it was a signpost for like the diminishing mass audience for videos and/or limited distribution channels for videos which seemed distinct from the point abt no one buying records to finance elaborate videos anymore? idk

i dont really agree w/whiney that the music video is 'dead' though i think in the youtube era theres still some distinguishing quality to the ***OFFICIAL VIDEO*** that the audience values/cares about? im not sure i can pinpoint it exactly though...

in the rolling video thread that gr8080 started i kinda noted that post-youtube the sort of videos that people share/care about tend not to be the big story-driven vidz that thriller set the template for but more high-concept visually arresting stuff built around one or two signal images, which def tend to be cheaper to make and easier to spread on small screens. but people have even started to make those kind of narrative vidz again like there was that terrible one w/jake gyllenhaal that seemed p big this spring? a lot of non-music nerds mentioned that one to me at least

haha no i get that but i figured it was a signpost for like the diminishing mass audience for videos and/or limited distribution channels for videos which seemed distinct from the point abt no one buying records to finance elaborate videos anymore? idk

the two are pretty linked by the internet

I've been coping by watching Michael Jackson's Vision box set this weekend B)