I recently read another article stating that CDs are a dead medium...a debatable viewpoint. Maybe it's only because they are looking at the music industry as a whole, while the circles I associate with tend to be older, and still know the value of a tangible collection of songs from an artist whose perspective is in harmony with their own.
In fact, I also read an article about the resurgence of vinyl, so their article is not to be taken as absolute gospel in my opinion. I would like to address the issue of vinyl in another article.
One of the points made in the article was, while the CD may be "dead", cutting edge artists are offering their music on DVDs in the form of music videos. This is hardly "cutting edge" news to me, for this was predicted for quite sometime. But of course, I have some things to say about it and now seemed like the time.
I enjoy music videos and have since the early years...music video is actually not a new form. Just search YouTube and you can find "performance" videos (i.e. video of an artist performing on stage or in movies) dating WAY back. But I am speaking of when videos became consistently produced for hit or potential hit records sometime in the 80s.
In some cases, adding visuals to a song can add depth of meaning, transporting a good song into something more like great art. Too many times the visuals are redundant, superfluous, or even damaging to the concept of the tune; no different from any other art form.
When the video takes a great song to a new level, I have no problem with this. Yet there is still an issue to be addressed.
What of imagination? Even with those videos that are real treasures, often the images presented do not jibe with those my imagination produce when listening to the music alone. In the best cases, I enjoy both and would never want to just watch the video exclusively, but would also wish to just hear the song sometimes.
However, those "treasures" are few and far between, and I am hesitant to get my music in videos only, when the visual portion cannot compete with my imagination.
That's my personal outlook. But what of those who seem to lack vivid imaginations? My guess is that music alone actually exercises the imagination of the self-confessed "unimaginative" folks. With songs, some imagination is required, or you'll never understand what it's all about. If you have a desire to understand what you are listening to, you are in fact forced to make that imagination work a little.
One could argue that this could be an issue with the younger generation. I think that children are the same as they always were, and tend to be creative and imaginative as a whole. While some portions of our culture tend to stifle that quality, more than ever before we also tend to make imagination unnecessary by displaying everything in the world. And there are those who are working on making "virtual experiences" for all five senses.
To sidetrack a little, it may be ironic that artists and other creative people are actually the ones responsible for creating experiences so vivid that no imagination is required!
All I am saying is that there is a place for video music, et al. whether it be performance video or visual art, but why not include a "music only" section on the same DVD for those who want to be alone with the mental images the music causes their imaginations to create?
