Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Saturday, 5 November 2016

RETROMANIA New life on Mars for 1973 Bowie promo

Student videos often tap into the possibility of promo campaigns targeting a new, younger audience. Some of the re-formed Pixies videos, such as Bagboy, are a good example of this approach in practice by established artists.

Bowie is not the first to get either a new video (there have been several posthumous videos for Elvis, Biggie, Tupac and more, not to mention the hologram live appearances by Ronnie Dio, Michael Jackson and more) or a re-edit, but the news that a 1973 promo clip is being revisited by its director and editor could inspire more such work.

This could offer buying incentives to repackaged best of albums, and at minimum is a cheap means of gaining free media publicity through media coverage. Video plays are monetised, even if the payment levels are controversially low per online view, and video collections remain a useful means of monetising through DVD sales (eg, I've pre-ordered a new Depeche Mode DVD collecting their video work, a November release that should sell well in the gap between album releases and tours).



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