Trendspotting: Lyric Videos

With the death of music videos on television, building interest for a new song takes more than simply releasing a music video. Artists and record labels have released official lyric videos, which are a cute and less-costly alternative to a big-budgeted music video that presents the song's lyrics. Sometimes they are released prior to a music video, giving fans something to tie themselves over with. 

Lyric videos allow viewers to learn the words, sing-along, and read into the song's meaning. Although there are plenty of fan-made lyric videos, the official ones are usually more polished and visually pleasing due to their budget and resources. Effective videos have more than words scrolling down the screen; they play on the song lyrics by using images and effects, such as making shapes with the words and having them bounce to the beat.

Like any gadget, just because it's out there doesn't mean it's right for everyone, and just because a song has lyrics doesn't necessarily mean it needs a lyric video.

Missed The Mark: "Feather in your eye": Do you really want people to decipher your lyrics?
When watching a lyric video, one's eyes are called to actively read and analyze the lyrics.  That's great if the song is thought-provoking and well-written since most listeners probably don't take the time to read into the lyrics while driving in the car or dancing at a club.

If the song's lyrics are not particularly meaningful or its strength, the lyric video treatment is better left avoided. That doesn't mean the song is not good; it means the song is probably meant to be enjoyed in a different capacity (club joint, elevator music, spinning class).

As Popjustice noted, Alexis Jordan's "Laying Around With You" and Jason Derulo's "It Girl" are two examples of when calling attention to the lyrics makes one realize how cringe-worthy they are.

Alexis Jordan - "Laying Around With You": Lines about cooking and burning microwave popcorn, carrying grocery bags, and having a pillow fight that ends with a feather getting stuck in one's eye are meant to be romantic, but are so literal and false (I don't know anyone who these things have happened to) that they read as ridiculous.



For the good, beautiful, and more bad:

Jason Derulo - "It Girl": Comparing a girl to TV reruns and a Grammy award is not exactly flattering. Calling a girl "the sh*t girl" is better heard than read.

Bull's Eye: We hurt: Poignant song with powerful video can build interest (even for a non-single)
After two singles that were met with middling response, Nicola Roberts had to generate interest for her debut album "Cinderella's Eyes" (which was already drawing critical acclaim) -- and quick. Reviews have noted her personal lyrics, especially on the closing track "sticks + stones" because of Nicola honest portrayal of her experience with being bullied.

Three weeks before the album release, her team released a lyric video for "sticks + stones," filled with moody colors and haunting imagery. The video and its poignant lyrics resonated with listeners; people commented on YouTube about how they could relate to it and what they've gone through, and shared the video through social media. The fanfare was picked up by major UK tabloids, who featured the video. 

For a song that wasn't a single (or commercial), it would have been lost in the album, noticed only by fans who owned it. The lyric video propelled the song into public consciousness and drummed up awareness of the album's quality.

Nicola Roberts - "sticks + stones":


One Direction - "What Makes You Beautiful": The sweet lyrics (that will set their core fan base's hearts aflutter) matches the bright, cheery spiral notebook doodles and "written out lyrics," making this non-groundbreaking song more fun to sing-along and bounce to than it has any right to be.