I love music videos, I really do. I think it's kind of sad that

Adam Levine once spoke with heartfelt nostalgia: “I love music videos, I really do. I think it's kind of sad that it's a dying art form.” In these simple yet mournful words lies the cry of an artist who has watched beauty drift into neglect. For the music video, once a sacred bridge between sound and sight, emotion and imagination, is no mere ornament—it is a vessel of expression, a miniature temple where melody takes form and story gains breath. Levine’s sorrow is not merely for a medium, but for the loss of wonder itself, for a generation that has forgotten how to pause, watch, and feel art unfold in time.

In the age of the ancients, music and imagery were never separate things. The Greeks spoke of mousikē—not just “music” as we know it, but the entire harmony of song, poetry, dance, and rhythm that shaped the human spirit. To them, art was unity: sound gave motion to soul, image gave shape to meaning. The music video—in its modern incarnation—was the heir to that ancient ideal. Born in the fire of innovation during the 1980s, it became the painter’s canvas of the electric age. Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Madonna’s Like a Prayer, Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer—these were not mere promotions, but mythologies crafted in sound and vision, reaching into the subconscious of millions.

Yet as Levine laments, this sacred union now fades. Technology, which once lifted art to new heights, has also scattered our attention. The “dying art form” he speaks of is not dead from lack of talent, but from the quickness of modern appetite. We no longer wait for the music video premiere as our parents once did; we scroll past fragments, distracted by the endless stream of soundbites and spectacle. The ritual is lost. The stage is gone. And so too, the reverence that once greeted the birth of each new artistic vision.

There is tragedy in this, but also warning. For when a culture ceases to honor its art forms, it begins to forget its own language of feeling. The music video was once how generations dreamed together. It told us who we were, who we longed to be, and what beauty could look like in motion. When Nirvana released “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” it captured rebellion in flickering gym lights. When Beyoncé created Lemonade, she turned pain into a visual gospel. To dismiss such creations as trivial is to deny the heartbeat of culture itself.

History shows this pattern again and again. The Romans once had frescoes that brought their walls to life, yet when their empire fell, so too did that art of painted storytelling. Centuries later, the Renaissance rebirthed visual music through light and form, as painters like Botticelli made color dance as rhythm once did. So too will the music video, though diminished, find its resurrection. For art never dies—it only slumbers, waiting for the hearts brave enough to awaken it. And perhaps this is Levine’s deeper plea: that artists and audiences alike remember what it means to see music, not just hear it.

In his lament there is also love, and in his love, a call to stewardship. The artist must become a guardian of beauty, resisting the flood of convenience that drowns meaning. To those who create: let not your work be reduced to clicks and counts. Craft something that breathes, that demands attention, that lingers in the eyes of those who watch. To those who listen: seek the full experience—watch the story, feel the imagery, let music once again be something you behold, not just consume.

Thus, the lesson of Adam Levine’s words is timeless: when art fades, it is not because time destroys it, but because hearts forget its value. Do not let this “dying art form” die. Celebrate the union of sound and vision; honor the stories that unfold in three minutes of light and melody. For as long as there are souls who see music with their eyes, who hear color with their hearts, the spirit of the music video will live again—bright, defiant, and eternal.