Emotional Content
We all remember seeing the "Sledgehammer" video for the very first time…how’d they do that! That was the essence of success in the MTV era, pushing technological limits to wow the passive end user, whether it be Michael Jackson morphing into a panther or Ric Ocasek battling an insect. But we’re no longer passive and we no longer watch videos on MTV. We’re active online, we’re in charge. And we’re constantly sharing. What makes us share?
There’s a fascinating story in the "Wall Street Journal". I’ll link to it, but unless you’re a subscriber, you won’t be able to read it. But the essence is we forward that which affects us emotionally.
The researcher, Jonah Berger, at Penn’s Wharton business school, looked at what was forwarded from nytimes.com. You’d think it would be information, alerting friends of facts they should know. But Berger found out that "the most popular stories were those that triggered the most arousing emotions, such as awe and anger. We don’t want to share facts – we want to share feelings."
Whew! This is critical in the music sphere!
Let’s start with the music itself. That which truly has lasting power, that which will be forwarded by the viral masses, has its basis in emotion. I’m not denying the power of beats to motivate you in a club, but one of the reasons those tracks tend not to last is they don’t affect us emotionally, they’re cold blue steel, like automobiles, dated as time goes on. Whereas we can listen to a recording from the 78 era and be brought to tears, not because of recording perfection, but the emotion.
I experience this on a regular basis. I go see an act live and they play a song that kills. Then they go into the studio to perfect it and drain its essence, it just doesn’t work. I wanted to tell everybody, now I want to tell nobody.
So, first and foremost, does your music have that je ne sais quoi? That makes the listener want to cry or smile, that makes them think not only of their loved ones but summer camp and the first day of school and fresh-mowed grass on a hot summer day? If not, chances are it’s going to be hard to spread the word on your tunes. You’ll have no viral effect.
As for videos…
This is the success of Pomplamoose. It’s not the technical execution, but the humanity. Nataly Dawn radiates a carefree honesty, a charisma that draws us to her, her boyfriend smiles, enraptured by her. That’s why people are giving Nataly money on Kickstarter. Not because they expect her to write hit tunes, but they want to be touched by her joie de vivre, they too want to feel alive.
The key to word spreading online, and that’s where trends are built and bands are broken, is:
"Decades of research in social psychology have shown that people often share strong emotions as a means of fostering connection and solidarity."They call Facebook the "Social Network". That’s what Web 2.0 is all about, connecting. And we don’t do it by passing along information, but that which affects us which we believe will affect others.
"’If I’m angry, and then you get angry, we can bond over what we’re feeling,’ Mr. Berger says."
The article goes on:
"The Internet reflects this ancient social instinct. The only difference is that, when online, we often can’t express our emotions directly. (It’s not easy expressing genuine joy in a tweet.) Instead, we’re forced to spread arousal through short videos and articles, using the images and words of others as a proxy. ‘It’s difficult to communicate strong feelings when we’re not communicating face-to-face,’ Mr. Berger says. ‘But sharing content on the Web allows us to get a parallel kind of connection.’And this is why the online world is so biased toward arousing material. Although the Internet is often described as an infinite library of information, the most popular things online typically aren’t very informative."
Voila!
Used to be a limited number of manufacturers badgered gatekeepers to expose their wares. Records gained traction via repetitive airings. If you didn’t get it at first, just hang in there, we’re gonna drill it into your head. But now when media is unlimited and we’re only interested in that which is truly great we’ve cast aside the old manufacturers and gatekeepers and are reliant upon our companions. And the way our companions reach us is via emotions, they’re aroused and they try to arouse us.
So if the song doesn’t affect you emotionally, linking me to it won’t arouse me either. Doesn’t matter how professionally executed it is, how much money was spent in the creation, unless it sets my insides free and makes my brain percolate and drift, I’m not interested. And since I’m bombarded with information, it’s got to achieve this goal very quickly. I’ll hang in there for a while because I know you, but not very long.
I’ll give you an example. I just learned in a tweet about a video wherein a climber walks a tightrope over Yosemite Falls. I was about to retweet the link and then I saw he was tied in, it wasn’t a life or death situation. I was still interested, but my heart was no longer going pitter-patter, I didn’t forward the link.
This is why OK Go has no musical traction. Its videos are cool, but they don’t sell the music, there’s no heart in them. They’re just DIY versions of what came before. If you’re selling your music, just you and a guitar should be enough. If the music is enough. And if the music is not enough, no matter what you tack on, it will not make it so.
Not that only live videos will triumph in the future, but the focus will be on pulling heartstrings, affecting us emotionally more than wowing us visually. More and more we live online. We interact. This is a sea change. Old companies employ an ancient paradigm to get ahead, polishing turds into salable products, jamming them down our throat.
But most of us have recused ourselves from that game. We’re in a new game. Drawn by emotion.
In other words, if you send me a link I won’t check it out unless you’re my very best friend. If you’re not, you’ve got to sell me, tell me why I’m gonna be affected emotionally. And if I’m not, I won’t click through to your productions again.
Way back when it was all about emotion. From the classical era to those who triumphed just before recording techniques up to the MTV age. The shiny wow of the past few visual decades was an exception. There will still be images with music, but they will no longer dominate, and it will be the underlying emotion of the music that will be both the invitation and the meal. Empty calories are passe. This is big.
