Entertainment

...which is, after all, the purpose of a good deal of popular music. Yes, there are protest songs, songs of anguish written to exorcise the writer's demons, songs meant to inspire and songs of worship, but at their core, the idea, spoken or unspoken, is that the songs should be entertaining enough to cause the listeners to pay enough attention that they'll get the message.

This is the same principle that advertising uses: a TV or radio spot contains a quick blast of entertainment as a kind of bribe to get the viewer or listener to pay attention to the message the advertiser wants to communicate. The Catholic Church figured this out centuries ago, and took over the general production of music to help sell their message to the masses. When the phonograph was invented and became commonly available, the music was freed to become an advertisement for itself alone, and record sales were the expression of their message.

At some point, it became apparent that video could be used to improve the entertainment value of the music and, presumably, sell even more records. Most music videos were about the same length as the songs they were created to sell, primarily because of the expense of filming, but a couple of artists had enough budget to add a longer set-up and perhaps a coda to the storyline. Twisted Sister had a great little intro on "We're Not Gonna Take It," and Michael Jackson created arguably the best music video of the Music Video Era with the charming little story that framed "Thriller."

I remember one video, though, which was audaciously long, a short film that 'happened' to have a song in it. I haven't heard anyone mention it in years, but at the time it was considered to be groundbreaking and was expected to trigger a new wave in narrative videos. Of course we know now that didn't happen, but I found it (inevitably) posted on YouTube, and it stands up remarkably well for its age. Here's Julien Temple's "Jazzin' for Blue Jean" starring (twice) David Bowie: