The Future of Music Television?

Yesterday a friend showed me this. I intended to only watch about 5 or 10 minutes but ended up watching the whole thing. When I think of the name Kanye West its generally not followed by pleasantries. I don't like him. I've seen him live (regrettably) and he just.. doesn't convince me. His production values are good but quite often his raps just irk me. Alot of us here on the dancefloor will never forgive him for hacking Daft Punk to bits and seeing everyone stupidly think it was genius. Sigh.

This is a new piece of promotional material, a 35 minute 'short film' based on his new single Runaway and featuring selected material from his new album 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' (far too many adjectives in there if you ask me). Here's what I'LL say about it.

- The cinematography is awesome, unlike much on offer these days. Instead of a clip with just chicks shaking their asses in tight pants or guys with tattoos jumping around and getting up to mischief in public, this has a story.
- The acting is not so awesome. If you ask me the biggest problem with this clip was that Kanye chose to put himself in it. Had he got someone with acting ability and placed himself in a kind of 'ethereal conductor' role I think it would have worked better.
- The songs aren't too bad. The beats are solid and once again the production is fantastic. That being said though Kanye is a man who should NOT sing. I can give him props for trying to hold a note without the assistance of autotune, but its there for a reason mate. The last thing you want killing what is a well made sound is some dude who cannot sing.
- The Michael Jackson float - wtf? I thought it would be funny if something like that happened but I didn't honestly expect it to.

Its massively self-indulgent but well shot and made. Is this the future of music television? People don't generally watch a clip show anymore. Music videos used to be THE big promotional device, who can forget Queens Bohemian Rhapsody or any of that tripped-out Beatles stuff from Yellow Submarine? Not me. Never. Music clips these days need to be turned into a marketable event, and also to be marketed properly on the internet. Recording a scripted short-film interspersed by various songs from the album really does work - but how many independent artists would have a budget to accomplish something like this? It still leaves a creative person like myself with alot of ideas about the future of marketing.

Basically, I can't decide whether I like this or not, mainly for the reasons mentioned above. Some things about it are truly great, some things about it are not. Make your own mind up I suppose - and kudos to you if you watch the whole thing!