I came of age in the glorious time of MUSIC VIDEOS. I didn’t realize this was an epoch that would fall to the wayside. At the time being a VJ was a real job. Aspirational!

Later as an educator I would present the humble ‘music video’ artefact as a form of ‘visual poetry’ and ask my students to assess it for how well it represented the poem/lyrics.

Now I wonder what it means to have spent so many years of my life steeped in these mini visual pockets of archetypal dreamscapes…

There was a spectrum of narrative linearity in these mini visuals.

Some had clearly defined l, full blown story arcs (Thriller by Michael Jackson, Last Christmas by Wham!)

Others had a smidge of story fixed to their choreography (Cold Hearted Snake by Paula Abdul, Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush)

Some had the barest thread of story or barely any story at all.

Sometimes the story was ‘we’re on stage! Watch us perform!’ (Jump by Van Halen) or ‘here we are singing in different locations’ (Shout by Tears For Fears) or ‘we’re dancing here!’ (Control by Janet Jackson).

The imagery held a lot of the ‘narrative’ weight in these videos. Less about story more about vibe. Or rather: the vibe is the story.

So many times I wished I had been part of the ‘creative team’ for these videos, being in the room giving the ‘creative pitch’…

Picture it:

-you’re all in different coloured suits on a boat and then Nick pretends to play the sax on a floating raft… (Rio by Duran Duran)

-you’re at a pool, there’s an…alligator? (Mad World by Tears For Fears)

-you all turn into animals while this man is driven mad by a mysterious courtroom summoning (Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes)

-okay, you start naked in a bathtub and then crawl along the floor (When Doves Cry by Price)

Oh, I could go on and on.

What does this mean for storytellers of all kinds?

That the demand for liberality has already been broken into pieces.

Beginning/middle/end may correspond to time but it doesn’t have to link to character, plot or setting to be meaningful.

The ‘marketplace’ prefers concrete endings and well defined genres…and yet hyphenated works persist and even new words like ‘dramady’ had to be invented because stories just would NOT stay in their lane.

The spectrum is wider than is usually acknowledged which means the sandbox you can creatively play in as a storyteller is much bigger that you might at first assume and also…it isn’t a box at all, it’s a beach.

So grab your creative beach toys and go play!