The Site Formerly Known as YouTube, now called “Google’s YouTube”, and the Universal Music Group (now and forever) are launching a joint music video site called “Vevo”:
Google’s YouTube and Universal Music Group, the world’s largest
music company, said on Thursday they will launch a premium music video
website as they bid to increase revenue from YouTube’s huge usage.
The new advertiser-supported site, featuring professional videos,
will be called Vevo and is expected to launch in coming months, the
companies said.
The deal is a boost for YouTube, which has been under increasing
pressure from music labels and publishers who are frustrated that the
popular site has been unable to pay higher fees for rights to use their
music and videos. [Reuters]
The Reuters piece goes onto explain that the videos will be higher quality than the usual YouTube fare, and that UMG will reach out to EMI Group and Sony Music to expand content opportunities.
I’m interested if anyone has ever seen a good classical-music music video? Every one I’ve ever seen has been an unmitigated disaster, with the artists (or whomever’s driving the bus) trying to be something they’re not.
“Classical music videos” as such = disaster, yeah. BUT. There’s a lot of classical music visual content Universal could be putting on the You-Tubes, and isn’t. Why not put up clips from the operas they’re putting out on DVD? It’s absurd that I should have to pay $40 for the privilege of finding out whether I even like the looks of the staging on this or that new disc.
A year and a half ago, I ripped a clip of the Polovtsian Dances from Gergiev’s Prince Igor DVD on Philips and put it online, for basically no other reason than I wanted people to see how cool it is. It’s gotten 74,836 views—which isn’t so many, maybe, in YouTube numbers, but that’s 74,836 visits from eager classical music lovers that Universal could have been reaching themselves, for next to nothing, with a 6-minute commercial and a link to buy. What’s taking them so long?
I enjoyed this one a lot. (Couperin’s Tic-toc choc)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va54RvJM7Fc
And the now famous Zurich Chamber Orchestra Rollercoaster is pretty cool, although I realise that it’s not a music video in the sense that you mean.
Then again, there are some performers who can put it across without the need for any fancy visuals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fI9_1qLXmc
(There’s a tiny bit of Dutch voice over around the 1 minute mark, but otherwise it’s unadulterated performance.)