Greenburgh Public Library Blog

Music Musings

 Music Videos As Art  

According to Slant "100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time," the graphic novel like music video "Take On Me," by the Norwegian pop group A-Ha and directed by Steve Barron is rated #2.  I love this 1982 video not just for the wonderful story line of boy meets girl and it's pop synthesizer new-wave sound but mostly, I love this video for the art.  The live action is parallel with a comic book animation told through story box frames until the entire action sequence is transformed into a fully drawn animation.  A special technique called "rotoscoping" was used to create this graphic effect by hand drawling each film frame to create a unique animated montage.  Many top music videos from the 1980s have become historic artistic markers of innovation, special effects and mini masterpieces for the artists and film directors.   I've included a cross section grid of top music videos from the Top 100 chart according to Slant. Can you guess which video is rated number one?  The answer and ratings for each are listed at the end of this blog post (no cheating).

Artistic excellence is a collaboration between the artist and the film director and, in my opinion, as important as the creation of an entire hit record album.  Many video directors have gone on to become feature film makers.  The likes of the brothers Quay and Nick Park of Wallace & Gromit movie fame.   They worked with Director Stephen R Johnson on Peter Gabriel's stop-motion animation music video "Sledgehammer."    Science PC published an article in 2018, of a quick history and materials used in popular television shows and movies using stop-motion like the green Gumby and many of Tim Burton's movies such as "Corpse Bride".  

David Fincher helped to Direct many of Madonna's pop charting videos.  One could call her the Queen of music videos with five videos making her the highest contributor to the "100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time" list.  Who can forget the dance craze inspired by "Vogue,"  the controversial "Oh Father," and her break out romp in "Material Girl."  My personal favorite, "Cherish," is not part of the all time best list.  The story features an adorable merboy and mermen playing in the surf. Another favorite video is by Sade, "Cherish The Day," which you can download for free from our Library App Freegal.

Michael Jackson: All the Songs by Francois Allard; Richard Lecocq

ISBN: 9781788400572

Publication Date: 2018-10-23

The complete, definitive study of Michael Jackson's artistic legacy. This is the only book that tells the story behind every single song that the King of Pop ever released.

 John Landis is well known for his work with Michael Jackson on several of his iconic music videos.  In terms of video artistry, one of my favorite video's of all time is their collaboration on: "Black or White."  This video not only tells an amazing story of a young teen angst against a parental figure but the broader cultural angst of inequality and racial divides.  Released on November 14, 1991, according to Wikipedia's entry, it became the highest Nielsen rated video of all time.  Directed by, Landis who also created Michael Jackson's other uber popular music video "Thriller"  in 1983.  Both videos used state of the art cinematography, special effects, and a combination of well known actors, pop culture personalities and talent.  At the end of "Black or White," the new technique known as digital "morphing" was used instead of a dissolve or stop-motion to seamlessly change one ethnic face into another.  While each person danced and lip synced to the music their hair length, eyes and other facial features changed with the beat. You can learn how to create your own morph of images through the Library's free online learning tool Lynda.com - just register with your library card! 

The 1980's and into the early 90's was prime for spectacular music videos when many of us binge watched MTV to catch a few minutes of these mini movie masterpieces.  Remember this was the era before YouTube and the Internet, with only VHS video cassette tape to capture the moment.  A lot of records were sold because of these artistic creations.  Today there are millions of music videos available online, and not just from the 1980s.  Early film footage and audio of artist performances can be found.  One of the truly great female voices of all time (a personal favorite) Ella Fitzgerald, with trumpet player and jazz singer Louis Armstrong, are a delight to discover.  Even "Alexa" will bring up an entire song list to play in your home or as I have done, download entire albums of Ella Fizgerald from Freegal to play through my iTunes whenever and where ever I am.

I love the three member rock group RUSH.  My love for this incredible band is not only because three rock musicians can produce such an amazing sound, but they create lyrical mini rock operas with intricate chord changes taking any listener on a fantastic journey.  Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Pert enjoy making intricate and often funny back story movie introductions based on an album and tour theme.  A full length novelization of the band's Clockwork Angels album and 2012 concert tour, was created by, drummer Neil Pert and his friend science fiction author Kevin J Anderson.  An amazing full length steam punk feature film used on tour to introduce the band and set the mood for the concert is unfortunately only available on DVD.  

Champions of the Force by Kevin J. Anderson

ISBN: 055329802X

Publication Date: 1994-09-01

Suspended helplessly between life and death, Luke Skywalker lies in state at the Jedi academy.