Now, your gut reaction is going to be yes, but you should think about that for a moment. Think about different artists and genres and what they look like. For example, think of a heavy metal band. When they perform, do they look like regular people playing music? From what I have seen, no. They usually have darker outfits and accessories. Even when you think of a popular indie band, thought they might dress normally, this could be because they want you to believe that they are just like you, normal average people.

While not all music brings in visual media as a major facet, any musician or band that is making a statement does. Or at least they should be. Lyrics with the most meaning tend to be complex and cryptic., they can easily be misconstrued. Having an image or some other visual medium along with the music can greatly help in getting a message across.

However, that’s not the only reason musicians would want to use visual media. Pop culture as it is today is very visually stimulated. The music is still important of course, I have never seen a bad musician at the top of the charts (Well maybe Ke$ha. But that is a story for another time); but music is becoming more dependent on visual media. Coordinating your music with visuals is art as much as the Mona Lisa is.

So don’t be hating on pop culture for this development towards visual stimulation. Music being multimedia is not necessarily bad. It opens up new opportunities for deeper meaning. What happens is the artist loses power over their work for whatever reason and the acoustic and visual media don’t match up, which creates a confusing and shallow experience.