Converging on Narrative – The Future of the Music Video

“Each medium possesses its own language with regard to time, space, narrativity, and affect”

Vernallis questions the relationship between music videos and narrative in his early 2000s work Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context. His arguments are interesting an valid, to a point, however his dated examples make clear the outdated nature of his study. Vernallis explored narrative in the context of the music videos of the time, specifically, music videos that were being experienced on platforms like MTV, which begs the question, what has the internet and platforms like youtube done to change the relationship music videos have with narrative structure.

In the chapter Telling not Telling Vernallis claims that:

“Music videos avoid Aristotelian narratives and fully drawn stories for several reasons: (1) the genre’s multimedia nature, (2) the lack of appropriateness and applicability of narrative film devices, and (3) the necessity of foregrounding the song’s form (in order to sell the song).”

I believe that the new venues that have opened up for viewing music videos have significantly altered these premises, though much of his argument remains well intact. A notable difference is the existence of youtube channels, and Vevo accounts that make the foregrounding of songs to promote the artist much less necessary, if not almost completely obsolete. An obscure video will bring traffic to an artists channel, a place that inherently promotes them. This is a harsh shift from the plurality of MTV in which the artist would need to blatantly self-advertise in order to make their identity known to an audience. These commercial aspects of music videos are changing and so, as the platforms provide better promotion, promotion can be less present in the content itself.

The shift from television to online spaces also has a temporal effect on what a music video can be. TV time-slots are strictly rigid things, whereas youtube content is constantly accessible with little to no limit on duration. This gives avenue for the extension of music videos and an evolution of sorts that can be seen in visual albums. Sevdaliza’s short film is a great example of how this opportunity is playing out, and how it is effecting how music can interact with narrative.

The concept Vernallis introduces, of time warping and being non-linear still exists within the video. When each of the three songs play, the real-time narrative is substituted with a montage style that actively slows down and speeds up time, however the three songs are used to punctuate a very present narrative that the film provides to the viewer. Jean-Jacques Nattiez’s claim that music has no narrative is very likely true. It cannot create a past, present, and future, only manifest a sort of memory, scene, or 분위기. However the use of three seperate songs within the film develops a timeline that is impossible within the confines of a single song. The three songs are used to punctuate the turning points of the story, explaining undisclosed meanings of the films narrative. They exist as the beginning, middle, and end. They are three acts, three memories tied into a narrative that cannot be completed by one alone.

The fact that it is a short film may, to some, disqualify it from the title of being a music video, but I would disagree. It is a hybrid form as the filmic elements bow to the music. The dialogue ceases, the time dislocates, the film has the key features of a music video as it promotes the songs with supporting, submissive visuals, rather than becoming part of the landscape as they would in a film soundtrack.

The relationship music videos have with narrative is more complex now than the faux-narratives Vernallis theorises. The genre itself is undergoing change, and has been since the late 2000s. New possibilities are giving avenue to new forms of hybrid artistic expression as the ways we can engage with music are evolving. Much of Vernallis’ theory is still binding, however the internet is providing a space for the redefinition of the music video.