I do not like music videos

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Some music videos are in all ways great - masterful and meaningful. However, they modify the way I imagine a song. The mental image/movie created by myself can be for a large part pushed aside from the way of the video or atleast certain parts of it. This process gives a feeling of being tied down and I generally dislike it when something attempts to prevent the flight of my imagination.

I think this is bit like movies vs. books, comparing concrete and floating images.

This being a short introduction, I'd like to have some conversation on the subject. Do you like watching music videos? How do they affect the way you view a song?

Some songs are remembered more for their damn videos than the songs themselves.

It doesn't effect my enjoyment of the song necessarily. It'd have to be something pretty extreme.

I know what you mean. Some music videos are lousy, but they don't ruin the song for me. I can ignore them if I hate them, and remember them if I like them.

But in general, I don't see the point of music videos. It doesn't make the music any better (it shouldn't, anyway) so it's just to help the music sell to people who watch MTV countdowns or something, right?

What is the purpose of music videos, anyway?

To me, it's actually "worse" in case the video is good. A complete trash is easy to let go of, but a quality one is more likely to stay in your/my head, often conflicting with my own thoughts of the song. Usually they end up coexisting, but it's also often that one takes over the other.

I don't care for music videos. A lot of the time the video's are freaky and the musicians look ...well not like I thought they would. But a video won't ruin a song for me. I don't watch music videos often anyway.

I know exactly what you mean, Keoren. Most music videos I simply dislike.

What I hate the most is when I think that a song is about something profound and then the video teaches me that what the singer really intended was for the song to be about sex or being sexy. Sex is great, sure, but I don't like it mixed with 95% of the music I hear, especially when the lyrics could have easily been about something else. It gets old, for one, and secondly, I don't like being assaulted with sexually provocative images when I'd rather enjoy art. Evidently I'm in the minority, because it keeps selling.

Even when the song isn't all sexed up in the video, I usually don't like the artist's interpretation as much as my own. An example of this would be "Surreal" by Ayumi Hamasaki. I think of the song as kind of a fighting song, about strength and justice. Her interpretation looks more like something out of Strawberry Shortcake.

I try to avoid music videos, mostly. Interestingly, fan videos on youtube don't negatively impact my impression of a song, even when they're not great. Usually I like the fan video better than the original. It isn't trying to sell me anything.

I wish to sum up an example situation I'm talking about, in case anyone is confused.

Assuming there is a song that makes you think of a green monkey jumping around in an apple tree. You form a whole story around this. You just love that little fellow. As you end up seeing the video, you find out it all supposedly tells about a distorted skyscraper with an identity crisis.

To me, it's like something stealing my story, replacing it with it's own. I don't mind someone's thoughts opposing mine, I just want to process them myself, not having ta fully prepared product handed to me.

For me, watching a music video takes away my appreciation for a song [only when watching it]. When you just listen to music, you are free to interpret the song in your own way...there are no boundaries.
When you watch a music video that someone else has created, you can't really imagine anything and are focused on looking at the tv screen...NOT listening to the actual music.

I understand completely. I often think of color schemes when I hear specific songs and if the video doesn't match in that regard, my perception of the song is somewhat ruined. Luckily, most of the music I listen to now is made by artists who do not make videos often anyway.

I looooooove music videos, but then I don't watch 'mainstream' Top 40 type ones, they all just seem to be sexsexnakedladies. Which I don't mind, the human form doesn't bother me in the least, they're just repetitive and mundane and don't really reflect any artistic talent whatsoever.

What about ones from people like Sigur Rós? They paint landscapes in your mind with their songs, and then generally put them into visuals too in the songs.

I just see them as interesting; a different interpretation to my own that can serve to make me think even more deeply about the music.

Example:
(Sigur Rós - Glósóli)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okLCurB1lJw[/youtube]

I do like music videos sometimes but I can understand that. I often feel like there's something missing from most music videos, but then I feel like that for most music, too. XD Sometimes I'll only find a song okay then see a great video for it and like the song much more, strangely enough.

This is why I appreciate bands like Bloodhound Gang who have a lot of creative control over their videos. Not a good example from an artistic merit standpoint, no - but their videos are mostly thought up by them and so the videos put across the kind of band they are.

I don't like them either. They're completely disorienting and I can't really get into the music at all through them. I think they are mostly sales gimmicks and I don't believe in image --although of course it makes money.