Make A 1,000,000-View Music Video

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A great song is the best marketing tool a musician can have. But for the last half century, one rule has never changed: a great music video is the second-best marketing tool you can have. An amazing music video paired with a great song compels us to text, tweet, or share it with friends because we want to share that emotional experience. Let's discuss the hidden strategies that smart directors, labels, and managers use to develop music videos that actually get shared.

The Creative Brief Comes First

Many people think making a great music video is about hiring the right director. What happens before the director is hired matters more. In professional music circles, a creative brief is filed first. Management, the artist, and the label outline what the artist is trying to accomplish and how they want to be perceived.

The team knows the artist's strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the brief shows the artist as deep and intellectual. Sometimes it's showcasing their personal style. This can be a 25-page deck or a three-paragraph email. The format doesn't matter; the strategic thinking does.

Planning Matters More Than Execution

If you do strong work at the planning stage, the video becomes far more likely to get shared. Even if you're self-directing, this helps you focus. The clearer your idea of what your music video should accomplish, the more potent it becomes at getting your song to as many eyes as possible.

The Single Purpose

Start by defining the purpose. While music videos have many purposes, they're all downstream from one: to make viewers more excited about your song so they tell someone else to watch the video. That's it.

The question you're asking when developing a music video is: why would your fans tell someone else to watch this? What are your strengths as an artist that you can play up authentically?

Consider your L.A.M.E.S. analysis from my previous newsletter to determine what plays up your strengths, downplays your weaknesses, and maybe changes a perception about you.

I developed six categories for music videos. Every time I'm developing one with an artist, I think about which category will make people share it.

Category 1: Get Everyone Horned Up

This is the most common type—dance videos, performance videos, posing videos, where the main idea is to show the artist as hot. Musicians often have egos and want to show off. It's also the cheapest option. But this usually leads to the lamest videos, since the visual aesthetic has to work well —and most people fail at it.

It's not always about overt sexuality. Steve Lacy's "Bad Habit" shows him fully clothed, being stylish, and playing with a cute pup.

People swoon for wholesome attraction, too.

Hot is subjective, and charisma goes a long way. Even if you aren't conventionally attractive, your charisma can get the audience hot.

Charlie XCX’s music videos are a masterclass in showing how hot she is. Madonna built a career on this.

If you're going to do this type of video, walk in knowing what makes someone attractive and capture it as well as you can with what you have.

Category 2: Create a Spectacle

This shows people something they haven't seen before with visually stunning imagery. They share it because they can't believe their eyes. This could be Sisqó's glow-in-the-dark beach concert at the end of the video for "Thong Song,"

the grotesque shock of Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy,"

or Billie Eilish's "When The Party's Over."

These videos often show your depth as an artist. Billie's audience had never seen Björk videos or classic horror movies, so these shocked her young audience and solidified her as a creative force. FKA twigs' "Two Weeks" is an amazing spectacle that established her as an artsy person, not a pop person.

Spectacles aren't always artsy. Shakewell's "Leg Lock" takes a simple camera technique and repeats it while showing the spectacle of his weird lifestyle. I've sent it to 50 friends.

Even OK Go's treadmill videos were a spectacle.

Polyphia constantly creates spectacle while making math prog, showing that even dorky genres can do this.

Category 3: This Is Who We Are

This shows who you are offstage and lets the audience get to know your personality. When done well, they make your audience wish they could hang out with you. Fans bond deeper and support artists they feel close to. They share these because they want friends to see how cool you are.

These videos often fail because what's shown isn't that cool. If hanging around watching Netflix is who you are, that's not interesting. Think about what would inspire envy in your audience.

Turnstile's long-form video for "Turnstile Love Connection" is a masterclass in a genre where it's hard.

Brockhampton's "Gold" shows them hanging out in their LA neighborhood while reinforcing the song's emotion.

The greatest video in this genre is "Thos Moser" by Gupi and Fraxiom (AKA Food House)

Enjoying this? Forward it to a music friend you’d like to be closer to and start a discussion!

It shows internet culture and their personalities so clearly that after five viewings, you know exactly what hanging out with them is like. I'm convinced this is the future of music videos.

Musicians think these are for established artists, but this type often defines new artists. Kesha's "Tik Tok" introduced an artist giving zero fucks.

Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right to Party" defined them as dangerous.

This could also be behind-the-scenes footage. Beyoncé's "7/11" shows what she and her crew look like on the road.

Category 4: Change the Audience's Perception

This shifts perception—a new look, a new attitude, showing a side people haven't seen. Almost every band I talk to says there's something people don't get about them. A music video lets you control the message and aesthetic. Since this is the most money you'll spend on marketing, take advantage of changing perception.

These work better for established artists since they inspire shares about how the artist has changed. But there are ways to use this early.

Sum 41's "Fatlip" is the ultimate example. They had the impossible task of getting punk kids to accept rap and punk together. The video showed punks enjoying it and instilled it into everyone's brains. The song became a huge hit.

Momma's "Rockstar" plays with the joke of them becoming huge, but it's so well executed that when you hear their bangers, you think they're worthy of blowing up. It puts it in your mind that they should be this popular.

The 1975's "The Sound" projects the snark critics had about the band, then shows them comfortable with what they're doing. This led them to become critics' darlings.

Pinkpantheress's "Just for You" shows her audience, instead of telling, the type of kids who are weirdos should feel comfortable there. Perfect positioning.

Category 5: Accent the Emotion

These have a lyrical theme acted out or visuals that bring the song to life. Fans share them because they're blown away by the synergy and want friends to bond with them about it.

American Football's "Never Meant" shows the perfect awkwardness of emo kids falling in love.

The Replacements' "Bastards of Young" captures what the song is singing in a simple image.

Carly Rae Jepsen's "Run Away With Me" looks like her boyfriend filmed it as they ran away together.

There are dark ways to do this. Kilo Kish's "Void" shows the tension as she fights with herself.

Tame Impala's "Let It Happen" is one of the most perfect videos for showing tension in a song.

Category 6: Funny Videos

These make the audience laugh out loud. The basic currency of the internet is people sending funny things back and forth. When done right, this is the ultimate viral currency and spreads more than any other type.

The Menzingers' "I Don't Want to Be an Asshole Anymore" shows Jason Voorhees trying to be a good boyfriend.

Blink-182 running naked through the streets is the classic example.

It's funny when you put an artist somewhere they don't belong. Charlie XCX's "1999" shows her in classic movie scenarios.

Red Fang's "Wires" shows the band's personality while making you laugh at them in that scenario.

One of the funniest videos I've seen is Aimee Mann's "Labrador." It's a perfect send-up of her past as a huge artist and what it was like later in her career.

Resources:

I made a playlist of some music videos that serve as a masterclass of each category. Click here. Thanks for reading.