Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda : Are Racy Music Videos More Successful?

Picture a steamy music video – maybe Nicki Minaj shaking what her mama gave her in “Anaconda” or Miley Cyrus dressed in black lace splashing in the bathtub of “Adore You.” Or perhaps your mind goes back a bit further to Beyoncé twirling sensually in an enormous glass of champagne in “Naughty Girl” and Madonna rolling around in bed with her lover for “Justify My Love.”

Whatever music video comes to mind, it’s probably one of the artist’s most successful songs. Is there a connection between sex appeal and sales in music? You know how to old saying goes: sex sells. But is there truth to the old adage in the music industry?

If these videos generate anything, it’s usually a public frown. Book “Sex And Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing” makes note of the success and criticisms gathered for Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” and Britney Spears’s “I’m A Slave 4 U.” Both of these female popstars employed sex appeal successfully before these videos. They used “Genie in a Bottle” (Aguilera) and “…Baby One More Time” (Spears) to form an enormous group of fans usually aged eight to 18.

But after the release of “Dirrty” and “I’m A Slave 4 U,” the two women experienced a contrary effect, despite their use of sensual images within the music videos. Both singers faced backlash from the media and criticisms from parents whose daughters were regularly listening to their music. In fact, Spears’s album experienced a significant decline in sales as a result.

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So what caused the transition from acclaim to criticism? While no one’s completely sure, there are some differences between the two videos by both artists that suggest amplifying the sexuality in the video led to the negative reactions.

For instance, “…Baby One More Time” presents a schoolgirl version of Britney Spears dancing among a group of men and women while facing the camera. Sure, her clothes show a patch of midriff every now and then, but to call it “revealing” in comparison to her silk bikini outfit in “I’m A Slave 4 U” is harsh. The same can be said of Aguilera’s outfits in both her videos.

Another serious difference between the two videos is the presence of men, who basically fawn over the two pop stars. In “I’m A Slave 4 U,” Spears is gripped, pawed, stroked and felt up in almost every imaginable way by men, while in “…Baby One More Time” the men merely act as set pieces and background dancers.

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The man who becomes interested in Aguilera in “Genie In A Bottle” isn’t scouring every inch of Aguilera’s body with his hands. In fact, she pushes him away playfully at the end of the video. But in “Dirrty,” Aguilera is the sexy centerpiece as she is lowered into an arena filled with sweaty, grimy and rowdy men.

The orgie-like, sweaty physical contact in both of the more steamy videos must have been a huge catalyst for critics to barrage Spears and Aguilera with allegations of corrupting young women or encouraging this kind of behavior. Sure, sex sells, but perhaps putting sexuality on platters to serve to their fanbase of eight to 18 year old young women wasn’t the best marketing technique for these two and the celebrities that followed the same pattern.

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