MTV VMAs: Taylor Swift dominates but do music videos matter?

Cofie, who has directed music videos, feels their purpose has evolved over the last couple of decades.

For her, they’re more of a way to “connect with artists” and for them to express their vision, rather than a crucial part of their press run like they were in the 2000s.

Pop stars like Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo are among those who still lean on videos heavily to build out the visual world for each of their albums’ eras.

Swift, who broke the record for most MTV VMA wins ever last weekend, is known for big budget productions which fans trawl through for Easter eggs – clues that could point to something else she has planned.

She also often enlists the help of her star-studded contact book, with her recent video for Opalite jam-packed with famous faces, including Graham Norton, Lewis Capaldi, Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson and Jodie Turner-Smith.

However, the music video was released exclusively on Spotify and Apple Music in February, and did not appear on YouTube until 48 hours later.

Industry analysts speculated at the time that the exclusivity period was due to a change in the US chart rules, where songs streamed on YouTube will no longer count towards the Top 100.

This change came into place in January, with YouTube saying it was ending its decade-long partnership with Billboard, external as it claimed the chart uses an “outdated formula that weights subscription-supported streams higher than ad-supported”.

“This doesn’t reflect how fans engage with music today and ignores the massive engagement from fans who don’t have a subscription,” it added.

And while most artists don’t have Swift-level budgets to start with, this change may have further discouraged US artists’ to throw a lot of money into creating elaborate music videos.