In a totally predictable but vague article, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. says that the music video is dead, and that while he is not entirely certain what the future of music marketing is, he’s putting a lot of stock into the internet. This is hardly a surprise, given that Ethan (who is very close with the band) and the gang over at WBR have been working very hard over the past few years to increasingly market their artists on the internet, with R.E.M. often being the first out of the gate. But are music videos really dead?

I think that in the traditional sense of spending tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars on stereotypical music videos that air on television almost certainly is a dead market. It isn’t cost-effective, people don’t like them, and nobody wants to watch short-subject material on cable television, anyway.

This is probably not too thrilling for MTV and similar avenues. Although MTV largely abandoned the music video arena years ago in favor of idiotic television shows, they have been trying to make a comeback with their new FNMTV label, a Pete Wentz-hosted show designed to debut music videos to the public. (The show thus far has not done very well.)

But the concept of a band using a video of one of their songs is not dead at all. In fact, that’s a hugely growing market. The difference is that we are replacing famous directors with fans and friends of the artists, and we’re replacing MTV and VH1 with YouTube, MySpace, and the bands’ own web properties.

I think there is definitely still a market for professionally-produced videos provided that they are unique and well-done. Artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers have done very well with their music videos because, although produced and distributed traditionally, they have always been very original, creative, and memorable.

The distribution method will still be changing, but I personally feel that even in the generation of social media and the “everyone can make a movie” mentality, there will always be a market for well-done, professional content.

In the meantime, it will be very exciting to what R.E.M. and other artists come up.