Sometimes an artist needs to use their music video to add value and perhaps boost the popularity of a song that would otherwise only perform averagely in the charts. These are some examples of songs that have been made increasingly popular because of their music videos.
A-ha! - Take on me
Released in May 1984 on the album Hunting High and Low the song didn't perform as well as the recording studio may have liked only managing to sell 300 copies and peaking at number 137 in the charts. As a result of this the recording studio hired director Steve Barron who created the idea for the music video an animation method called rotoscoping combined together with live action shots, the video took 16 weeks to complete and boosted the song to number one in the charts and won six awards.
The recording studio initially had plans to have Sinead take part in a video using French landmarks. They paid out a lot of money to have her sent to France which equated to a total of a few seconds worth of footage, this obviously enraged the recording studio when they realised that all their money had been discarded for one close up shot of Sinead singing the song. However this decision turned out to be a brilliant one as the close up shot was able to capture authentic emotions from Sinead when she cried during the song. This was powerful for audiences as it was so authentic and helped the song reach number one in the charts and won the award for MTV music video of the year.
For some songs it isn't just the content of the music video that adds value but also the version of the track as well. Now many artist use auto tune to regulate their vocals and make them sound better. So when you see them in live performance their vocals are often completely different to the sold track.
A good example of this is Chainsmokers Closer
This is their actual video:
Their live performance:
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