So Beats headphones became ubiquitous in pop music videos, appearing in over 40 of them since 2009, including “ Work Bitch” by Britney Spears, “ Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke, “ We Can’t Stop” by Miley Cyrus, “ Turn My Swag On” by Soulja Boy and lots of others.
Dre and Jimmy Iovine were very shrewd in their plan to turn their product into a multibillion-dollar company and a major part of their strategy was to make them “cool.” To do that, you need your product seen with established cool people. At one point, the idea of an artist hawking a product was seen as “selling out” but in the modern integrated economy, musicians are more comfortable cozying up with brands that align with their images.Ĭonsider Beats headphones. So if record companies are less willing to splurge for videos with blockbuster-quality production value, then who will?Įnter product placement. Artists and record companies no longer look at the album as their primary source of revenue but, at the same time, the expected quality for a music video is much higher than before. Of course, the music industry has changed dramatically since the 1980s and 1990s. Since MTV’s music video heyday of the 1980s and ‘90s, the form evolved from artists simply lip-synching their song into more creatively ambitious fare like the Beastie Boys’ “ Sabotage”, Dinosaur Jr.s “ Feel the Pain”, or any Michael Jackson video.
Originally mere promotional devices intended to boost an artist or band’s visibility, music videos have developed into their own art form with its own set of visual language and rules. Music videos have always existed right square in the intersection between art and commerce.
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