Interview 1

Gender: Female
Age: 22

1. What do you think makes a music video effective?

When there’s a storyline.

- Because?

It makes you pay more attention to the lyrics and, at times, you can connect with the artist, band or characters. Becoming so engrossed with what you are watching allows you to really remember the song that goes with it. I mean songs are used for advertisements, film soundtracks, TV Programmes, etc, which make people remember them and be more likely to buy them.

2. Do you think a music video needs to be controversial to gain publicity?

No. If it’s a good video, it’s a good video! The song also plays an important part, as well as the artist or band singing it. It’s harder for an unsigned band to get loads of hits on their music video because not many people would have heard of them.

- What do you think would make music videos gain publicity?

If there were loads of naked girls! *Laughs* You know how men can be! No, I mean if it’s a shocking video, for example, “Telephone” by Lady Gaga. I get that it seems I have contradicted what I have said for the previous question, but being creative and exciting doesn’t necessarily mean having to be controversial. You have to get people to talk about it! The greatest way to gain views and a larger fan base is by word of mouth.


3.What’s your favourite music video?

Oh my god, I haven’t got a clue what my favourite music video is – Oh wait! “Larger than life” by Backstreet Boys because they dance like robots. I understand that doesn’t go with what I answered for the first question, but the reason I like it is because it makes me laugh and I enjoy watching it. This could be because I had the typical teenage crush on the band when they first came out, so seeing them dance like robots just made me think they had a sense of humour, thus increasing my girlie fandom. Maybe it’s because people don’t usually do the robot when they choose to do dance routines in their music videos? Usually it’s the mainstream dance of the moment, or whatever’s “coolest”, like break dancing, but the robot is seen as something silly, so a band to use it and play around with it shows that they’re enjoying what they’re doing.