La estética y narrativa del vídeo musical como representante del discurso audiovisual hipermoderno

Abstract

Desde que en 1981 la cadena norteamericana de televisión por cable MTV introdujera el videoclip como elemento transgresor en el entramado televisivo, no ha existido pieza audiovisual más permeable, impactante e innovadora en la reciente historia del audiovisual. Representante vivo de la sociedad postmoderna, heredero de las vanguardias y popular herramienta publicitaria; el vídeo musical ha conseguido aquello que el cine sigue intentando instaurar: llegar al “mainstream” social inculcando premisas artísticas. Actualmente, no hay artista musical que no tenga alguna obra vídeo musical que ilustre su trabajo. Forma parte de su imagen de marca y es una herramienta de marketing indispensable. El cantante pop no solo vende su música, vende una imagen que busca identificar a un público que, en consecuencia, consumirá su música. Pero, ¿en qué medida es cuantificable el éxito del videoclip? En los albores de dicha cadena televisiva, resultaba evidente la incidencia de videoclips como Thriller (John Landis, 1983) en las ventas de discos (Pérez-Yarza, 1996, 30). Hoy en día, el vídeo musical es más una inercia empresarial cuyos costes de producción han bajado de manera considerable y su éxito se mide en número de reproducciones...

Ever since the North American cable television channel, MTV, introduced video clips as a rule-breaking element in the television framework in 1981, there has not been another audiovisual component as permeable, impacting and innovative in recent audiovisual history. A living representative of postmodern society, heir to the Avant-garde and a popular publicity tool, the music video has achieved that which cinema is still trying to establish: to reach the social “mainstream” by instilling artistic premises. Presently, there are no music artists who do not have music videos to illustrate their work. It forms a part of their brand image and it is an indispensible marketing tool. Not only does the pop singer sell their music, but they also sell an image that seeks to identify with an audience that, as a consequence, will consume their music. But, to what extent is the success of the video clip measurable? At the dawn of the mentioned television channel, it was evident that video clips such as Thriller (John Landis, 1983) had considerable effect on record sales (Pérez-Yarza, 1996, 30). Nowadays, the music video is more a business inertia whose production costs have fallen considerably and whose success is measured in the number of plays.