The concept of time in the realm of music video is intriguing because it doesn’t follow a linear narrative as films and tv programming are usually required to do. Music videos interpret song lyrics outside the confines of traditional storytelling often using surreal images and special effects to get a point across. This aspect of entertainment media has always fascinated me the most, and as I’ve pointed out in my previous music posts, Music Video & It’s Siblings was my favorite of all the media related courses that I completed during my enrollment at Arizona State University. With that in mind, I wanted to share another paper I wrote for that class called Concepts Of Time & Nostalgia In Music Video taught by one of my favorite professors Carole Vernallis. Considering how discouraging world events are right now, just lounging around every now and then, getting lost for an hour or two in the fantasy world of music videos on YouTube can be just the thing!
Anyways, here is what I wrote in 2011 for my Concepts paper:
Where music video theory is concerned, perhaps the single most fascinating element is the concept and creation of a sense of time. Commercial film and television narratives must provide or at least suggest a coherent sense of time that a viewer can understand and relate to. However, the very nature and short duration of music videos sets them drastically apart from these other media forms in several ways, and particularly where the depiction of a time period is concerned. “Time in music video is undoubtedly strange” as renowned media scholar Carole Vernallis accurately points out in her comprehensive work: Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics And Cultural Content. The purpose of this analysis will be used to discover how certain temporal markers are used to create or at least suggest a tangible period of time and explore nostalgia in the highly unique world of the music video.
Right from the dawn of MTV (Music Television) in 1981, the milieu of music video could best be termed as bizarre as that is the only word which can best describe a type of television programming that was markedly different in character and style from everything that came before it. An entire cable network devoted solely to playing a heavy rotation of music accompanied with video images largely lacking in narrative structure completely changed the way the world viewed the realm of both popular and rock music. With the emergence of MTV and the very rapid growth of its popularity, the visual aesthetic quickly took center stage and greatly boosted the profiles of both new and established performers. Nevertheless, these music video creations were definitely a dimension apart from the other filmic media since they “do not possess a speed similar to that of ordinary lived time…” as Vernallis asserts in Experiencing Music Video (Pg. 133)
When it comes to pinpointing a sense of time and place, a viewer is hard pressed to figure this out with a considerable number of videos. One of the more outstanding examples of such vagueness is comes from the early days of MTV with the video “Lies”(1983) by the British pop group Thompson Twins. Aside from the fact that the video totally lacks a narrative, “Lies” has a rather static quality that is largely due to lack of camera movement or scene change and therefore distorts a lack of time frame as well. All the action (what there is of it) occurs within one scene that must have been filmed entire on a soundstage. In the opening we see a paneled room and a tiled floor with a rectangular box attached from ceiling to floor which appears in the background. The band members emerge from the box to perform for three pairs of disembodied arms and dancing feet that stick out from a blanket and bedposts. Adding to the abstract qualities of this video are a number of oversized, diverse objects such as rabbits, apples, and a rotary dial phone which suddenly appear and then vanish as quickly – and without clearly discernible connection to the lyrics.
Other oddities of “Lies” include a mattress leaning against a wall which just appears and then is gone. In the midst of these oddities legs push through a wall, a falcon drives a Volkswagen through the room, a likeness of Cleopatra undulates across the screen, two ghostly looking British gentleman in early 1900s apparel wearing bowler hats and holding umbrellas descend through the ceiling and then are gone. All of this bizarre imagery makes “Lies” one of the most surreal videos of the 1980s, reminiscent of a Salvador Dali dreamscape, or an opening sequence straight out of the classic tv anthology series The Twilight Zone where objects are floating in outer space without purpose, and this makes “Lies” too abstract to classify it within a specific place or time period. The best conclusion to reach about “Lies” is that it was intended to exist in another dimension not fully within our normal comprehension of time or space. Since music video was an emerging, experimental genre in the early 1980s, “Lies” is not an exceptional case of the music video lacking in temporal markers and having a hazy sense of time. Aside from Thompson Twins, it’s notable that many British-originated electronics/new wave pop music bands from the 80s stand out as having a considerable number of video creations that are largely devoid of concrete realities or identifiable sense of time.
Along with Thompson Twins, some of these experimental and innovative bands included ABC, After The Fire, Buggles, Culture Club, Devo, Eurythmics, The Fixx, The Human League, Men At Work, Soft Cell, Talking Heads, and Tears For Fears, among many others where a tangible sense of a past or future doesn’t relate to a continuous present. Another noteworthy example of a video having a highly ambiguous sense of time would be “Tainted Love” (1982) by Soft Cell (although the video version for discussion is from 1991). In this second interpretation there is a young man suffering from insomnia, reading an ominous newspaper horoscope which warns of romantic sufferings and being tormented by starry apparitions and morphing nebula while lead singer Marc Almond performs the vocals from the firmament. The restless man is finally driven out of his apartment by the ghostly figures preying on his psyche. All that can easily be assumed by the viewer of “Tainted Love”is that the man has (or will soon experience a distressed love life), but there is no easy way of knowing how long he will be having these difficulties or what even preceded them – since there is no backstory to derive more information from. Adding to the very thin fuzziness of the “story” is that the night sky outside the apartment window creates the impression that the man is not of earth but somewhere in outer space.
Once again, as with “Lies”, “Tainted Love” brings to mind what could be snippets of a Twilight Zone episode with both videos containing elements of the supernatural which automatically suggests a distorted sense of time which seems murky (and even creepy) at best. However, it seems that a perpetual state of limbo or being lost in some netherworld is quite suitable to the realm of music video. They are largely incapable of providing us full-fledged stories with definable protagonists/antagonists or the obligatory beginning that contains an inciting incident, no real middle with character and plot development, or endings that bring satisfying narrative closure. Of course, the very nature of music video is to sell the song and focus attention on the artist(s) – not to provide us a full course of components we expect from most cinematic, television, and stage play entertainments.
Nonetheless, there are some examples of videos with somewhat more tangible concepts of time such as the first one ever aired on MTV: “Video Killed The Radio Star” (1981) by the Buggles which soon proved most prophetic. The video offers the semblance of a story as it celebrates the “golden age” of radio – when that medium was vital towards creating and maintaining musical stars. The song’s theme is about nostalgia, and discomfort with technological change that eventually renders a tried and true method of building up pop/rock/country music stars as obsolete. Thus, as with any nostalgic reflections on popular culture there is the implication that that younger generations do not appreciate the past. In the video, the Buggles represent the present 1980s which is apparent from their style of dress, the up-to-date keyboards they play, and the lyrics that are clearly about a yearning for the past right from the song’s beginning as vocalist Trevor Horn sings: “I heard you on the wireless back in 1952…” or “and now we meet in an abandoned studio, we hear the playback and it seems so long ago…” along with: “You remember how the jingles used to go…”
“Video Killed The Radio Star” is the first and a still worthy example of what Vernallis speaks of in her amazing text Experiencing Music Video when she states that “Music-video directors can even create two senses of time within a single frame.” (Pg. 133) In the next instance Vernallis describes how the performer’s (Dido) possessions are being carted off by the movers “while she sings as if in a different realm.” (Pg. 133) Within “Video Killed The Radio Star” it’s clear from the visuals (as television sets emerge triumphantly from the rubble of heaped up vintage radios!) that there are two obvious divisions of time to reflect what the lyrics are expressing. At the start we see the lead performer (Horn) appear like some abstract incarnation superimposed over a young girl while she’s tuning in an old-fashioned radio set in the background. This segment also makes it clear that there are two senses of time occurring simultaneously. From the opening lyric mentioned previously, the viewer is aware that one of those senses of time is specifically 1952 – and this harmonizes with the visual just mentioned. Additionally, a Wikipedia article about “Video Killed The Radio Star” made a fascinating observation when stating: “The vocals are initially limited in bandwidth, giving a “telephone” effect typical of early broadcasts.” This would also cue a more astute viewer of the video (or even just listening to the song on the radio) that there is definitely more than one sense of time happening.
In Part 2 coming soon there will be further discussion about the role of nostalgia and celebrating the past in early music video.
