Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: Videos, in general Message-ID: <880@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Tue, 16-Jul-85 23:30:13 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.880 Posted: Tue Jul 16 23:30:13 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 04:39:06 EDT References: <1584@dciem.UUCP> Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 60 [reference at end] I really like videos, although I'll admit that there are lots of trashy ones. I tend to divide them up into a few classes: 1) "How many angles can you shoot the band from" Self-explanitory; these are almost always very boring. 2) Stories: these are the kind that Jeff is talking about. These are frequently interesting, but they only work for songs with stories. 3) "Image" videos: I think these are the most prevalent kind. Here we break down from plot and just show pictures. Erotic videos fall here. 4) Hallucinations: Forget pictures. These are so strange and incoherent that no other word will do. Other categories may spring to mind. I think story videos were doomed from the start; too many songs have no plot to hang on. It doesn't bother me. I'm sort of a collector of really strange videos, and most story videos aren't wierd enough by far. A video can help a borderline song, but something that's positively bad is beyond help. You have to have something to hang the images on. Also, another trend which Jeff does NOT remark upon is writing a song for a movie, and then having a video to sell the movie through the song. In article <1584@dciem.UUCP> jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson) writes: >Music videos have caught on and are a strong factor in the music industry, >but I can do without them. I think the concept is a good one; in fact, I >thought of the idea back in the 70's before anybody was doing them. I would >probably have made a couple myself if I had all the resources at my >disposal, so when I heard a few years ago that people were doing videos, >I was thrilled and very anxious to see what they had come up with. When >I finally did, I was very disappointed. My idea of a video was to have >the picture tell the same story and create the same moods as the music, >in such a way that they compliment each other, i.e. the whole is greater >than the sum of the parts. There have been some videos made this way; >I think Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" does a pretty good job of it, >though I visualised it for more abstract songs like Pink Floyd's "Echoes", >which conjures up some great visual images in my mind. The problem with >that is that "Echoes" may conjure up different images for somebody else, so >my concept is probably better for songs like "Smalltown Boy" that have >less room for interpretation, though I'm sure people would get much more >enjoyment out of a video for a song like "Echoes" if it doesn't conflict >with any of their pre-conceived visual images. Anyway, what bugs me is >that videos like "Smalltown Boy" are few and far between. More than 95% >of the videos around are, in my opinion, useless. Most of them have >nothing to do with the song, and the overabundance of lip-synching really >annoys me. (There's nothing wrong with having the artists appear in the >video, though even that isn't necessary, but lip-synching should be kept >to a minimum.) But what annoys me most is that recording artists now feel >obligated to do a video for every hit song, otherwise they won't be >successful. In addition to stacking the odds further against new artists >that can't afford to do videos, it means that there are a lot of bad videos >around. As a result, I almost never watch video shows, so I miss all of the >good videos too. Some songs just don't make good videos, and if you can't >do a good video, you shouldn't do one at all. Videos are another good >idea ruined by excess.