The Sight of Sound: Visual Culture and Popular Music - Term Paper Example

The Sight of Sound: Visual Culture and Popular Music Introduction From the minute that MTV broadcast its first video, the responsibility and cultural implications of music had changed. the MTV broadcast was not the first time that popular music was combined with a visual presence. However, that moment changed the course of the development of talent within the music industry, thus influencing the direction that music would need to go to support the new medium. Music has now developed into a multi-media experience, the visual representations of the music as important as the music itself. The influence on culture has not been wholly positive with the influences of angry, rebellious narratives giving rise to a dehumanizing message. Whatever the consequences, popular music has changed so that a visual representation of published music influences the culture towards participating in purchasing the music in order to also purchase the style, attitude, and fashion of the visual representation. Visual Musical History Music performance has been a core part of the musical experience for as long as recorded history has discussed the topic. Music was intended to create a visual impression, an illusion between the ears and eyes that evoked emotions that could be related to a time and place. This relationship would then evoke imagery that could be associated with the sound. Much of the music that has been written has been with the intention of telling a story, whether it be through lyrics, dance, or simply the theater of sound. However, with the introduction of visual entertainment in the form of the cinema and the television, music has taken on a new cultural implication. The mediatization of music represents a shift in the way in which it is represented to the public. Music performance is now a multi directional product in which selling of the music is packaged so that the public buys the meaning behind the branding as much as they buy the sound. Many ‘artists’ are created within a frame of popular opinion that is then sold as a reason to like the product. It matters what the face looks like who strums the guitar or vocalizes at the microphone. Even more so, it matters what the branding of the artist means, thus negating much of the meaning behind the music. The who in music is just as important as the sound. From the moment the announcement was made, the shift of popular music had changed. “Ladies and gentlemen….The Beatles!” rang out across the United States on February 9, 1964, thus bringing a visual record to the introduction of a specific type of music that brought to the public a specific meaningful background (Inglis 1). The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show to an already enamored public that had expressed their devotion. This is not to say that the wit and humor, the lightheartedness, with which the music of The Beatles rose to popularity was suddenly replaced by a very serious message. On the contrary, the group brought its youthful appeal and mildly anarchist rebellion to the forefront of popular American Culture, the look of the four members as important as the sound. The demand for tickets to that fateful show was through the roof. For the privilege of 728 seats, 50,000 requests for tickets were received (Inglis 1). They wanted to see, they wanted to commune. They wanted to be there for the first time that the Beatles would hit the airwaves and be introduced to the far reaching American population. Christopher Porterfield reported that the noise was at a high level and was far different than what had existed for Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra. He stated that “the noise was what seemed new” (Inglis 5). The ground had been broke by Elvis and Frank, the popular music frenzy that created swooning fans and gaggles of the devoted gathering anywhere the celebrities might go. However, a new door was opening with the Beatles. Both Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra had made films. The films had showcased their musical talents through momentary breaks where the emotions of the artist were expressed in song. However, the Beatles moved into the movies through the lens of the surrealistic, psychedelic aesthetics of the sixties. The Beatles contributed to five films total during their time together. According to Inglis, “from a purely pragmatic (economic) perspective, making films for international distribution was the easiest and most cost-effective way to ensure consistent global exposure” (151). The work was decidedly geared toward the explosion of the youth generation. Stark says that what had begun was “a process that would merge teen culture - whose ethos of rebellion was essentially grounded in pop junk, or so thought serious intellectuals - with bohemian culture, which had always intended to make a far more serious and artistic critique of society” (162). The screwball comedy that was A Hard Day’s Night was a visual creation intended to highlight the music, rather than the music being a secondary element to the visual. The impact that it made on the viewers created a stronger response than either just the visual or the music alone could compete against. What followed was not just a visual element that became part of the music, but a transformation in the music itself. Stark refers to this type of music as “confessional style” the pop artist opening up his or her life to the group that was the culture of their fan base (162). The transformation became more colorful and psychedelic through the release of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club band. This album was developed through ’sound design’ a concept that utilized a visionary element in that the music was created through a narrative. The music was developed through innovations of technology that were new and exciting; creating a piece of work that was decades before its time. The lyrics were visual and exciting, while the music was designed to be unique and unprecedented (Hannen 46). Video Killed the Radio Star When MTV (Musical Television) debuted in 1981, it began its history with a video by The Buggles titled Video Killed the Radio Star. This title was an ironic take on the expectations of the innovators of MTV, that television could be like radio showing videos with the use of a VJ (video jockey instead of disc jockey as a radio announcer was called) (Kelly and McDonald 90). The videos that appeared on MTV during the 1980’s have created fans for music that the general population may not have otherwise been exposed to through the radio. A well constructed video could take a song that was marginal and make a hit. As well, artists who were visually creative could make careers that might never have gotten the attention of a record producer if the visual element potential was not so strong. A year after MTV was launched; Michael Jackson released a revolutionary video that was an extended version of a song on his new album, almost twice its length on the record, with a video that told a full story - a mini film. Thriller contained a three act story, a ballet section, and the voiced over narration at the end done by noted horror film star, Vincent Price. While the music is well crafted and most likely have been successful, the use of music videos in promoting the music made the album a huge success, one of the most successful records of all time. The music was ‘video ready’, with imbedded storylines that were ripe for expansion into the visual world (Campbell 298). Madonna, a music star who can directly be associated with the power of the music video, began her career within the world of music where videos made or broke a career. Madonna started her career in the richly creative and highly charged club scene in New York, where her early attempts at singing was released gaining her some popularity. Her popularity soon gave her a contract with a real music studio that wisely used all her appeal, both for her pop sound and her dangerously provocative sex appeal, to sell her branding (Campbell 299). Madonna may be one of the first stars who can fully attribute her success to the evolution of the music video. The importance of Madonna in the visual world of music becomes clear through the innovations that appear in the video Like a Prayer. The production of this video was styled without continuous singing by Madonna, with cuts to connected imagery that didn’t tell a story, but instead conveyed a meaning. With a message of anti-racism within the imagery, Madonna broke through to the next evolution in music videos where the film was as important as the music. While this had been begun through the work created in Thriller, it had been broken wide open with the release of Like a Prayer (Campbell 299). The marketing and branding of Madonna was no mere accident. Madonna represented the flexibility of identity, embodying a number of creative outlets within her career, but in her branding, being the symbol of rebellious feminine expression. According to Kelner “By exploding boundaries established by dominant gender, sexual, and fashion codes, she encourages experimentation, change, and production of one’s own identity” (15). Her message of the identity as expressed through consumerism created a sense of identity defined by fashion. Her career became a branded commodity of identity and transformation, remaking herself and her image repeatedly through the use of video imagery that promoted new meanings behind her existence within culture. In her first video, Shining Star, she was heavily decked out in jewelry and fashionably attired in the latest gear for young women. She was an example of a bright new fashion icon that was emulated by young women everywhere due to the highly repeatable nature of the music video that reinforced this image. By the time “Like a Prayer” was released, she had deconstructed her style, taking her attire in the video down to a simple slip dress, creating a modified 1950’s iconic look that revealed an almost literal “confession style” to both her music and the video as imagery of her Catholic upbringing was the central focus. The use of video allowed for the star to create and deconstruct herself repeatedly, keeping her fresh and at the forefront of pop music for decades. Consumerism and Music The music industry is a business, selling dreams to artists and exploiting artists for profit. Careers have been made out of thin air where talented musicians have died in their homes having never been heard. In today’s culture, there is a pervasive need for a visual connection to almost every other creation intended for the senses. Without the ability to package a musical product visually, the odds of the work of the musician ever coming into popular culture are very slim. The last four decades since the first video hit the air have been filled with a list of musicians that have significantly changed aspects of American culture, using the consumerist aesthetic to promote themselves regardless of actual talent. As mentioned, Madonna has been a wise business woman, creating her brand and reinventing it in order to keep it fresh and accessible. Her image has been based on the response of young women who say to themselves ‘I want that, I want to be that..I want to look like that”. The conversation within the music business has moved away from talk of the music itself, towards the impact of the look that is associated with the music. Pop music has been glutted with marginal talent that uses imagery to increase the marketable value. However, the power of those who have used imagery to promote meaning and imagery within their music is undeniable. Madonna, though, has used her power to infect the worldwide audience with messages of gender empowered, anti hatred and anti prejudice that have worked towards elevating the overall cultural barbarism to a more enlightened state. In her video Express Yourself, she states within the lyrics that one needs a strong hand to be lifted up, but in the video she is given the opportunity to make it clear that this hand is not the male hand, but one’s own hand. In other words, the contradictory irony of her lyrics is re-imagined within her video to have an empowered message (Kellner 70). From her humble beginnings within the music industry, Madonna went forward to express postmodern ideals, creating a voice for those whose voices were not being heard, and fighting a great number of cultural battles through the use of powerful, witty, and creative imagery. The evolution of her career has paralleled the rise into mainstream acceptance and maturity of the gay male population, as an example, where her music first appealed to the wild and unrestricted hedonism of the eighties, but moved into the more mature and thoughtful period of the 1990’s (Fouz-Hernandez and Jarmen-Ivens 59). The musical narrative has been elevated to a higher level through the use of meaningful visual imagery, allowing a distinctly literary and philosophical voice to be heard through what is portrayed. Despite the power of music video to combat cultural prejudices and promote enlightened thinking, the foundation of the music video is still based in the marketing of music to a buying public. According to Banks, music videos are an artifact of a consumerist culture, the primary function of which is to work as an advertisement to the public in order to sell them music. He goes on to say that “music videos dissolve the traditional boundary between programs and commercials since music clips constitute both types of content (4). Music videos have gone way past the sales of just music, cross promoting into films and ticket sales. Music videos sell lifestyles and cultural points of view that contribute to the consumerist values that have pervaded the culture. Postmodernism MTV declared itself to be the postmodern version of music promotion, calling music video postmodern creation. Auner and Lockhead critique modern pop music for displaying its “postmodernism within the generalized economy of current pop music in the eruption of an unprecedented pluralism and the failure of any meta-narrative of historical progress” (223). In other words, modern pop music is spinning its wheels, representing very little and not moving forward towards a more enlightened space. This refers to the teen idol pop movement of the late 90’s and early 2000’s where music was dominated with young, beautiful faces that were manufactured and created for a listening audience. The era of the boy band and the blond bombshell teen goddess has passed, but the evolution of music and its importance in cultural philosophical thought is still in question. Music in and of itself, however, can lend its stimulation to visualizations that can evoke memory, thus creating a historical reference in which self created imagery exists. According to Park and Yung, equate music to the philosophical social construct through evoked imagery. Harmony is the outer world, the “cosmic reality as a social process”. Mood is the inner process of attuning oneself to the world (254). Through a visual narrative, music video often succeeds in creating a mood and a harmony that frames the social culture in order to highlight a narrative within the terms of existence. The sense of the ‘other’ is also well represented within the music video. Again, using the example of Madonna, one can examine her use of the identity when deconstructing the conceptions of female and male in order to reconstruct them through a designed equality. The narrative does not ring of feminism, but rather of postmodernism as the thought and meaning appear to be stating the case for the female in her state of ‘otherness’, where she is distinct from the male. It is in distinguishing the female from the male, rather than creating an artificial equality without distinguishable differences, that provides a narrative for the feminine perspective. As well, the ‘otherness’ that is constructed through race or sexual preference can find a voice within the narrative of the music industry through the meanings that have been infused into music videos. Where it is possible that these subjects were used for marketing purposes in order to create buzz and hype for the purposes of marketing, the venue has lent itself to the expression of postmodern ideals, supporting the inclusion of alternate lifestyles from the dominant gender, creating a series of subcultures that were inspired by the sounds and imagery of their representing artists. Videos and Sex Culture Sexuality and the expression of that sexuality have been at the core of rock and roll music since it was in its infancy, still in the womb of jazz stylings. Rock and roll has been a resource for the expression of the male sexuality, a phallic representation and extension of the aggression with which male repression must be expressed. The glam rock of the 1980’s, with a gender defying visual presence in contrast with the highly sexualized reputations that were built about the members of the band, was intended to stretch the limits of cultural acceptances of what constituted male behavior, while promoting rampant promiscuity. The rampant promiscuity that is visually present in many of the videos has shifted the acts from the consequences of a quest towards something in life, to the goal itself. Promiscuity has become the goal, thus dehumanizing the sexual act and diminishing its importance to an aggressive, angry ideal that releaves social pressure (Acquaviva 19). As a result, the intrinsic values that have developed within society have become a moot point. The purpose of intrinsic values is to promote a culture that stimulates similarities between people within a society. Music videos more often than not promote their goods by tearing apart intrinsic value systems, exploiting the rebellious nature of adolescence in order to create individualized identities that are defined by consumerism. Violence is encouraged against women in the process of creating male release through promiscuity, subsidizing the release of pent up frustrations within the male social construct (Acquaviva 19). Brittany Spears, while a marginal representation of a female pop singer for her talent, had monumental success because of the visual impact of her videos. Within the videos, however, empowerment was not a consistent message while stereotypical representations of very young female objectified sexual images have been prevalent. In her video I’m a Slave, Brittany undulates with a heavy snake draped over her shoulders, representing her submission to the phallus of the mythical ‘you’ within the song. In her first popular song, Hit me Baby One More Time, she is dressed in sexualized school girl uniforms, her belly bared and the subtle message of violence playing over the fetishist content (Shapiro 56). Conclusion Since the first introduction of The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, the culture has shifted from an adult point of view to that of a perpetual youthful generation. The consumerist culture has been designed to support the identity struggle of the youth in order to sell a lifestyle aesthetic through the sales of products that are suggested for defining a person. Through the visualization of music, meaning has become interwoven with marketing, creating boundary breaking productions that are both and neither commercials and programming. While some work has been benign and other work has been meaningful, much of it has been based in rage, expressions of empathetic frustration that marginalizes the human condition to its basic instincts. Postmodernist thought has influenced much of the work that has been done through music videos. By representing fringe society, the popularity of the outsider has risen, while the adaptation of the lifestyle has promoted sales of the music, fashion, and cultural attitudes that support the ‘otherness’ that is represented. As the progression of history is constructed through the insinuation of the lifestyle culture that is recorded and represented within video music, real life becomes marginalized, dehumanized through expressions of idealized, deconstructed, or devalued humanization. Through the microscope of popular music, the human condition is immature, without values and morals, and self destructing in a glut of hedonism and luxury. However, the innovation of music television, an entire channel dedicated to showing music videos and replacing the radio for the propagation of the music industry created a new creative voice through which meaningful dialogue could be attained within thoughtful narrative. Where music gives one dimension to a theme, the visual imagery can create a new dimension that can layer the overall meaning of the piece in order to create thoughtful impressions that will influence society. The work of Madonna in opening the doors to ‘otherness’ through messages of female empowerment, male gay empowerment, and aggressive, open sexuality that is empowered rather than objectified, creates the opportunity of social acceptance through consumerist desires for similarity to their icons. The visual element to music in which the tones evoke emotions and images, has been successfully integrated into the video medium, for better or worse. Works Cited Acquaviva, Gary J. Values, Violence, and Our Future. 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