Bit (n): 1. the common associative description of someone based on their most dominant characteristic; 2. the practiced routine that is continually beta-tested until it can be conveyed without argumentative flaw.
MTV has molded its own coded language of images by pushing videos with that "glossy" feel and providing self-promoting, bright pink "Spanking New" and green "Buzzworthy" tags between songs (remember when those actually used to mean something and weren't simply repetitive marketing tools?). In doing so, MTV has captured the timeless advertising scheme of associating colors with products. In the style of Gap and Old Navy, MTV presents products by using bright, high-gloss colors. But in MTV's business, its products are artists. Every video contains a color scheme, every artist gets a look. Often the colors are so overbearingly loud that I feel as if they've somehow altered the contrast on my television set. Fabulous's "Can't Deny It" comes packaged in three colors: red, white and blue. Destiny's Child used those same colors in "Say My Name" but decided to add peach as well. And although Linkin Park's "Crawling" only uses the color blue, Bad Ronald's "Let's Begin (Shoot the Shit)" and D12's "Purple Pills" are filled with all the colors of the rainbow.
Recently a wrench was thrown into the unconscious filtering process that I use in understanding female teen pop singers. It usually sends messages to my brain like "This one's got no bridge in her nose" and "This one's got the Pittsburgh look." But the other day, it clanked around and spit out "This one's wearing a hoody and playing a guitar." Although she comes with the same dreamy feel of her predecessors, Michelle Branch is not your normal, superficial, bubblegum teen. She's signed to Madonna's Maverik Records and offers the appeal of something other than choreographed dance moves and synthesized sounds. Her look is a slightly alternative slant to a Rachael Leigh Cook/Jennifer Love Hewitt hybrid. And alright, am I the only one who thinks that Michelle Branch looks like that Nancy girl on campus?
In between the "Behind the Music" marathons, VH1 still plays videos. The selection is limited the super-popular songs that attract a broad range of listeners. But by the time those songs have made it to VH1, most of us have become so sick of them that they're unwatchable. Unlike MTV, this is our parent's rock and roll, but none of our parents actually watch it. Since it's under the same flagship as the other music stations, it doesn't have the need to compete for the MTV audience, leaving no reason why VH1 couldn't be remarketed more accurately towards an untapped, but obtainable market of music fans - early Gen-Xers. No, not us. Our '80s nostalgia conjures up memories of Max Headroom and Thundercats, but we weren't part of the generation that hummed "Take On Me" while they were getting ready for the prom. Most of us can scarcely remember a few videos from 1986, let alone any of the videos that appeared shortly after MTV's Moonman launch on Aug. 1, 1981. But there's a pre-Poison first-generation MTV audience that can. VH1 draws a larger 80s cult following with every documentary series they produce; why not offer the actual music videos of the time as well? Because there's difficulty in presenting old videos to a population perceptually damaged by MTV gloss. I don't even know if I could sit through the footlights and fog machines of a Quiet Riot video. But would it be possible for VH1 to reproduce some kind of new "video" for a song independent of artist release? There's little hope to get Guns n' Roses back together to remake "Paradise City," but is it possible for VH1 to simply display new images overtop of the song? These new pictures would have to fall under a single format to distinguish the channel in the subconscious of a channel flipper. To justify taking creative control away from the artist, it would have to be defined as a separate medium of music presentation. Everyone seems to be such a big fan of both animated and claymation videos nowadays. What if we made that format exclusive to VH1? Or maybe, more accurately, we could create a format conducive to the viewing interest of early Gen-Xers - the graphic stylings of an eight-bit computer display or the random flashes of MTV-gloss colors in screensaver mode.
Does anybody remember what Staind used to sound like before they became a ballad band? Aaron Lewis is now the mouthpiece for a generation of disenfranchised youth, but faces the prospect of compromising his own band's genre classification. It's standard to have one slow song on an album, but when an entire image is marketed around the consistent emotional tone of an album, the "rock" label disappears. For the run of this album, Staind certainly deserves to be pigeonholed into the "ballad band" genre. Not only do their last three singles all sound the same, but each video has contained the same brown color hue. Is there any way for them to evolve out of it? It's very simple, if you follow the story. One day, Aaron Lewis learned about "Denial" from Sevendust while listening for his own band's song, "Mudshovel," on the radio. When the DJ finally played "Mudshovel," Lewis giggled a bit to himself in a notion of grandeur when he heard himself proclaiming: "You can't feel my anger, you can't feel my pain." But that wasn't enough for ol' Aaron. He decided that there was a way he could get bigger, a way his message could reach a larger audience - he could "bargain" with Fred Durst to sing a duet with him so that he could get some exposure. But in doing so, he realized the evils in pop stardom and became very sad. For the duet he chose "Outside," the first sad song off a new sad album.
Lewis, though, never content to sit on his heels, decided that there was marketability in his new "depressed" image. Now, if Lewis can get this right, Staind's next album should wake the kids out of their depression with songs about redemption and salvation. Only then will Aaron Lewis have taken his followers to the final stage of the grief process - acceptance - and ended this horrible satire of human emotions.
Their new video for "Fade" foreshadows the oncoming change, but begs the question: "Is it too early for Staind to be on top of buildings?" You do not only have to be huge enough to pull off that type of video, but the song also has to match the grandness. Where Fred Durst failed in "Rollin'," U2 succeeded in "Where the Streets Have No Name." Aaron, let's save the clocktower video until you've completed this journey of grieving you're going through.
Why would any band whose video makes it into MTV's heavy rotation feel the need to have a commercial for the album as well? A band's video is already the marketing tool. Its the exposure and the commercial packed into one. If a band's bit is believable and the hook's catchy, an audience will buy into the song from the start. There's no need to insert an additional reminder of the artist into the commercial breaks from MTV's overkill-promoting playlist. What audience are you hoping to reach? Those four people who didn't channel flip past your video in the last half hour? Bands such as Gorillaz, P.O.D. and Drowning Pool can be considered the most over-commercialized bands of the last year. Not because they were promoted through an infinite number of media outlets, but because they had actual commercials for the band that showed the video of the band (which already originally functioned as a commercial for the band).
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