The future of the music industry is . . . music videos

Video killed the radio star, as the first music video to ever air on MTV explained, and now TikTok and streaming services have killed the music video. For the time being, at least. To be clear, music videos are not exactly dead. The vast majority of hit singles in 2024 still come with them. They circulate on TikTok in 15-second snippets, and some are even shared so widely they become communal timestamps of a moment—your “WAP”s, “Montero”s, and “Espresso”s. These moments are few and...