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Hey guys,

It has been a long time since I posted. How long? Well the stock market was still a place you might want your money. Tina Fey was still most famous for her ‘day job’ on 30 Rock.

Also, that was before the launch of MTVmusic.com. I have lost major stretches of my waking life clicking around through the old clips on mtvmusic. Yeah, for the intertubes!

Other sections of the net still do some music video things better than mtvmusic. Youtube gets the latest Britney news out there. Onsmash still has the best collection of what is ‘new’ at least for urban music (and stony studio interviews). Right now mtvmusic is kind of a nostalgia machine (check the top viewed list for Buggles and Dire Straits) – but I assume that as the site develops it will get more ‘modern’ traffic.

I wish mtvmusic had a better ‘these are the newest clips we have added’ section. Even the main mtv site does that better. I wish that the ‘date added’ for the videos on mtvmusic was the date the video was released to MTV and not just the date some intern added the digital file to an mtv server. Didja know ZZ Top’s ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ was from 2007?

But these are minor quibbles. The picture quality on mtvmusic is great compared to the YouToogles. You can sort by director and see that two of the first three Isham-helmed clips are Metallica and the third is Nsync. They even have the alternate ‘pop-up’ versions of some clips.

Older videos never aired on MTV with director’s credits. Who knew, way back in 1988 that there even was such a thing as a music video director? Some of these classic clips have had the once unlisted credit included on mtvmusic. Others have not.

Obviously the site is not ‘done’ and more functionality and monetization (catchphrase alert!) is sure to come. The search function seems to work one day and then not the next, but that will get dialed in. It finally seems like MTV is in on the joke the internet is pulling.

This is change we can believe in.

Labels: Britney Spears, Isham, MTV, music video, NSync, video link, YouTube

This started out with me writing about how the only place that seems to play music videos (other than the YouToogle) these days is museums.

Bjork took her claymation-y “Where The Wilds Things” are Choose Your Own Yak-venture to NY’s Natural History Museum. This Jakob Trollback guy spoke at the TED conference and explained what music videos really SHOULD be (and we all know that this is MY gig). His talk is kind of boring and the video is even less fun than that – getting into how typical video fare is ‘reactive’ and has too much ego from the director. Well, directors certainly do have some egos on them, but Mr. Trollback getting golf-applause from a crowd averaging seventeen different minors and majors in various un-employable liberal arts fields for talking about excessive ego seems kind of the pot calling the kettle ‘ashy.’

The videos that succeed in the museum market all have a certain vibe, and so do the clips getting the most exposure at the other end of the artistic spectrum. The clips that get the most eyes on YouToogle seem to be the cheapest and most “guerilla” in style. Both musical and visual. I would assume that the immediacy of low-budget rap and rock stuff latches on to YouTube eyes and ears, maybe because it already looks like the kind of amateur stuff kids are used to watching online.

The current world of video exposure shines a light on the highest brow stuff in museums and the lowest brow with hos being supermanned and sodas on the side via the intranets. Labels are still making videos that live in that middle ground – but they seem to receive less and less exposure all the time.

Music television, whether MTV, BET, Fuse or any of their variants, is that middle ground. With fewer and fewer on-air slots available as music television airs less clips every month – that territory becomes even more valuable. Even if the edges of the music world (both museums/galleries and the Net) have more wide open space, that middle ground is still worth fighting over.

Labels: Bjork, Middle Earth, MTV, music video, YouTube

Thanks to kureman over on antville for posting this clip.

Here is about thirty minutes of behind the scenes footage on the making of Mark Romanek’s iconic 1994 video for Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer.” The featurette is broken into three separate sections and is overall relatively interesting.

Romanek was always a great MV director who I wished worked more and this is a decent glimpse inside the mind of a super-talented guy.

What I found to be even more valuable, especially to MV directors working today, is the accompanying clip of the finished video for “Closer” with commentary from Trent Reznor. Not that many bands/artists are at all likeReznor, but it is instructive to hear what parts of the process (and Romanek’s skills) he was drawn to.

• Reznor was impressed with Romanek’s knowledge of film and visual references. Romanek does talk about Man Ray and JP Witkin – being sure to credit them with the ways they inspired the look of "Closer". It is clear Romanek knows and respects the history of this kind of style which adds importance to …

• Romanek made Reznor feel like the video would address what he wanted and not just be “funding [the director’s] art project.” I have written about this before, but so many young director’s don’t know how to create a concept they want to shoot and still include (or at least make the artist/label FEEL like they are including) what the artist/label wants.

• The (past) power of MTV. Reznor comments on how "Closer," his first big video, got played on MTV and a single video spin was worth more that a million plays on college radio. That was why the label forked over the big budget for the three or four day shoot – a hit video was worth that much.

Romanek is a major talent, and that often comes with elements of self-indulgence – like using an antique hand-cranked silent movie camera that often broke down, rather than shooting with modern equipment and making the final film “look” old. Also, the set with built-in practical lighting and skylights (so no “movie lights” on the set) looks great in the behind the scenes footage, and must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in art department. So is that self-indulgence or attention to detail?

Watch "Closer" with artist commentary here.

Labels: insider, MTV, music video, NIN, Trent Reznor, YouTube

Hey, did you hear? There is a new Britney Spears video. It hasn’t been getting much press (well that and the Radiohead pick-a-price adventure) – so I thought I would let you know about it.

I do not want to get into piling onto Britney’s personal life or pointing out all the substandard elements of the clip. Anyone with eyes can see that. This is an actually decent pop song with a flat and effortless music video. Not much more needs to be said about the clip itself.

How and why this particular video got made does interest me, though. The director is listed as Jake Sarfaty. Some have said this is an Alan Smithee name for Jake Nava, a director who has worked with Britney before with some success.

The director of “Gimme More” is not the well known director of highly professional clips for Beyonce and Mariah. Jake Sarfaty is a real guy, a gaffer/grip with a reasonable amount of below-the-line credits on a variety of productions. So how does this guy end up directing a video for one the most (in)famous artists around? I certainly don’t know for sure – but my guess is that no one else would do it.

There had been talk for months and months about Britney making her OWN video. Jive didn’t want to pay (they thought the market wasn't ready for a "comeback") and yet Britney wanted to get out there right away and answer her critics. Is answering one's critics ever a good idea? How about answering the critics with a pole dance? That'll do the trick.

So this other, never produced, self-made Britney video was probably a different song, but I recall the story being that she wanted to shoot a clip where she was crucified on a cross made out of tabloids. Brilliant! This rumored video was supposed to get shot at Britney's own house and she reached out to some real directors – who came back with budgets and the like but it never took off. The story was that Britney was paying with her own money, so perhaps a professional was gonna cost too much or maybe someone talked sense into her and she decided to wait a bit on her “comeback.”

But finally, Britney gets the video she has been wanting to make - over the protestations of Jive it seems. There are soooo many mistakes with "Gimme More." Britney clearly needs some time off, both personally and in the marketplace. I don’t think people are ready to see her as an artist again, right now. She is still the “train wreck” in most people’s eyes and we are not ready to hear what she has to say musically. We are still more interested in whether or not she wears shoes into public restroom or gets her kids taken away by Sheriff’s Deputies. This is too soon, but it seems like Britney is not getting the best advice these days, or at least not listening to it.

Spending one’s own money is almost always a mistake. Anyone that casually watches Entourage must know this. It makes sense that Britney wouldn’t want to spend too much of her own money on a music video, so that is how a gaffer with zero directing credits gets the job.

The whole thing comes across so half-assed it is actually more like quarter-assed. It seems thrown together and almost completely unplanned. The song ain’t bad, but this isn’t gonna spark any kind of lasting comeback - despite the current surge of popularity on iTunes. Videostatic posits that we are watching for all the wrong reasons – and I have to agree.

The video for "Gimme More" doesn’t come across like a career move, but rather a desperate grab at keeping the mercurial flame of fame alive. All I can say is that Britney’s gonna need to find some more flammable stuff to throw in to keep it smoldering, because our attention is gonna burn through this balsa-wood thin distraction in way less than fifteen minutes.

Watch "Gimme More" on mtv.com.

Labels: Beyonce, Britney Spears, insider, mariah carey, MTV, music video, trainwreck, TRL

Before you read this, you have to check out James’ post over on SRO. Seriously, this whole post is me arguing with that post, so you better read that first or this will make even less sense that I normally make. And it's pretty good, too.

James is definitely correct that MTV was never perfect. Many people in the MV community have an incredible amount of nostalgia for a Viacom sponsored Utopia where clips ran like honey and it was always “120 Minutes” (but never “Yo! MTV Raps” – hmm). James is right, we all need to let that fantasy go. “Where Have You Gone, Nina Blackwood?!?!”

That being said, MTV hasn’t always sucked. James writes that MTV was flawed from its inception, but I completely disagree. Sitting through three hours of Erasure and Lionel Richie videos to get to ZZ Top is obviously not gonna work today. But back then, it was great. I eagerly sat through the clips I didn’t like (and probably learned a lot, like sometimes it rains men, whatever that means) because it was way better than doing my homework. Would that young version of me have preferred to click and watch “Hot For Teacher” over and over again? Sure, but he might have never seen a music video once he learned he could also click and see porn, but I digress.

Early Roman sewers would seem terrible by modern standards (now there's a digression). For more info, check sewerhistory.org. Those early sewers would not meet today’s building codes, but at the time, they were an advancement that allowed for urban living – where cities could grow large without disease wiping out swaths of the downhill population every summer. Early MTV, was a leap forward – but still not what viewers want today (insert river of shit joke here).

Okay, sewers may be a stretch. Watch an old music video and see how long the shots last. They hold on some angle as the singer awkwardly lip-syncs, unsure if they are supposed to faux-sing AT the lens or not – and the shot holds and holds and it seems like forever. Tastes change. What worked back when doesn’t work now – but that doesn’t mean that it sucked back then. Our perspective has changed, but the history has not.

You could argue that YouToogle is great for viewers – we can see what we want, when we want it. That certainly is progress. But what is convenient for us is not always better for the industry. It would be convenient for me if Ferraris were free, but the people that make Ferraris probably have a different view.

When MTV (and radio) pushed content at us – we passively absorbed clips we didn’t specifically search out. They shoved stuff down our throats and a lot of the time we bought it, like a pre-blue pill Neo. Freedom’s just another word for “nothing left to lose.”

The IntraTubes have not shown much of an ability to convince people to go buy an LP/cassette/CD/MP3/brain-chip implant. This new “click it yourself” model is great at getting the videos out there, but – at least so far – not so good at turning those eyeballs into dollars. Those dollars turned into music video budgets for all the clips we loved (and the ones we sat through as well).

Labels: media, MTV, music video, TRL, viral video, YouTube