Music Video History

Media Timeline

A2 Media StudiesLauren Barrett

History of the Music Video

DEFINITION: “a music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes.”

Music videos are primarily used as a marketing device – to promote the sales of music recordings.


The First Steps:• 1894• Sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern.• They hired an electrician and performers to promote sales of

their song “The Little Lost Child.”• A magic lantern is an early type of image projector developed in

the 17th century.• It was used to project a series of still images on a screen

alongside live performances of the song.• This became a popular form of entertainment known as the

‘illustrated song’.• This was the initial development of the Music Video.


1926 - 1959• 1926 saw the arrival of “talkies”.• “Talkies” were short sound films incorporating

synchronized dialogue.• Musical short films were starting to be produced with

the arrival of the “talkies”.• In the early 1930’s cartoons began to feature popular

singers and musicians performing their songs in live-action segments during the cartoons.

• Walt Disney’s earlier creations including Silly Symphonies and Fantasia featured several interpretations of classical pieces.


1926 - 1959• Then came the introduction of live musical

films, with Blues singer Bessie Smith appearing in a short film called ‘St. Louis Blues (1929)’ which featured her dramatizing the performance of the song of the same name.

• Then, in the mid 1940’s, musician Louis Jordan created short films for some of his songs, which were all the cut together to create the feature film ‘Lookout Sister’.

• Historian Donald Clarke, has deemed these films the ‘ancestors’ of music video.


1926 - 1959• Another Important precursor to the music

video were musicals (as in the film genre).• Many modern music videos now imitate

the style of classis Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s.

• A brilliant example is Madonna’s music video for ‘Material Girl’ (1985) which

resembled parts of the song ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’ from the musical

film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ music video.

Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend performed in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.


1960 – 1973:• Late 1950’s

• In France, the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented

• Short films by many French artists were created to accompany the

Scopitone’s songs.• The short films were shown on a

small screen on the Scopitone whilst the songs played.


1960 – 1973:• In 1961, music shorts were

produced for the Canadian show Singalong Jubilee.

• The music was pre-recorded, and then musicians and actors went on-location and filmed lip-synching to the audio, before the footage and

the music were then merged together.

History of the Music Video1960 – 1973: THE BEATLES

1964. The Beatles featured in A Hard Day’s Night, their first feature film. It was

completely shot in black and white, and was presented as a mock documentary – a

type of film or TV show where fictional events are acted out and presented in a

documentary style to create a parody. Both comedic and dialogues scenes were edited

with shots of musical scenes cut in-between.

The Monkees (1966-1968) was an American TV series created in the same way but to accompany various Monkees songs.

History of the Music Video1960 – 1973: THE BEATLES

The Beatles’ second feature film, Help! (1965) was much more creative and influential to the world of the music video. It was filmed in colour in

both London and various other international locations. The ‘title track sequence’ was filmed in black and white, and to this date is arguably one of the prime examples of modern performance-based music videos, as it employed a very complex and creative range of shots types and camera

angles.

They also created promotional clips known as ‘filmed inserts’ for the distribution and broadcast of their records in other countries, to save them time from making personal appearances. The Beatles finished

touring in 1966, and by this time, their promotional films had become highly sophisticated.


1960 – 1973: THE BEATLESTheir third film, Magical Mystery Tour, aired on the

BBC on Boxing Day of 1967, and was completely written and directed by the group. It was poorly

received at the time, but has since shown the group to be accomplished music video makers.

History of the Music Video1960 – 1973:In the UK, The Kinks made one of the first narrative-based promo clips for their single Dead End Street (1966) which involved a miniature comic movie.

Other key artists during this time were The Rolling Stones and David Bowie, who both had clips rejected by the BBC for distasteful content, starting with footage based on the drug prosecutions of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones) in “We Love You” and the homosexual themes in Bowie’s “John, I’m Only Dancing”.


1974 – 1980:The beginnings of music television started in 1974 when

Australian radio DJ, Graham Webb, launched a new TV music show aimed at teenagers, which became titled Sounds. He approached several people to shoot film

footage to accompany popular songs for content for his new show. In total he created a collection of about 25

different clips for the show. The clips were quite successful, prompting Webb to quit his position on TV and

become a full-time director, creating clips for popular Australian acts including AC/DC.

History of the Music Video1974 – 1980: TOP OF THE POPS

The British TV show Top Of The Pops then launched in 1970. The concept was to attempt to increase a song’s sales through a good music video as viewers would hope to see it

again on the show the following week. During this time, David Bowie reached number 1 in the charts for the first

time in nearly a decade after the success of his eye-catching music video for ‘Ashes to Ashes’. Other big names and music

videos during this time included:•Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody•Pink Floyd The Wall•The Old Grey Whistle Test

History of the Music Video1974 – 1980:

Before the launch of MTV came Video Concert Hall (VCH) in 1979, a television network which simply played music

videos on a continuous rotation.

1980, New Zealand group Split Enz produced a complete set of promo video clips for each song on their album, True

Colours.

Then, in 1981 the first American video album was produced by The Tubes; The Completion Backward Principle.

History of the Music Video1974 – 1980:

The first real music videos were produced by ex-Monkee band member Michael Nesmith, who started

creating short musical films for the American program Saturday Night Live. He then released

Elephant Parts in 1981 which was awarded a Grammy for the music video. It was the first ever music video

to win a Grammy Award.

History of the Music Video1981 - 1991:MTV was then launched in 1981, with ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ being the first video to air. With the success of MTV, the music video became a new central role into popular music marketing.

Big names during this period included Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran and Madonna.

History of the Music Video1981 - 1991: TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

In this time period also came the development of easy-to-use video recording and editing equipment, and the

development of basic filming techniques such as image compositing.

Directors and their acts began to explore and expand the form and style of the genre, using various effects in their

videos and beginning to add plot or storyline to the footage.

The ‘non-representational’ form of music video came about in this time, where the music videos didn’t

physically feature the artists themselves.

History of the Music Video1981 – 1991: THRILLER•1983•One of the most iconic and successful music videos of all time.•Michael Jackson – Thriller•Nearly 14 minutes long•The video set new standards for production, costing nearly $800,000.•Jackson’s other music videos including ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Beat It’ saw the breakthrough for African American artists’ music videos on MTV.

History of the Music Video1981 – 1991: TELEVISION BREAKTHROUGH•1983 Country Music Television (CMT) was

launched in America.•Canada then launched the music channel

MuchMusic in 1984.•The MTV Video Music Awards were then

launched in 1984 (now known as the VMA’s).

•MTV launched the channel VH1 in ‘85, with the aim of targeting an older audience

by playing softer, slower music.

History of the Music Video1981 – 1991: TELEVISION BREAKTHROUGH

•In 1988, MTV also launched Yo! MTV Raps, bringing hip-hop music to a mass audience for the first time.•MTV then goes worldwide with MTV Europe

launching in 1987, and MTV Asia in 1991.•The next big development came with the launch of

The Chart Show on the UK’s Channel 4 in 1986. •The program consisted of music videos on loop, and was the only outlet music videos had on British TV at

the time. The show then moved to ITV in 1989.


1981 – 1991:•In 1985, the idea of conceptual-based music videos

started to become popular.•Dire Straits’ song ‘Money For Nothing’ created a music video consisting of computer animation.

•Then in 1986, Peter Gabriel’s song ‘Sledgehammer’ had a music video created consisting of computer

animations and special effects, and it went on to win 9 MTV Video Music Awards.

History of the Music Video1992 - 2004: AUTEUR THEORY

•In 1992, MTV started to list the directors with the artist and song credits, as music videos

were increasingly becoming ‘an auteur’s medium’.

•An auteur’s medium, or auteur theory, is the idea that a film created by a director reflects

the director’s personal creative vision. ‘Auteur’ is derived from the French word for ‘author’.

History of the Music Video2005 – PRESENT: TAKEOVER OF THE

INTERNET•iFilm launched in 1997; a website dedicated to showing short films and music videos. And Napster, a file-sharing service which ran between 1999 and 2001 enabled users to upload and share video files, including footage of music videos. •During the mid-2000s, MTV began to reduce the number of music videos they showed dramatically in favour of reality television programs which proved more popular with audiences.

History of the Music Video2005 – PRESENT: TAKEOVER OF THE

INTERNET•2005, YouTube is launched, and allows audiences to view videos online much faster and easier.•Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook and MySpace all used/uses similar technology.•These sites had a strong effect on the viewing of music videos, and some artists began to see success due to their videos being seen mostly or entirely online.

History of the Music Video2005 – PRESENT: WHAT IS THE CORRELATION?

‘Thirty Seconds To Mars’ Example•The music video for Thirty Seconds To Mars’ single

‘Kings And Queens’ was uploaded to YouTube in 2009.•It was uploaded the same day as the singles’ release.

•The video has received nearly 20million views on YouTube alone.

•It also received more than 40million views on MySpace.

•The video was featured as iTunes music video of the week and was one of the most downloaded videos to

be featured.•They also received 4 nominations for MTV Video

Music Awards in 2010 for the video.•It made them the most nominated rock artist for the

VMA’s in a single year.

History of the Music Video2005 – PRESENT:

•The Internet has become the primary growth income market for record company-produced music videos.

•At it’s initial launch, Apple’s iTunes store offered a selection of music videos for free viewing to be watched via the iTunes

application.•The iTunes store now sell music videos to be downloaded to and

viewed via Apple products such as the iPod and iPad.•Apple also list a music video chart showing the weeks most

popular video purchases through iTunes .•A new music video website, Vevo, was launched by a

collaboration of major music publishers in 2009. Their videos are automatically linked to YouTube, and they share the advertising

revenue with Google.

Music Video History

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