During my Pop culture seminar today, our group was focusing on the evolution of Pop music videos during the 21st century. There is such a wide diversity in the way in which an artist aims to create and portray their music through film. However, it never seems to be your simple and basic film clips that draw attention, nowadays artist’s are aiming to spark controversy and think far outside the box by utilising special effects, costumes, and extras to make their film clip the most outstanding.

What surprised me was the major change in presentation and intentions for music videos today in comparison to the early 2000s. The famous American singer, actress Britney Spears music video, “Oops, I did it again” (2000) is a representation of what most female music videos appeared as, the main singer in revealing clothes with back-up dancers, moving and miming to the beat and lyrics of the song. Similarly, boy bands such as ‘N Sync, have group choreographed dances amongst them, and most of their film clips and songs focusing one running away or to one girl such as “Bye Bye Bye” (2000)

In today’s society, majority of musicians in pop music are aiming to stand out with their music video, with the update in technology and special effects, and access to the world’s biggest and greatest dancers and choreographers, artists have the ability to really step up their music video game. With saying that, music artists have gone above and beyond to excel in the music video industry, pushing boundaries, testing social values, and including irrelevant footage in their films that are either outrageous or stupid to get viewers attention.

The film clip “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj (2014) implies that male only wants women bigger women, women with “buns”, she acts derogatory towards “skinny bitches” and overly sexualises all bigger woman at the same time. She is incorporating the classic, female artist who mimes her lyrics with back-up dancers, but they way in which she dances and interprets herself and her words are reaching a new a level. We are stuck in an age where women are constantly fighting a battle between their sense of self confidence and society’s expectations, and Nicki is here trying to insult skinner women by having many “larger” women twerking and grinding throughout the entire music video. The song itself is not appropriate, however, many younger women listen to her music and all children at any age are exposed to her video as it is not on a parental block on YouTube.

I feel musicians (every celebrity actually) are entitled to express themselves, however, where is the simple art in music videos anymore? Don’t get me wrong, there are still many artists who provide this (Taylor Swift, Jarryd James etc.) but major artists such as Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber and 5 seconds of summer, lack connection between their music and their videos, and are trying way too hard to create a movie rather than a simple video aesthetic for their song to be played over. So, sorry no Kanye, a 34 minute music video is stretching it.