Conclusion
‘The video made the song sound better to me.’
Trent Reznor on the video for his song Closer.
(Romanek, 2005)
As explained through the previous chapters, all the components of a music video pull together in order to achieve a self-contained form. The emotive qualities of the music along with the qualities evoked by the moving image bring about the multidimensional experience of watching a music video. The music video is a hybrid of the abstract space of music and the metaphoric space of the moving image. The powerful capability of music to evoke emotions influences any accompanied image. Music empowers the image by lending it emotive potential; it increases the image’s emotional weight. On the other hand, video interprets the elusiveness of the music by putting it in a comprehensive context. Video transforms the abstract space of music into the tangible space of the screen — which we can see and analyze. The concept of the video fuses into the musical space and influences our perception. Our understanding from the video fuses to the simultaneous pleasure of listening to the song. Both experiences are digested at the same time and they work along with each other. So, hearing the song brings the video to mind, and the video in turn stands for the song. One might say the attention that was devoted to the music is taken over by visuals or video ruins the pure experience of listening to a song and imagination. However, music video is not something other than pure imagination. The director, who is an expert in visualizing the imagination, creates a video for the song, which is the essence of the song’s interpretation.
The companionship of music and the moving image magnifies the promises of both. Like a cycle, they constantly enhance each other. The more video benefits from music, the more powerful it becomes. In return, the empowered video enriches the music with its visual and conceptual conventions and adds new insights to it.
Future Prospects
The future of the music video seems to be changing in a wide extend due to new phenomena in rock music. In 2007, popular bands such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails released albums over the Internet as a digital download. Nine inch Nails released the album for free with a message for fans, ‘thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one’s on me’ (ninwiki.com). Radiohead offered the album for whatever price the customers wished to pay, even nothing. As Gigwise reports, the Radiohead album sold three million copies (gigwise.com). The interesting aspect of this task concerns the relationship between the band and its fans. It is the fans’ responsibility to support the band that leads to the elimination of the record company between them.
In the same vein, many bands invite fans/filmmakers-to-be to participate in making visuals for songs. This leads to the explosion of music video competitions, the user-generated content phenomenon (bugvideos.co.uk). As Nine Inch Nails announces in their video festival on YouTube, ‘To expand the idea of the "Ghosts"[the album] project, we're inviting anyone and everyone to create visuals to accompany the album's music’ (youtube.com). This phenomenon changes the role of the music video in the music industry. With these ideas, the conventions of music video are changing. The music video will become considered as an art form independent of the industry.