Has the internet killed the video star?
Tonight music channel MTV Europe is holding its glitzy annual awards ceremony in Liverpool. But 27 years after its inception, the 24-hour channel that turned music videos into an art form barely shows them any more. These days MTV is given over to celebrities and reality shows. Coupled with the fashion for live music programmes such as Later with Jools Holland and the death of Top of the Pops, the pop video has been exiled to the internet.
But in the free-for-all shop window of YouTube, viewers are as often nostalgically chuckling over the big-haired, badly produced video gems from their youth as they are watching the latest releases. So how has the switch from small screen to tiny screen changed music videos?
Ever since Michael Jackson's Thriller, getting your video banned has been an easy way to increase its audience. This has certainly worked for French director Romain Gavras. His controversial video for the single Stress by the electro duo Justice was named best international video at last month's UK Music Video Awards, but it's a million miles from the big budget, mini-movie aesthetic of the 1980s. The frenetically shot film, made with a hand-held camera, looks more like an amateur (if expertly shot) documentary, following a gang of hooded youths on a violent rampage around a faceless estate. In France, it was accused of fuelling racism and glamorising violence and was banned by several channels, yet the internet gave it an international profile.
