As an antidote to all the doom and gloom in our media I subscribe to www.gimundo.com, the good news website. Everyday they send me the latest good news stories from around the world, guaranteed to put a smile on my face, make me gasp in wonder or be grateful that we have some pretty amazing and wonderful human beings (and animals) in the world. From stories of great courage to jaw dropping heroics, from videos of awesome natural beauty to hilarious animal antics, from simple feel-great-about-yourself top 10 lists to clever, creative little films, there’s something to make you glad about life.
Their latest offering is this adorable Japanese music video by a band called Sour which was filmed entirely using webcam footage from their fans around the world. How far we have advanced with technology yet it’s still all about the people.
Thanks to the many social networking sites that are now available, it is easy for musicians to communicate with their audience and vice versa. Before the likes of MySpace,Facebook and Bebo fans had no quick way of getting messages to their favourite artist. The only way was probably a letter or an email but the chances of them to respond were quite unlikely.
But this has all changed recently. Musicians all have their own websites, many have their own blogs and have profiles on most social networking sites. This gives the fans the opportunity to directly ask their favourite musician questions, find out where in the world they are and also gives the fans the chance to buy their latest song or album (or at least direct them to a site where they can). This also allows the musicians to keep their fans informed of what they are currently doing etc.
As an example of how musicians are using social media I shall take a look at which sites Lily Allen is using. Lily was one of the first artists to use MySpace and see success from the site. The tracks she posted attracted many listens so much so that The Observer Music Monthly took interest and wrote an article about her MySpace tracks. Over the next few years Lily became a success and went on to realise two albums Alright, Still and It’s not me, It’s you.
Lily still has her famous MySpace page complete with her blog. You can follow Lily on Twitter,@lilyroseallen, you can become a fan on Bebo and Facebook, you can watch all her music videos on her YouTube channel and you can listen to her tracks and other artists like her on her LastFM account. Then on top of all this Lily has her own website you can visit.
Here is ‘The Fear’ taken from Lily’s latest album, this is not the radio edit so please be careful!
MTV was launched in the USA, 1st August 1981. The first music video it played was The Buggles song Video Killed the Radio Star but was this to be the case? In my creative insight I want to look at the changing style of MTV. I grew up with the channel in the UK, which as it became more popular with the masses it grew into a worldwide brand – MTV UK now has 16 channels! I even wrote a chapter of my dissertation about the role the MTV plays for music videos.
When MTV first launched they their ident was the big black and white M with TV stuck on the right hand side, it was simple – it stood for Music Television – MTV.
The first of promos for MTV are bright, colourful and fast paced. The “I want my MTV” campaign from 1982 used a variety of musicians including David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper and The Police to promote the year old channel. The fast growth of the music channel was highlighted in the Dire Straights song ‘Money for Nothing’ with the “I want my MTV” slogan being used.
The latest promos have stepped away from using musicians to promote the channel and uses fun animations instead.
The simpleness of the black and white MTV logo ensured that the it could be used in a variety of different colours and ways, but it was still recognizable to the audience. Today the original MTV logo is still used and featured in the idents for the whole family of MTV channels.
MTV has tried to cater to different audience needs by creating genre specific channels such as MTV2,MTV hits and MTV base which do show more music videos than the MTV1 channel.
The creation of MTV led to a huge change in popular culture with films, TV programmes and future music videos incorporating the MTV style. This new style also paved the way for new directors such as Spike Jonze and Hype Williams.
Originally set up to be a 24 hour music video channel, the content now on the main MTV1 channel in the UK is mainly reality TV shows with a few music videos in between. Shows like The Hills and Jackass had global success since being shown on MTV.
There have been many criticisms of MTV over the past 25 years, some saying they brainwashed the MTV generation but personally I think that people can accept what they want from MTV and its various channels. MTV do not show the most intellectual programmes, if the audience wanted that they would be watching another channel, but it is easy watching, and something that doesn’t require a great deal of concentration.
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