Music we watch.

Jul 31 05:12 UTC 1997

Music has often had a visual component.  From opera to musicals, psychedelic
patterns and disco lights to rock drama in concerts, rock artist movies and
TV shows to music videos, music has been given an element we can watch.

For example, we could discuss how Beatles movies and the TV show "The Monkees"
evolved into music videos.  (Michael Nesmith of the Monkees predicted the rise
of MTV.)  Music videos themselves have changed, or at least in the MTV sense
that we knew them when they first began.  Music videos of the 80's were
dripping with art.  First came the whitescreen vids that mmade the band
members look washed out.  Then there were the videos that were bright with
color, almost trite in their use of common images (the white horse, the broken
mirror, the falling snow, etc.), almost manic in their pace and filled with
androgynous-looking musicians.

Are videos like a condensed form of opera?  Or am I making a stretch?  I guess
this would be an argument of how much technology replaces human labor.  Even
comparing the stage to TV is difficult.

And then after the music video came the CD + Graphics, and then the enhanced
CD.  I'm not sure how extensive the CD + Graphics was (I have only an
Information Society CD that has this).  You needed a special adapter, which
would show the graphics on your TV.  (Perhps this is an RF modulator, but I'm
not sure-- anyone know about CD Graphics Adapters, where I can find them, if
I need a special CD player with an adapter port, and where I can find them--
help!!)  Of course, I'm sure more people know what an enhanced CD is.  It's
a digital audio CD with additional PC CD-ROM info on it.  You install a main
program just like you would any CD-ROM program on your PC, and then you run
the program from the disc.  The only one I've seen is the Romeo + Juliet movie
soundtrack CD, so I don't know the extent and variety of enhanced CD graphics.

response 2 of 42:

Jul 31 22:16 UTC 1997

Nope, videos are just eye candy for a brain previously only occupied with the
ears.  With or without the videos, you don't just want MTV, you do something
else with it.  I never sit around listening to music without doing something
else too.  It doesn't occupy my brain enough.

response 4 of 42:

Aug 1 06:16 UTC 1997

Well, rarely.  Occasionally I do, but my brain usually isn't on full tilt.
I almost never only do one thing at once, unless I"m at school where I have
no choice.  Right now, for instance, I'm running two connections and playing
a game of solitaire simultaenously (and holding three conversations.)  My mind
tends to need a lot to keep it occupied.

response 6 of 42:

Aug 1 23:28 UTC 1997

Some do.  U2's current concert tour is a visual extravaganza.

response 8 of 42:

Aug 3 00:47 UTC 1997

The new Sarah McLachlan does, as well as here Rairities CD.  I think the Fiona
Apple CD does.  I've heard of several more, but I can't think of them at the
moment.  For the most part, I'm not particularly impressed with the enhanced
CDs.  The CDROM part is rather pathetic, usually just a video of one of the
songs.  I'd like things like discussions with the song writer about the
meanings of the songs, lyrics (you'd be amazed.  I've never seen one with
lyrics on it...) things like that.  If I want the video, I'll watch VH1 or
rent it.

response 10 of 42:

Aug 3 02:54 UTC 1997

As for the question of whether music videos are a "condensed form of opera",
I think not.  I'm not exactly what you would call an opera buff, but only
because I'm too new to it.  :)  Becoming an opera buff takes years, because
you have to listen to the darn things, and there are so bloody many of them.
I think that opera differs from music videos in three important respects.

1.  Opera is dramatic.
    Opera tells a story.  Usually, it's pretty obvious what the story is.  
    If nothing else about it appeals to you, you can consider it to be a 
    play where all the lines happen to be sung.  (This would be pretty 
    obnoxious, though.  Most of the lines are sung multiple times, and 
    it's all too common for operas to have really stupid lyrics.)  Also
    included in this reason is the fact that opera is live, generally 
    speaking (yes, there is movieized opera out there, but not a lot of it,
    and what's there is pretty pathetic, usually.).  You just can't have
    the psychedelic, surreal effects of the music video on the operatic
    stage.  
2.  Opera is epic in scope.
    A music video runs about the length of the song that spawned it, about 
    five minutes or so.  The songs are usually more or less monothematic, 
    and the music videos reflect this, if they have any relation to the song
    at all.  An opera runs anywhere from an hour and a half to four hours,
    and the music can have extreme variance.  They are rarely thematically 
    simple, either in terms of dramatic or musical themes.  A typical opera
    will contain 10-25 "songs", with assorted filler.  These songs interact
    with each other, quoting a previous song or foreshadowing a later song
    or helping to emphasize character development via music.  I have only
    observed this kind of progressive interaction between music and image
    in a "music video" once, in Pink Floyd's _The Wall_.  However, even 
    this example, which is the closest I can think of that music video 
    comes to opera, does not fulfill my third and most important argument.
3.  Opera is written from the drama to the music, not the other way around.
    When you write an opera, you don't sit down at the piano, write 20 songs,
    and try to come up with a story that fits them together.  You pick a play,
    or a poem, or a novel, or some (usually preexisting) dramatic work, and 
    write an opera on that.  The music (and this is the really important part)
    serves as a dramatic device, to amplify the character development, to
    convey a message to the audience.  Example:  in Verdi's _La Traviata_, 
    the main conflict is between Alfredo's duties to his family and his 
    family's honor, and his love for Violetta, a woman of ill repute.  
    Violetta, meanwhile, is torn by the question of whether she should 
    selfishly keep his love for herself or drive him away so that he can 
    attend to his family duties.  In scenes where the protagonists are being
    "sensible" and prudent, the music is in 4/4 time, with a classicist
    (symbolizing duty, tradition, the glories of the past, etc) flavor; while
    when they are abandoning all for their passion, the music is in 3/4 and
    romantic in flavor. (Here I mean romantic in the sense that Tchaikovsky,
    Rachmaninoff, etc. were composers in the Romantic movement.)  My point is
    that the music is an important part of the drama, and reveals important
    things about the character.  This is necessary, as the actual lyrics are
    frequently such as to make one wish to leave the theater in disgust, and 
    the translations are invariably even worse.  
       This is a large contrast with music videos, in which the song is written
    first and is most important.  The music video is written primarily to 
    clarify and elaborate on the important parts of the song, and only 
    secondarily to be an independent artistic statement.  Also, it's good
    advertising for the song.  Now, I am not contending that music videos 
    are not artistic or that they are unimportant, only that they are 
    secondary to the music itself.  I cannot think of a music video that has
    become widely popular that was not made with a popular song.  This is 
    not the case in opera, where the music and the drama work together to 
    make a single, cohesive artistic statement, the one inextricably bound 
    up in the other.  

response 12 of 42:

Aug 3 17:30 UTC 1997

I haven't seen JCS, but I suspect that it would be classed as a musical, like
most of Lloyd Weber's work.  Still, by objections to comparing it with music
videos are valid.  It is still dramatic, epic, and the music is based on a 
pre-selected theme, which it enhances.  

I don't know "Tommy".  

response 14 of 42:

Aug 7 06:43 UTC 1997

(flem, I hope we'll see you over in the opera item; I'll move some of 
my opera-specific comments there...)
 
U2 came in for some snide comments on their recent tour when they cancelled
a show or two because the giant TV screen broke.

response 16 of 42:

Aug 9 08:54 UTC 1997

Hrm..I'd like to see that.

response 18 of 42:

Aug 11 21:39 UTC 1997

Wow. does that mean that U2 is relying more on the media than the music now?
tsk tsk tsk! Shame. Didn't they start out with the music?  *dripping sarcasm*

response 20 of 42:

Aug 13 03:49 UTC 1997

Oh geez-- you sound like an old goat :P  I suppose this is because these
'musicals' have speaking parts?  And then, can we assume opera is a dead art
form?  (I mean that according to your logic, no one writes contemporary
operas-- it's 'musicals.')  I should have stated it as a type of evolution--
I never intended it to be a direct comparison. 

Silly me for not pointing it out.  But you don't need to hop all over me :P

A music video _per se_ does not have a storyline independent of the song. 
There are a few that come close.  However, music movies do-- such as the ones
the Beatles starred in.  "Help!" is probably a better example than "A Hard
Day's Night," but either film did have a story, however trite it may have
seemed.

So U2 is cashing in big on the whims of the masses.  A band has to change to
survive, and this one has made big changes to be financially successful.  I
say, if you're a fan, it shouldn't matter.  Besides, I thought they were
making a statement against the onslaught of multimedia-- at least with the
ZooTV tour.  I could be wrong :P

response 22 of 42:

Aug 14 18:38 UTC 1997

I scratched a long response on the definition of opera.
Using the definition of "drama through music," JC SUPERSTAR counts.
TOMMY probably counts as well, though it is pretty unsatisfying 
as a drama.  

response 24 of 42:

Aug 15 01:40 UTC 1997

krj - under your definition, "Oklahoma" is also opera.  I'm not going to get
all elitist about this, don't worry.  If you're willing to put "Oklahoma" and
"Das Rheingold" in the same category, fine by me, but I know a lot of people
who would object.