Songs should not be something to watch
The question was simple and straightforward: “What song do you hear and automatically think of the music video?”
Black Jacket Symphony asked that question on its Facebook feed. There were more than 150 responses.
Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.” Dire Strait’s “Money for Nothing.” Duran Duran’s “Rio.” Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.” All were listed multiple times, along with dozens of others.
I also listed my choice: None.
Call me a pretentious snob because, in this case, I probably am. But I don’t hear any song and associate it with a music video. I honestly can’t figure out what videos have to do with music.
In its best form, music enriches the soul, brings joy, affirms life.
In its best form, a music video sells more copies of records or increases downloads.
It’s the difference between meaningful and marketing.
A song should create a specific image, something born in your imagination, something that’s uniquely you. No one — especially someone you don’t know — should tell you what a song means or how to interpret it or what emotions to experience. How presumptuous. And why would you let someone do that in the first place?
Sure, I saw music videos in the 1980s and ’90s and 2000s; they were unavoidable. And I realize that they’ve been absorbed into our musical DNA since MTV hit the airwaves in 1982. Music became something to watch, not something to hear.
Every single aimed at the Top 40 needed a video to jack up its popularity and video networks stood shoulder-to-shoulder with radio when it came to whether a song became a hit. No video? No one cares about the song — and that’s still true to a great extent.
Before we watched our music on the internet or TV or smartphones, though, people got out of their houses, went to the record store and bought their music. It was a form of entertainment.
Flipping through record racks was an enjoyable way to while away an hour or so. If you were lucky, in a moment of excitement and joy, you might find a new record you didn’t know a favorite band had released.
You’d buy it, take it home, listen to it start to finish. Maybe over and over on the same day. Along with the album cover and possible liner notes, it was an immersive experience. You’d think about how the music sounded, what it might be saying to you or what the writer was trying to get across.
It was not something to watch.