Who started talking in music videos/made it a thing?

[Red Velvet 10,988]

12 hours ago, Red said:

It's safe to say every music video trend started with Michael

In pop music, Michael was the first to do the music video trend and one of the first black artists to have their music video aired at MTV , next was Cyndi, she was one of the first artists to edit scenes with what we call filter right now. Then we have the millennial music video trend which was started truly by Madonna with Express Yourself, that trend ended with Bye Bye Bye with N'Sync. Britney did the old school trend in her music video BOMT and the first artist to ever go use the space trend followed. Gaga did the short film trend again with Paparazzi which was her Billie Jean. 

[StrawberryBlond 14,846]

17 hours ago, Chuckles said:

I lost the majority of my respect and interest on Beyoncé after this

Yep. Gaga made mini movies before Beyonce. Gaga was talking about making a visual album several years before Beyonce did it. She just wasn't given the freedom to. She was also promoting non-singles from her album way back in 2010 (she even said afterwards that she believed it important to promote the entire body of work as opposed to focusing on the singles alone). Yet, when Beyonce started talking about this exact same thing in that Oprah interview, everyone acted like what she said was so new and groundbreaking. Poor Gaga. She's been accused of copying her entire career and just when she starts getting really new ideas, their originality is co-opted by others and claimed as theirs.

17 hours ago, CrazyMonster said:

That's why Gaga should learn to shut her mouth, I'm glad she did that with Joanne cause I'm sure Katy Perry would have copied her with the whole pop rock folk & country inspired music.

Yes, she always gave away a bit too much. But now that the trend is to keep quiet until the last minute, she's benefitting from it. I wouldn't be surprised if Katy would have been inspired by the Joanne concept if it had got out, no doubt, because that's the artists she is inside. And I also wouldn't be surprised if that's the route she goes on her next album, trying to make her departure from her stage name complete. But now that Gaga and her are finally released from this side-by-side schedule of theirs, there won't be any copying accusations heading Gaga's way. That's when I hope people will truly realise how much of a visionary Gaga is. Even originally acoustic led artists like Taylor have gone pop recently, so for Gaga to go back to her roots and do an organic album with real instruments and real vocals was a big risk for her and I'm proud of her doing something so drastic when the industry is the way it is right now.

[U n I 38]

23 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Plenty of artists back in the 80's had a little bit of acting before their video started, really cheesy stuff. It was probably Michael Jackson who started it, he was one of the first to truly make music videos like an entire set piece, a mini movie complete with acting. Madonna did a bit of that as well. Only the big names are being brought up here, but you get the picture. Gaga certainly made it a thing for the modern age. When I saw Kesha's video, the black-and-white monologue in the sea just made me think of Gaga, Beyonce was an afterthought. Beyonce fans like to think Beyonce started this idea and while she really took the idea of monologuing to the extreme by doing it on every video and making it popular again, it was probably Gaga's long monologuing videos that inspired her. Who knows if there would even be this whole movie/album idea of hers without videos like BTW and MTN? She worked with Gaga twice back in 2010. I'm sure some of her ideas must have rubbed off on her. Particularly the whole "release a music video for every song" idea! She's managed to get in there first with several of the things that Gaga did first or wanted to do and its getting irritating.

How do know what Beyoncé fans think?  And artists have been making short films before Gaga and bey,you are just trying to give Gaga a credit that doesn't belong to her because there is nothing on lemonade/ST that is BTW or MTN inspired and Beyoncé has been a visual artist long before Gaga had a career.

[StrawberryBlond 14,846]

31 minutes ago, U n I said:

How do know what Beyoncé fans think?  And artists have been making short films before Gaga and bey,you are just trying to give Gaga a credit that doesn't belong to her because there is nothing on lemonade/ST that is BTW or MTN inspired and Beyoncé has been a visual artist long before Gaga had a career.

Because they're putting their views all over the internet, that's why. And yes, I know artists have been making short films long before Gaga but Gaga made it popular in the modern age. There was a reason videos like Paparazzi and Telephone caused such a stir - because they were longer than average music videos at the time. Only indie musicians did things like that, mainstream artists kept videos short and sweet to ensure people's attention spans didn't dip, which is a big factor in whether your song will be a hit or not. For Gaga to make long videos drew people's attention. I'm talking about the monologue element in BTW and MTN, not the actual visual content. I mean, where did Beyonce, who speaks as Wendy Williams put it, "like she has a 5th grade education," learn to speak in such poetic, pretentious ways like she does in those Lemonade monologues? It's really not unlike the things Gaga said in those videos. And Beyonce has always been a visual artist before Gaga has a career? What? She put out videos that were no different to any other popular artists videos. No one even talks about her early videos anymore because they're so forgettable. Out of all the artists who should be making visual albums, she comes way down on my list.

[Stephen 30,423]

This is a good question. Can anyone think of an older music video with an off screen monologue like these? It's been very common in recent years. Off the top of my head - 

Born This Way

Marry the Night

Rihanna - We Found Love

Lana Del Rey - National Anthem (at the end) + Ride

Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble

Beyonce - Lemonade 

Kesha - Praying 

[Pablo 7,791]

On 7/7/2017 at 8:05 AM, Ryusei said:

Not Beyoncé 

why is this necessary? 

Obviously music videos that included talking were a thing before Beyonce's career with Destiny's Child began

[Pablo 7,791]

On 7/7/2017 at 5:14 PM, StrawberryBlond said:

Plenty of artists back in the 80's had a little bit of acting before their video started, really cheesy stuff. It was probably Michael Jackson who started it, he was one of the first to truly make music videos like an entire set piece, a mini movie complete with acting. Madonna did a bit of that as well. Only the big names are being brought up here, but you get the picture. Gaga certainly made it a thing for the modern age. When I saw Kesha's video, the black-and-white monologue in the sea just made me think of Gaga, Beyonce was an afterthought. Beyonce fans like to think Beyonce started this idea and while she really took the idea of monologuing to the extreme by doing it on every video and making it popular again, it was probably Gaga's long monologuing videos that inspired her. Who knows if there would even be this whole movie/album idea of hers without videos like BTW and MTN? She worked with Gaga twice back in 2010. I'm sure some of her ideas must have rubbed off on her. Particularly the whole "release a music video for every song" idea! She's managed to get in there first with several of the things that Gaga did first or wanted to do and its getting irritating.

Why even bring up Beyonce?  Kesha's monologue wasn't a reference to gaga or beyonce, plus Beyonce has always done tone of videos, how could Gaga rub off of her if Gaga never created a video for every song???

[StrawberryBlond 14,846]

Just now, Pablo said:

Why even bring up Beyonce?  Kesha's monologue wasn't a reference to gaga or beyonce, plus Beyonce has always done tone of videos, how could Gaga rub off of her if Gaga never created a video for every song???

Because monologues in videos is associated with Beyonce at this current moment in time and I'm pointing out that she wasn't the one who started it. It's not beyond the bounds of reason that Kesha was inspired by the recent monologue trend in music videos. I'm saying that in working with Gaga, Beyonce might have heard Gaga say something about how it was always her dream to create a video for every song and was inspired by her in general. Ideas can rub off on artists when they work with other artists, obviously. Every Gaga fan knows that Gaga had publically expressed the desire to make a visual album several years before Beyonce did. Just because she wasn't allowed the freedom to carry out her vision doesn't mean that she didn't have the idea before Beyonce.

[U n I 38]

6 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Because monologues in videos is associated with Beyonce at this current moment in time and I'm pointing out that she wasn't the one who started it. It's not beyond the bounds of reason that Kesha was inspired by the recent monologue trend in music videos. I'm saying that in working with Gaga, Beyonce might have heard Gaga say something about how it was always her dream to create a video for every song and was inspired by her in general. Ideas can rub off on artists when they work with other artists, obviously. Every Gaga fan knows that Gaga had publically expressed the desire to make a visual album several years before Beyonce did. Just because she wasn't allowed the freedom to carry out her vision doesn't mean that she didn't have the idea before Beyonce.

You clearly don't like Beyoncé and I don't know why she always have literally having a meltdown. How can Beyoncé steal the idea from Gaga when they worked to together when Beyoncé already shot videos for every song  on her second album, before Gaga became Gaga.

[StrawberryBlond 14,846]

12 hours ago, U n I said:

You clearly don't like Beyoncé and I don't know why she always have literally having a meltdown. How can Beyoncé steal the idea from Gaga when they worked to together when Beyoncé already shot videos for every song  on her second album, before Gaga became Gaga.

I don't understand the second part of your first sentence. I may "clearly not like Beyonce," but I am fair to her. I praise her when she's good, criticise her when she's bad. And I don't stand for anything that she does being called original when it's not. Gaga's never got away with that, so why should she? Good call pointing out that she shot a video for every song on B'Day but the difference was in how she released them. She released the album the traditional way - some singles with videos before the release and singles with music videos afterwards. No surprise release, the music videos weren't released all together, it wasn't even marketed as a visual album. I also can't find any evidence of Resenetment being made into a video. The video for Kitty Kat is only 57 seconds long. Considering that Beyonce released 6/10 tracks as singles, I'm not surprised she just decided to make one for every song and Listen would need a video to help promote it when she was doing Dreamgirls anyway. Maybe it was even her label's way of working out what one would best suit being a single? In any case, I don't think anyone can even remember that she shot a video for every song back then. The videos views are testament to that. Why else were people talking about her 2013 release like it was something that had never been done before? If anything, releasing a video for every song meant that those songs were seen a promo singles. Making videos for promo singles was all the rage back then, when the industry had more money. They don't do that now.

And, well, when I hear the term "visual artist," I think of someone who actually tries to push the boundaries with videos, not just someone who focuses every video on looking hot and sexy. Honestly, Beyonce's videos are like watching paint dry. Even the ones with a story attached don't have anything in them that actually tells a story.