The music industry has been growing at a high speed in the modern era, and it is also a rapidly-changing industry. How is the music industry changing? From what I see, the scope of music production becomes wider, and it is becoming a lot more complex. Back in the days, music production was way simpler, music companies only have to cater for the music production and the album design before publishing the product. But then, in this contemporary world, music isn’t only about the music anymore, it is also about the concept, the aesthetics, and the branding – providing a whole package of auditory and visual stimulation.
All of this changes originated from the start of MTV in the 1980s. MTV was a television network that televised music videos 24/7, revolutionizing the way that people view (yes it’s a pun) music. Then at the beginning of the 21st century, the access to information has become much quicker with the Internet, everything available is within a click of your mouse without space restrictions. Just a few years after the Internet became popular, social media and video platforms had also flourished, providing an even faster access to music videos with centralized audiences. Since then, the production of music videos became a must for every artist.
Music videos do not only function as a provider of aesthetics, they also complement the lyrics to convey the artists’ ideas and thoughts to the audiences. But then, lyrics are always ambiguous, so we often get confused over the lyrics. One cause of such confusion is caused by the omission of antecedents of the pronouns. For example, in Katy Perry’s “Roar”, the line “you held me down, but I got up” is repeated multiple times in the lyrics, but what “you” refers to is never addressed. Therefore, the audiences can only hope the music video can help them out with the interpretation of the song.
Unfortunately, music videos are only going to add to the confusion because of the extensive use of symbolisms. An instance of that would be using birds to symbolize the concept of freedom. However, as human minds have great associative power, a referent can easily bring out multiple meanings, and so the real intentions of the producers can only be interpreted, which is a universal feature to all forms of arts.
On the Internet, we can always see people creating conspiracies about music videos, claiming that a number of them carries satanic messages, and they are a part of a bigger mind control program by the shadow government. One example of such accusations appears in the song “Where Are Ü Now” by Skrillex, Diplo and Justin Bieber, where Bieber dressed himself up as the devil for a split second.
To be honest, is there really necessary to spend time investigating all this? First, as mentioned, human conceptualizations are infinite, a single referent can bring out multiple meanings, therefore what you interpreted may not match with the producer’s intention. Secondly, there may be a possibility that music companies are using conspiracies as a marketing strategy to create noise for the artist, and there isn’t really any dark secrets after all. If, even if the secret government exists, is that something that we ordinary citizens can counter against? For most of the time, we can only sit back, relax, and enjoy the drama.
Therefore, we should live in the moment, don’t waste time investigating the demons in music videos, and don’t let the conspiracies ruin the enjoyment of watching an aesthetically pleasing music video.
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