We'll always have 'Thriller'

Given the music industry's current crunch - and since Gen Yers are typically watching them on a laptop anyway - the music video, long an extravagant mega-budget production, is stripping down, according to the Globe and Mail.

YouTube, and the ease with which anyone today can make or access a video, has inspired artists to get craftier.

The Decemberists and Modest Mouse both asked online fans to fill in the background of recent videos, while Beck produced a lo-fi video for every track on his new album The Information.

Meanwhile, Kanye West, the current king of high production value, created his own web video featuring an orange tractor and bearded comedian Zach Galifianakis.

OK Go's viral hit, where the band dances on treadmills, rode the helm of what makes today's music video a hit. A creative feature piece on YouTube, as opposed to a six-figure Swedish director, makes the contemporary music star.