For clarification, I’m talking about the ones that are on VEVO, not the videos people make of themselves singing/playing instruments. I feel like it’s kind of silly to make a video where the singers are basically pretending to to sing.
In: Culture
In the far far land of… 10-20 years ago… you could watch them on TV all day long (and yes, people actually did that) and then if you liked the song you could go out and buy the CD. Watching stuff is more engaging then just listening on the radio, also the faces of the artists became known through having them in the videos. Today their role is less important since most people stream their music online but the videos are still being made to enhance the song’s message.
I’m no expert but I think the original purpose was marketing/publicity. Before music videos, music was almost strictly limited to radio/cassette/vinyl playback.
Logically, if a new medium for mass entertainment (TV) arrives, why not try to take advantage of it? Obviously not a lot of people would be interested in music playing to a blank screen, so they decide to add an entertaining video to go with it.
Then MTV comes around and the rest is history.
I’d you kind of think about it, music videos seem kind of silly, but it’s really just another way to consume media from an artist.
I’d say because a song only stimulates one of your senses where the music video engages multiple. Some people are better listeners, some are vision-oriented, but most of us enjoy the combination of them. Sometimes a video can accentuate the strengths of a song, sometimes they detract.
The simplest answer is people enjoy having their senses stimulated on as many fronts as possible.
They are fun to watch?
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