watching from a certain distance, the ville's resilience is still pretty remarkable to me - with the gazillions of videos now being made, sure, the assemblage output is very different from what was possible and/or desired even just a couple of years ago... but there's still something keeping it ticking, and still very few alternative/similars to be found. (what are newer/favourite/other mv milling grounds, all?). amid the industry/demographic/medium/communication shift, i think it's forums as such that are really of another era. (on a more practical note - the single thing that really marks the ville's age for me? unresponsiveness when (re)loading.)

what this place will be, nobody knows. our carcasses & excreta = future nutrients. worried about weeds, orpheus? life is flux.

As far as i can tell, the death or "zombiefication" of antville occurred for two reasons:

1. The end of the indie rock boom - At the beginning of the 00's, major labels started pumping money into indie rock bands, hoping to score the next Death Cab, Shins, or Yeah Yeah Yeahs (blame it on the Garden State soundtrack, The OC, the rise of Pitchfork, etc). Antville came of age during the indie rock boom, and it's community coalesced around big budget indie videos. After all, the music fit the sites demographic- guys mostly, 25+, college educated. It wasn't uncommon to see a new big budget indie video (BBIV) every week- Bright Eyes, Interpol, Feist- later on Justice, MGMT, MIA. By the end of the decade, labels moved onto other genres, taking their video budgets with them. When the crop of BBIV's died out, antville fell into an identity crisis. The video above is a perfect example. It's an avant garde video by a BBIV-era director, but it's for a type of music that most antvillians despise.

2. The democratization of music videos - When antville started, most music videos were still funded by labels, funneled through a small industry of videomakers, and transmitted mostly via mtv. It made for a much more streamlined site, with more easily identifiable trends and narratives (ie- "2006: the year of Marc Webb", or "2009: tribal-themed video are huge right now"). Now, the floodgates are open and anyone with a garageband track and an iphone can make a video and post it to antville. For 'villers that remember the early days, this is a chaotic nightmare.

Anyone else have thoughts? The whole thing is interesting to me. Music videos are more popular than ever before but antville's community seems lethargic and unexcited. What changed?

i think ive read this before:

"At the beginning of the 00's, major labels started pumping money into indie rock bands, hoping to score the next Death Cab, Shins, or Yeah Yeah Yeahs (blame it on the Garden State soundtrack)" budget, do you make notes or smth/ before posting to antville? or do you repeat yourself often? im very familiar with the reasoning and phrasing (even the blame it on the garden state part)

Maybe? Honestly it's hard to remember. A lot of my ideas are culled from notes from a book I'm writing...

Is videos.antville.org really this big and have it's finger on the pulse of the time?

In my eyes its a small austrian blog, I guess few hundred visitors a month, 50-75 members in all, maybe 5-10 members are daily visiting, 30% austrian, 50% german, 20% rest of world, for some reason we write in english, thought it's some kind of running gag.

But maybe I am mistaken. I am nosy - maybe the owner of the blog can tell something ;-)

Regarding your two theories: sounds to complicated and constructed for me. In my eyes the people are just bored of the amount of reposts and spam videos.

wow, this was really new for me, seems videos.antville.org is bigger than i thought: www.spiegel.de

orph, check the Press&Buzz page for some idea of the 'ville's past reach.

budg, i agree a lot of change comes from the current rate of mv throughput, both quantity created and speed of consumption, that make for a totally different appreciation landscape (whence, for example, the like-button/up-voting calls).

wow, i am impressed, i haven´t seen the Antville Press & Buzz page before...

BUT then the problem is bigger also, because the difference between back then and now is also bigger?!

What about a new blog with more features and design, rating stars, categories, director directory, something more like web 2.0 - antville cms remained in web 1.0 ... BUT big advantage here is the anonymity, because embedding videos is becoming more and more illegal...

budget: I consider your case QED, really. (re: antville)

I consider the death of antville synonymous with the death of music video, overall. Legion's french rap videos don't impress (outside of the francophiles and francos that is), and South Korea has been drying up lately.

Also Legion is a hideous homophobe who should be laughed off the site, but that's just me.

im a black supremacist actually and i post those french rap videos just for the kick

you are a funny guy

Regaring the MV discussion - Is money from major labels really this important? I mean isn´t the creative idea behind a MV not much more important and in some way independend from money?

@kev

Do you mean music videos are dying as an art form? or that their relevance is fading?

@orpheus

Yes, money is important because films are expensive to make. you can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you don't have the money to build the props, rent the equipment, hire the labor, do the fx, it won't be executed properly.

If you went back in time and slashed Spike Jonze's budget to make Weapon of Choice, he could still do it, but maybe not at a cool hotel, and without wire rigging, and without shooting on film, and without doilies and jibs, etc, etc. So yes, money is important.

There just seem to be less interesting ones, that's all.

How does one explain the D&AD Awards dropping mv? I don't think antville is the only place that people are thinking "Zzzz" (about that...)

just saying hi. but i think in general it's fair to say the music video world is a zombie industry. how many established directors actually get a decent budget nowadays? plus antville is an antiquated format. and we're all a bunch of blazé commentators who will get excited about something once a month or so (but that seems to be for good reasons, there's isn't that much exciting work being done imo) can anyone tell me what the trend in music videos has been so far in 2012-2013..? seems like its all pretty muddy, i don't see it going anywhere in particular, or pushing the medium forward?

@orpheus money is always important. filmmaking is a collaborative effort, and to pull talented people together you need more than good favors to execute ideas properly.

"can anyone tell me what the trend in music videos has been so far in 2012-2013..?"

I can name a trend in indie music videos: ironic/lo-fi CGI.

Examples: Diplo "U Don't Like Me" Ford & Lopatin "World of Regret" Jamie Woon "Lady Luck" Tenacious D "Rize Of The Fenix" Hot Chip "Don't Deny Your Heart" IS TROPICAL "Dancing Anymore" also Keith Schofield's "Party Time"

etc.

Shit! 'n there was me tinkin'.... "Hey I'd better not stick up 'dis' Kpop clip coz its well naff". Clearly I've raised the bar too high 'n need to drop me standards a tad more lol!

@kev why do you think there are less interesting videos? What changed?

The D&AD awards is facing the same crisis as antville- too many videos to choose from, and an absence of big budget indie videos- i.e. videos that appeal to their demographic. I don't care how cutting edge your screamo/pop/metal/rap video is, no one wants to stand up in a room full of hip, creative people and give it an award. It's a lot easier when it's for Justice, Feist, MGMT, etc. In 2013, those types of videos are rare.

Budgets?

I also don't think there are "too many" videos to choose from. "Ugh, so much quality I just can't post anything."

On a non-mv note, Hipster Runoff has run out of things to talk about too.

the d&ad music video awards have been canceled

Well it looks like I've rankled a few of legion's feathers

@kev

i meant too many videos in general. You have to dig through a mountain of clips these days in order to really grasp what's happening in mv's. it's too overwhelming. It used to be simple- you have your big dumb pop videos and you have your cool indie videos. Now the pop videos are trying to be avante garde, great international videos have come out of the woodwork, fanmade videos are sometimes more popular than the official versions, and the music landscape is so diverse that it's hard for directors to seem like they have a consistant voice because they're leapfrogging genres from job to job (witness jonas and francois doing an iggy azalea video).

Hipster runoff is even feeling it. There's no longer a clear, indie music narrative like there was mid-00's. That whole world crumbling and people aren't sure what's next.

Times are weird.

I haven't scrolled down this much on an Antville post in a while. This is good.

Glad we can entertain.

For me it's the blog platform that hasn't been updated for ages that caused the slow decline of Antville. But I know folks around here don't share my opinion. And by decline I mean lack of participation.

Nilsson/Guetta-directors-cut