When music videos change the song's audio for the worse. (pet peeve)

[gomipile]

I'd like to see other's opinions on this. I hate when a music video for the studio version of a song has changes in the middle of the song that make it worse to listen to as a song.

I don't mean when the beginning or end has a story lead up or denoument in the form of dialogue, or just video elements without the song playing yet or anymore. However, once the song starts playing, if they have story-related breaks, muted audio or distortion for diegetic reasons within the video's story, etc., it annoys the ever-living-*** out of my inner music lover.

If I'm watching it, then it's a music video for a song that I like. If necessary, the video as a whole's artistic direction should bend to accommodate the song, not the other way around.

But that's just my opinion. What does the community here think?

[JoshL]

Like anything else, it can be good, and can be bad. It definitely pulls you from "listening to a song" to "watching a video" as a different experience. Childish Gambino's "This Is America" is a great example of the diagetic sound, which is not in the song mix, adding to the video as a short film. Or not quite the same thing, New Order's "Perfect Kiss" video is a live performance of the song...and just different enough that it can be distracting, but equally good.

From the perspective of a musician, I've worked with others on videos before. That hasn't come up, but if it did, I'd want to see what the director had in mind. Part of the fun is seeing how someone else interprets or enhances the work that you did (kind of like remixes in that way). It's not my creative vision; that's already on the album. But if I thought it wasn't working, I'd say no.

[Raimun]

They do that? Can you list any other examples? This is exactly the kind of stuff I'd spot immediately if done in music that I like. Yet, I've never encountered something like this. Then again, I suspect they do this mostly with list music and I can't stand it at all.

However, I've spotted something similar: radio friendly versions. You know, bleeping curse word out and so on. Of course, they don't really use bleep-sound but instead mute the horrible, offending words or put wacky sound effects on it. You can spot something like that even if you don't know the song and only hear it because you're on a bar or some other public place.

I've also heard wild stories from past decades about long songs that got popular. You know, those atmospheric songs that blend different styles that are like at least twice longer than the four minutes the radio stations want. So, when the stations got their hands on them, they cut the songs to four minutes or a less. Just... wow.

[Rynjin]

I've also heard wild stories from past decades about long songs that got popular. You know, those atmospheric songs that blend different styles that are like at least twice longer than the four minutes the radio stations want. So, when the stations got their hands on them, they cut the songs to four minutes or a less. Just... wow.

It's kind of a necessary evil. I like prog rock as much as the next guy but radio just isn't the right format for playing 10+ minute songs; radio stations die without regular advertising breaks.

And TBH a lot of the ones that get cut down kind of aren't hurt by the process. Again I like Meatloaf as much as the next guy, but most of his songs work just as well at 4 minutes as they do at 15.

[huttj509]

I've also heard wild stories from past decades about long songs that got popular. You know, those atmospheric songs that blend different styles that are like at least twice longer than the four minutes the radio stations want. So, when the stations got their hands on them, they cut the songs to four minutes or a less. Just... wow.

When I was a kid bout 30 years ago I phoned into the local radio station to request Don McLean's American Pie. Was told it was too long for them to play (it clocks in at about 8 minutes, Madonna's version is 4).

[gomipile]

They do that? Can you list any other examples?

Well, the most recent one I noticed isn't too bad, but still bothers me. The video for High Hopes by Panic! At The Disco starts off with the sound muted quite a bit as a car pulls up to a curb, and then the sound picks up to normal volume as the door of the car opens. I guess it bothers me because the opening of the song has such great energy, and the opening energy of the first few bars is entirely sapped away by this choice in directing the video. The choice is clever, and it works cinematically, but it ruins the song's opening that I love, so I hate it.

[Imbalance]

I know I have examples of the OP, but all I keep thinking about is that time where added audio at the beginning was uncomfortably vexing. At a pool party many moons ago, the stereo was cranked, mostly top 40 of the time. Suddenly, the whole joint dropped to awkward silence by the sound of a very loud argument between a father and son about the volume. There were sounds of slamming and breaking glass, and...lions? Then Michael Jackson's Black Or White began in earnest and the atmosphere returned to normal. To this day, I've never seen that video, but I'd know the sound of it in a heartbeat.

[Mr_Fixler]

I would cite many of Lady Gaga's music videos as examples of this. Extended breaks for the "plot" of the music video before the music resumes.

[uncool]

They do that? Can you list any other examples?

A relatively innocuous one: Shut Up and Dance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JCLY0Rlx6Q
The entire 20-second interlude from 2:57-3:17 in the music video is added to the song to recreate that feeling of awkwardness that the song describes, but never really has. It's...effective, but still kinda annoying when I just want to hear the song itself and forget to avoid the top result.

[Velaryon]

OP immediately made me think of Michael Jackson and his terribly annoying habit of stopping almost every video midway through the song so he can be like "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" half a dozen times. Completely ruins the flow of the song, and yet he did it in SO many videos.


However, I've spotted something similar: radio friendly versions. You know, bleeping curse word out and so on. Of course, they don't really use bleep-sound but instead mute the horrible, offending words or put wacky sound effects on it. You can spot something like that even if you don't know the song and only hear it because you're on a bar or some other public place.

Related to this, Nelly's song "Country Grammar" completely changed a line in the clean version of the song, which I heard enough times before I heard the regular version that the uncensored version of the song sounds wrong to me.

Compare:
Clean version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5qKNlcUwKs&t=2s)
Uncensored version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAEapKFYApU&t=2s)

It actually really bugs me because I prefer to listen to the uncensored versions of songs, but I can't with this one. The "street sweeper" line sticks out to me like a sore thumb, because I'm just too used to the "boom boom" replacement.

[KillianHawkeye]

Related to this, Nelly's song "Country Grammar" completely changed a line in the clean version of the song, which I heard enough times before I heard the regular version that the uncensored version of the song sounds wrong to me.

I have the same issue with "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt. The one swear word in the uncensored version of the song sounds so out of place to me that it just ruins what is otherwise a very nice song. I can only listen to the radio version.

[huttj509]

Something I want to point out is that modern day, this may be on purpose, so you can't just rip the music video's audio track off of YouTube.