In a link to the for music video for the New Pornographers’ song “Use It” (pretty funny in and of itself), Adam Finley of TV Squad writes:
I’m not sure why bands even make videos anymore, since they’re rarely seen by a mass audience, and those that do see them probably catch them at like 3 a.m. on MTV2.
I haven’t watched MTV with any regularity since the mid-’90s, and that was only to catch episodes of Aeon Flux and The Maxx, but I do think he’s got a point. I don’t think music videos have become obsolete as a marketing tool — and there were bands making videos before 1981, after all — but it does seem to have become much more of a niche market. Viewers are much more likely to download videos from band websites or services like iTunes, and that means they’re more likely to be seen by people who already like the band and/or the song. There’s still some very innovative and fun stuff being done with the genre, but it does seems very unlikely that music videos are going to bring the sort of mass audience to a band they used to be able to.
And you know, to be honest, I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. As music videos grow less important as a marketing tool, we may hopefully see less of the so-called MTV-style on television and in the movies. As there are fewer opportunities for mass success with the style, we may see fewer “auteurs” like McG — who, from what I’ve seen of his two (pretty awful) Charlie’s Angels movies and Fastlane TV show, has never once directed anything but a music video.