Why I Don't Like Music Videos

Every morning I have breakfast at the "By George" Cafe in central campus. Why is it called "By George," you ask? Because it's by the George Washington statue! *cue laughs* Still, it has a pretty good selection so I can't complain.

The relevancy of this, though, is that they have TVs everywhere showing mtvU. What is mtvU, you ask? Well, apparently, a long, long time ago MTV actually showed music videos. At a certain point they decided that MusicTeleVision didn't need music and decided to air a plethora of ridiculous reality shows. When people started complaining that they would rather see music than clean shaven monkeys attempting conversation, MTV created a new channel, MTV2. Originally, MTV2 only showed music videos. However, the execs at MTV went through a bit of deja vu and again forgot that the M in MTV stood for music and started airing reality shows that wouldn't fit on MTV or MTV2. Why not, right?

So at some point or another, they created mtvU. I think the U stands for yoU (who needs spelling...), implying that the other channels are for someone else, but I won't complain too long since this channel actually broadcasts music videos. Crazy! I'm not sure how long it'll be until they start adding reality shows to it, but the point is that currently, they show a pretty good variety of music videos.

On to the main point! I don't like music videos. It's not that I'm a snob who thinks that bands put too much effort into their looks and not into their music. I'm not that pretentious. My problem is that they have absolutely nothing to do with the actual meaning behind the song. To demonstrate my point, here is what I'm pretty sure goes down:

A bunch of dudes realize they're not half bad at playing instruments and start a band. Let's assume they're attention whores and name their band "Heartbreak City Here We Come" No, that's not that absurd of a name. I've seen worse: As I Lay Dying, Bullet for My Valentine, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Yes, these are real band names.

So this band, HCHWC, needs a hit song. The only creative guy in the group just got over a heart-wrenching breakup and decides to pour out his soul. The first few drafts of the song are just him sobbing into the microphone, but eventually he comes up with some pretty legit lyrics. Let's say he uses a ship sailing alone into a stormy ocean to represent how he's feeling. Hey, with a catchy chorus and bass part it could work.

After writing a bunch of other songs, the band comes out with an album. Let's call it "Lessons in Loneliness, Pt. 1" This band is getting more and more emo... To gain popularity, the band tours constantly for a year and finally gets some attention from a major label. The label loves their frantic songs and wants to re-release their album with a few more songs and a music video for their hit.

Here's where the problem is. The band spent a few months rerecording and finetuning the album with legit equipment after spending a year touring the country after spending a few months writing and practicing. A lot of time has passed since emo-boy's girlfriend broke up with him. On top of that, since the band's rise in popularity, they've been getting a ton of ass and emo-boy has completely forgotten about what's-her-name.

When the director of the video plans out the setting and plot with the band, all he knows is that the song is about a ship. The songwriter could pretend he still cares about his old girlfriend and moan about how lonely he feels, but that's a blatant lie. He doesn't remember how he felt when he wrote the song, and even if he does, his life has changed drastically. The video should depict an evil/monsterlike/stupid girl ruining the guy's life. Instead, the band dresses up as hipster pirates and has a foodfight on a boat flying above an ocean made of paper-mache. Let's throw in a dancing dragon too, it's artistic.

I can confidently say that this summarizes every single music video in the last ten years. Prove me wrong.