an ode to the music video
an ode to the music video
on my love for music videos and the power of the medium
It's somewhere between the years of 2012 and 2013 on an early weekday morning and I’m getting ready for school.
I begrudgingly zip up my giant puffer coat, grab my bag lunch, and slip on my shoes just in time to see the yellow of the school bus peak through the sheer white blinds that cover the front window of my house.
I'm the first to be picked up on the route that boards at my corner, so once I spot the bus, I sprint down my driveway and hurriedly trot up the black steps greeting my bus driver, Bob, in passing—the bus always reeks of the cigarette he just got done smoking not too long before he picked up the first kids of the day at my stop.
I make my way to the very last seat at the back of the bus, not getting a chance to sit down before Bob accelerates, sending me flying into the gray bench. I nestle into the corner of the ice-frosted windows, the heater on the ground warms my ankles and I wait for the heat to reach the rest of my frigid skin. I dig through the crumbled loose-leaf papers and worksheets that clutter my backpack to fish out my MP3 player and black wire headphones. I would either rotate through the few songs I had downloaded on it using Limewire, or turn on 103.7 KISS FM where I would listen to Milwaukee’s top pop, dance, and hip-hop hits in between the banter of morning show hosts Wes, Rahny, and Alley. Staring wistfully out the frosty windows, doodling on the frigid glass with the tip of my pointer finger, my mind was whisked away by the music. Suddenly I was no longer on the 6 AM bus to my middle school, I was anywhere I wanted to be, wherever the music took me. Moving images flashed in front of me, telling colorful stories to accompany the lyrics.
Music for me has always been as much a visual experience as it was an auditory one, so music videos are one of the most impactful, dynamic mediums artists have to enhance the already vivid emotion derived from their songs.
After school I would come home and watch BET’s 106 & Park, they would play the top 10 Hip-Hop and R&B music videos of that day, and hosts Terrence J and Rocsi would engage the crowd, bring out artists, and field different interviews centering the music. Watching these videos, I was always so enthralled by the production and the world these artists would create to accompany their work. The choreography, elaborate sets, and fashion added so much to the pictures that I had already started to draw up in my head staring out the window on the bus.
I was exposed to some of my favorite artists at that time like Mindless Behavior, a boyband I used to absolutely fawn over; and Frank Ocean, who is still my top artist to this day, watching 106 & Park. I would rewatch my favorite Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, and Drake videos on YouTube and discover new and old artists in the process.
Music videos both capture the feeling of the song and popular culture at the time in one short, dynamic film. They notably represent the time periods they’re created in, making them small time capsules for years to come. Music videos also give space for the artists to create a world and let us into some of the deep themes and ideas behind the music or even lean into the escapism of the song and paint pictures of fantasy, extravagance, and surrealism. It's a special space where music listening is intentionally paired with a visual experience where they are meant to truly dance together.
Music videos aren't quite the phenomenon they used to be in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, but director Cole Bennett, founder of multimedia music platform Lyrical Lemonade, is reviving the medium and forging a unique style that music hasn't seen before. With his whimsical editing style, larger-than-life settings, and vivid colors Bennett brings a playfulness to music videos, unlike anything I’ve seen before. Lyrical Lemonade videos have a distinct quality to them, visually striking, sense-exciting, and they always make space for the artist's personality to shine through in the performance.
As a consumer of music, and any art form, I want to experience the work from as many lenses as possible—and any good story has more than one side. Music videos allow for this multidimensional experience, engaging all the senses and tapping into many emotions in one perfectly packaged environment. I always leave them feeling energized and inspired.
The music video is a cultural hub, a gathering place for all facets of pop culture to come together and meld, dissect, and explore themes, let emotions tangle, and create something truly beautiful.
The music video serves as a cultural hub, a communal space where various facets of pop culture intertwine, themes are created and explored, emotions are personified, and ultimately crafts something truly beautiful.
I’ll leave you with a FEW of my favorites here:
this was NECESSARY!!! and i'll definitely be looking up lyrical lemonade!! all rise for the resurgence of music videos