As expected, Jay Chou's prelude song dominated the screen on all major platforms as soon as it was released, accompanied by various comments and interpretations, either positive or negative. The one person who can have this kind of national influence is none other than Jay Chou.
But I want to say, how can such an expensive MV let the fat Lang Lang steal the limelight?
Having said that, the MV used to be the standard for singers to release new albums, and it also made many people famous. For example, the last one was Sanji Ayaka who got out of the industry after participating in the MV of " Say Goodbye, Don't Cry ".
Sanji Caihua
But now, the influence of MV is not as good as before.
Most singers rarely put effort into making a music video anymore, except for Jay Chou who only comes back to his senses once in several years. When it comes to MVs, the images that may come to everyone's mind are those old songs that they listened to again and again many years ago.
In this issue, I would like to review MVs with you and talk about the development and changes of MVs as a form of music content since its birth.
1
MV, namely "Music Video" , music video, according to Wikipedia:
MV is a combination of music and video for artistic purposes.
But in fact, MV has already shown its dazzling commercial value in its early embryonic stage.
In 1894, Joseph Stern and Edward Marks in the United States composed a song called "The Lost Child". In order to promote the song's score, they presented the song's content in the form of a slideshow, which resulted in the sale of 2 million copies.
This form of illustrated music is considered the originator of MV, and the additive effect of MV on song sales is evident.
After that, with the development of imaging technology, especially the prosperity of European and American rock music in the 1960s and 1970s, bands such as the Beatles and Queen successively used images to promote their songs, and the content form of MVs gradually matured in the process. .
Queen band's "We Will Rock You" mv picture
has gone from simple picture synchronization to interspersed with live pictures of some singers dancing, as well as movie clips to jointly interpret the song.
But at that stage, the mainstream channel for song promotion was radio stations. Until the emergence of MTV, MVs had a stage for centralized dissemination, and the promotion of songs gradually shifted from radio stations to television stations.
In the 1980s, the United States was in a period of intensive launch of cable television channels. Channels such as CNN, which anchors news, and Discovery, which anchors documentaries, were born one after another.
MTV, which was launched on August 1, 1981, was the first music channel in history to play MVs 24 hours a day.
In order to build momentum, MTV also used gimmicks at the time. First, before the official launch, it played a moon landing themed promotional video, and boldly changed the flag planted on the moon into the MTV LOGO, accompanied by narration 「Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll", thus announcing the birth of MTV.
Immediately afterwards, MTV played the first MV, the song "Video Killed the Radio Star" from the British band The Buggles.
But at the beginning, MTV’s entire MV library only had 120 songs, which were played on a loop every day. The areas covered were mainly around New Jersey, so its influence was limited.
Until 1983, Michael Jackson released his sixth album "Thriller".
After his single of the same name fell from the top of the charts, at the suggestion of his manager, MJ shot a music video with horror elements and put it on MTV for non-stop broadcast.
It was this MV that seemed groundbreaking at the time, boosting record sales. "Thriller" soon became the first album in the history of world pop music to exceed 100 million.
MTV's ratings greatly increased. In 1984, they took advantage of the situation and held the first MTV Music Video Awards.
At the award ceremony that year, Madonna, who was still a newcomer, wore a wedding dress and gave a large-scale performance of "Like a Virgin", which shocked the audience.
Madonna
From MJ to Madonna, people have gradually realized the star-making ability of MTV, and the importance of a good MV for song promotion and singer fame.
It can be said that it is precisely because of the emergence of the MTV platform that MVs have shown great influence and commercial value in the TV media era, and the songs have gradually become an auditory and visual fusion work.
2
This popular trend in Europe and the United States soon affected the Hong Kong and Taiwan regions of our country.
In Hong Kong, where popular culture is already relatively developed, MVs almost accompany the development of Cantonese songs. is only in the initial production stage and is always a bit rough.
is like Xu Guanjie 's Cantonese song "The Tower of the Tower", which has a time-honored significance. The MV uses the song as the main shot, with the Eiffel Tower, Mount Fuji, Statue of Liberty and other world landmarks flashing in the background. To show "Why see more and seek more?" , and sing a song on the way home, which means "."
Xu Guanjie's "The Iron Tower"
I have to say that the image of this mv does fit the lyrics, although now it seems more like a collection of cutout images.
It is worth mentioning that it was this song that aroused the deep homesickness of the Hong Kong people at that time.
And this MV expression technique of "singer subjective lens singing + slideshow of cityscapes from various countries" also profoundly influenced subsequent Chinese songs.
In the early days, many songs liked to use this template when making MVs. However, with the development of technology, the visual effects have been upgraded. "Clouds of Hometown" by Fei Xiang and " Conquers " by Na Ying can be regarded as representatives of advanced versions.
Fei Xiang's "Clouds of Hometown"
Speaking of this song "Conquer", I remember seeing the MV for the first time on KTV, as if I was watching a low-profile simplified version of "Paradise Lost" + "Love in a Fallen City", I don't know Should I keep singing or should I stop.
In the mainland music market, which started a little later, MV production basically starts with copycats and imitations. But soon, MV ushered in a major development stage.
Thanks to the rapid development of the mainland music industry since the 1990s, MVs, as an effective means of promoting songs, are increasingly valued by record companies and singers, coupled with the promotion of external conditions.
First of all, a group of creators have emerged. html The 1900s was the trough of the development of China's film industry. Many cinemas switched to selling clothing and turned into dance halls. The bleakness of the film industry left a group of young directors with no films to shoot and nowhere to go, especially those of the sixth generation. Mainly the director.
As a result, some people choose to shoot movies underground, and some people choose to shoot commercials or MVs that were still trendy at that time for their livelihood and to practice their skills.
It was also a period when Chinese rock music was booming. The avant-garde video style of sixth-generation directors was combined with rock music to produce a number of MV masterpieces.
For example, Zhang Yuan filmed Cui Jian's "Let Me Go Wild in the Snow" and "A Piece of Red Cloth"; "The Bell and Drum Tower" filmed by Yong;
He Yong's "The Bell and Drum Tower" mv
directors such as Ning Hao and Guan Hu that everyone is more familiar with now were also the most popular MV directors in the rock circle at that time.
However, due to some well-known reasons, the mainstream influence of rock music is limited. In the more popular market, people are still talking about pop song MVs.
Zhang Guoli has filmed MVs for many singers. In 1990, Tu Honggang came to prominence after appearing on the Spring Festival Gala. He wanted to add new twists to his new songs, so he found Zhang Guoli, who was drifting to Beijing at the time and looking for various jobs.
Zhang Guoli also had little shooting experience, so he could only find foreign MVs through various channels for reference. Finally, he learned from the best of others and added some of his own whimsical ideas to shoot the title song "Feeling Myself" for Tu Honggang. After that, the two They collaborated on the song " Farewell My Concubine ", which became one of the hits of the year.
The MV for "Farewell My Concubine" was directed by Zhang Guoli
As a result, Tu Honggang's popularity increased to a higher level. Zhang Guoli's reputation for shooting MVs also gradually became famous, and he became a MV director who was eagerly invited by the music circle.
In addition, Zhang Yibai also worked as an MV director for several years after graduating from China National Theater, and shot MVs such as "What a Big Tree" and "Wish You Peace".
Sun Yue"Wish You Peace"MV
It is these people who continue to try across borders and lay the foundation for the production and development of MVs in the mainland music scene.
Secondly, the MV playback platform is gradually maturing. htmlIn the 1990s, Yang Weiguang, the then director of CCTV, advocated reform and put forward the slogan "to build CCTV into a world-class station.".
Therefore, CCTV successively launched a series of programs with a new atmosphere and new style in those years. In March 1993, CCTV launched a variety show " East, West, South, North, Middle " that anchored music information and promoted MVs. The host was Xu Gehui . After subsequent revisions, it also launched " China Music TV " "Song of the Week" and other column programs.
Host Xu Gehui
Then in May of that year, "Oriental Time and Space" was launched. Its sub-column "Golden Song Chart" was dedicated to promoting Chinese pop music, and it also planned two major lists: the pop song cassette sales ranking and Oriental Time and Space. Hit list.
is full of a sense of age when you hear it. At that time, singers such as Andy Lau , Yang Yuying also recorded IDs for the launch of the show.
For many people, these music variety shows are their window into Hong Kong and Taiwan’s popular music.
In other words, in the era when CCTV monopolized TV media and the influence was the only one, in the era when TV media monopolized communication channels, watching MVs, including watching TV programs, was a behavior that everyone passively accepted, thus creating the era of popular culture.
Later, as the policy was loosened, foreign media groups gradually entered the mainland market and cooperated with mainland TV stations.
As mentioned before, MTV, which has changed the status of music videos, has launched domestic cooperation programs such as "MTV Tian Lai Village ", "Learn English" and "SMG Star Master".
Especially "MTV Tian Lai Village", all kinds of MVs are played around the clock, covering Chinese pop music, as well as the most popular music at that time from Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States.
It is worth mentioning that this program can not only make famous singers, but also popular hosts. From the first generation VJ Qu Ying to Li Xia, and then to Zhu Zhu, when they are mentioned, many people are also talking about MTV. remember.
Zhu Zhu
In addition, many people may also be impressed by Channel V of Star Media .
The successive launch of these programs has provided a platform for MVs to play, further expanding the influence of MVs.
In turn, the greater the influence of MV, it is also constantly pushing the record industry system to change the traditional publicity and distribution model. For example, record companies will allocate more budget to produce music videos for singers, and then put them on TV stations for large-scale promotion.
Not only that, with the momentum of MV, these platforms are no longer just simple communication channels, but have also intervened in the evaluation system of popular music.
Channel V owns the "Global Chinese Music Chart", and MTV and CCTV jointly organized the "CCTV-MTV Music Festival ", which is one of the most authoritative music awards ceremonies in the Chinese music industry.
The acceptance speech of "Thank you CCTV, thank you MTV" was not only put on the sketch stage and changed into a joke, but also became a daily meme. The clip of "As soon as the nocturne starts, go on stage to receive the award" that was widely circulated some time ago came from the "Global Chinese Music Chart" scene.
In addition to creators and communication platforms, the most important thing is the terminal consumption place. MV has also become a market demand and forms an important part of the music consumption scene.
Especially in the mid-to-late 1990s, mass-market KTVs emerged. From 1995 when Qiangui landed in Shanghai, to 2001, when it entered Beijing, Qiangui led a wave of rapid development of KTV.
In those years when there were not many offline entertainment activities, going to KTV became the most common way of entertainment for everyone. The more you sang, the MVs of those songs were memorized.
There is another interesting phenomenon here. Before mass-market KTV became popular, home karaoke was once the mainstream. But at that time, many old songs did not have matching MVs, and smart bosses would fill them with other images, thus forming a development stage with the most unique style in the history of MVs.
Some are comparable to the animal world, some are like humanistic geography and explore the world, and the most popular ones are beauties wearing cool swimsuits.
Now think about it, uncles, aunts and uncles had nothing to do, swaying, dancing and humming along with those eye-catching MV scenes, which was also an aspect of the beautiful life at that time.
3
After 2000, after more than ten years of development and precipitation, MV ushered in a golden period, which was also the adolescence of many people born in the 80s and 90s.
With the debut of a new generation of singers, MVs have become memories of youth for many people.
Compared with the past, these MVs have stronger narrative, more beautiful pictures, and better production.
Jay Chou's " What's Wrong with " MV was filmed in the White Cliffs of Dover, England
Looking back at the news of singers' new songs in those years, shooting MVs was a major event that required high-profile publicity, and overseas locations were often used to highlight the news. Huge sums of money and the like as a gimmick.
In this process, some MV directors with personal recognition also emerged. For example, when it comes to Jay Chou's MVs, in addition to his self-written and directed music videos, many fans should be familiar with the name Kuang Sheng , such as " In the Name of the Father ", " Peninsula Iron Box " and more. The song and MV were all shot by Kuang Sheng.
"In the Name of the Father" Kuang Sheng
In addition, shoot for Jay Chou Chen Yiren, who filmed "Say Good or Don't Cry", is also the MV director of many singers. Many of his masterpieces such as Mayday ( "Cheers") and Soda Green ( " Little Love Song ") are produced by him.
Soda Green "Little Love Song" mv
In comparison, Zhou Getai 's MVs tend to be more dramatic, such as Guangliang 's "First Time" and "Fairy Tale", Liang Jingru 's " Courage " and other MVs. It's like a short film that combines the plots of various Korean dramas.
Especially "Fairy Tale", I still remember the scene of the nosebleed at the end of the kiss:
Guangliang's "Fairy Tale" MV
In those years, MVs can be said to be part of the strength of singers' works. It is precisely because of the importance of MV that it has even become one of the channels for many stars to debut and become famous.
Of course, there has always been a tradition of newcomers or popular idols making guest appearances in music videos.
In order to open up the Hong Kong market, Wang Jie asked Andy Lau to cooperate with the MV of "Do I Really Have Nothing". Among the many MVs of Jacky Cheung , there are many Maggie Cheung , Joey Wong , Zhou Haimei and others.
For example, because of Jay Chou's popularity, the media at that time would refer to the heroines who appeared in his music videos as "Jay girls." From Vivian Hsu " Lovely Woman " , Ariel Lin "Nunchaku" , Jiang Yuchen "The Longest Movie" . Go to Zhou Xun "Besieged on All Sides" , Guli Nazha "Red Dust Inn" and so on. Some people became popular because of their appearance in his MV, and cooperation with others is a win-win situation.
Jay Chou's "Nunchaku" mv
As for the curator, my favorite is Chen Yirong in "Tornado".
Chen Yirong
By the way, Liu Genghong and his wife Vivi, who became popular some time ago because of live broadcasts of aerobics, are also frequent guests in Jay Chou's MVs.
Jay Chou's "Hair Like Snow" mv
Which MVs are you most impressed by? You can discuss them in the comment area.
4
MV’s glory period was not long. After all, the most important function of MV is to promote and market songs, and the decline of the Chinese music scene is obvious to all.
I have talked about this topic before. If the skin is gone, the hair will not be attached. With the popularization of the Internet, free mp3 downloads have become very popular. No one buys physical records, and record companies have lost their most important source of income.
One by one, they even ran out of money to produce records, not to mention the MV production budget, which can easily reach tens or millions per song.
On the other hand, on a larger scale, TV media resources are gradually tilted towards the Internet.
An obvious change is that for friends of the younger generation, the channel for exposure to MV is no longer MTV and Channel V in the TV era, but Yinyuetai. This also confirms the arrival of the Korean Wave.
The reason why Yinyuetai rose in those years was related to the fact that it had a large number of MVs from Korean groups.
Old fans may have an impression. In fact, as early as 2005 and 2006, every time Jay Chou went on stage to receive an award, he would only say a few words like "Who called me Jay Chou?" In addition to such young and frivolous words, he also tried his best to persuade everyone not to blindly follow Korea and Japan, and then instilled in everyone the "Chinese music is the coolest" philosophy.
However, just like the golden age of the Chinese music scene, Jay Chou is not the only one who is king, but there are a group of people vying for hegemony. Just one person's shouting and cheering cannot stop the tide of the times, even if he is Jay Chou.
In 2012, Psy 's song "Gangnam Style" became popular all over the world. It was the first video in the history of the Internet to have more than 1 billion views, and it became a kind of epochal symbol.
The accelerating and iterative traffic has since become the protagonist of the domestic entertainment market. Singers and actors have all been replaced by idols in terms of capital.
The music industry has become a vassal of the entertainment industry.
Most of the new generation of singers have no mass market, only fan circles. The songs only need to please fans, and the MVs are also shot for fans to see. What the Chinese music scene is facing is systemic and comprehensive corruption.
What we can see is that over the years, MTV and Channel V, which were once the main channels for MV dissemination, have gradually lost attention and have been completely shut down. KTV has also gone from more than 100,000 people at its peak to very few people now.
And the current lively short videos have further subverted the traditional music industry’s promotion method. Just as the popularity of MTV killed radio stations, there is no doubt that the emergence of short videos has also accelerated the end of MTV.
Nowadays, whether a song will be popular may have been determined as early as the time of creation.
Don’t look at its conception and connotation. looks at whether the lyrics are catchy and whether the melody complies with the short video recommendation mechanism. Even if it is an MV, it will have more vitality if it has content suitable for the secondary creative elements of short videos.
It is precisely because of this that making a pop song has become a trace. And when clicks on short videos can be converted into actual income, more and more creators have to cater to this trend in order to make a living.
Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that the entire music industry has become more and more homogeneous and boring.
Perhaps, the golden age of pop music and MVs has ended, and it is all about brainwashing. and second creation.
And those greatest works ultimately only remain in our memories.
Reference:
"Conceptual Definition, Classification and Five Development Stages of MV", Wang Amon
"The gone MV is the history of the demise of romance for many people", Disco Team Leader
"MTV Chinese Channel is suspended, another "young man"", Music Finance
"A brief history of Chinese family karaoke: why is it in the MV Are there always beauties in swimsuits? 》, Game Research Agency
