History of Music Videos

What Is A Music Video? A music video is a short film or video that accompanies

a complete piece of music, most commonly a song.

Modern music videos were primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings.

Music videos are now a marketing technique to create a representation of the artist which helps them gain popularity with the audience

Music videos are only possible due to the proliferation of technology.

Source: Wikipedia

1920s-50sThe earliest music videos or music promos

were filmed in the mid 1950s. However, before then, as early as 1920s, films by animators such as Oskar Fishchinger were accompanied by musical scored labeled as ‘visual music’.

In 1940s, Walt Disney released Fantasia, an animated film based around famous pieces of classical music.

1950s-1960s Before music videos were distributed on music channels such as MTV,

audiences had to go the cinema to see their favourite artist. Artists would create a feature film but include their songs within the narrative.

Elvis was known for making these films and in total he made 33 films. His first being ‘Love Me Tender’ released in 1956.

The Beatles also used the medium of film to promote themselves before music videos. However, unlike Elvis, The Beatles would play themselves rather than characters as part of the narrative.

They released ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ in 1964, which for the audience felt like they were watching a day in the life of the Beatle’s rather than a film.

The film contained original songs and it was revolutionary in that it changed how artists would present themselves.

1960s…Elvis, The Beatles and many other artists who

produced promotional films, are those who established the early conventions of music videos.

In The Beatles short promo film for ‘Paperback Winter’ in 1965, there is use of montage editing, specific camera angles, performance and mise-en-scene to instruments

All of these things are still conventional in todays music videos.

1970s In 1975, Queen released a music video for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on Top of The

Pops (the only music program at the time).

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is considered the first music video and also set the conventions for the rock genre.

For example, the music video contains lots of low angle shots where makes the artists appear more dominant and powerful. There is also a lot of lighting and silhouette effects used and the music video is edited to the beat.

The music video cost £4000, which was a large budget at the time it was made. The large budget is shown by the better quality of the video and the variety of locations and effects it includes.

The release of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ showed the music industry that the song was now secondary, as when the song was first released it only reached number 12 on the charts. But when they premiered the music video it went straight to number 1 and stayed there for 9 weeks.

1980sMTV began in the 1980s. This lead to music videos becoming

an integral part of musical culture. This new medium brought synergy and cross media convergence into the music industry.

The first music video to be ever shown on MTV was ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ by The Bugglers.

MTV allowed artists to promote their songs on television rather than the radio or promotion films. At this point, there was more or less a TV in every home. This meant that artists began to get exposure through visual means, this meant that their image and the way that represented them became very important.

1980s… Madonna in her music video for ‘Vogue’, gave the audience a flavour of

her image. She used 1940s Hollywood glamour iconography, such as Marilyn Monroe as a theme throughout the music video. Also the title of the song being ‘Vogue’ connotes to her prestige and power in the music industry.

By doing this, she is representing her self an icon and also a fashion icon by associating herself with Vogue magazine

The music is purely visual, as there is no instruments or musical equipment. This allows the focus of the video to be on Madonna solely and her look rather than the music.

After the release of ‘Vogue’, a craze of ‘Voguing’ spread worldwide. This is an example of how music videos were beginning to effect the way people behaved, which shows their importance in the world.

Videos became vital in order to be successful, as the video started selling the song rather than the other way around.

1980s… Music videos also started to moving into the realm of short films.

Film director, John Landis, directed Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. Which was a 12 minute long short film/music video, which had a budget of $500,000. Making it the most expensive music video of it’s time.

Within the video, there are cross overs of different mediums, as it incorporated film and the horror genre.

The video had several layers of diegesis, very advanced mise-en-scene and the use of choreography and performance alongside the narrative.

Despite making a huge impact in the world of music, it also used horror conventions, which helped to push these conventions of a whole.

2000- today By the mid 2000s, convergence became more significant as MTV and its sister

channels focused less on showing music videos like they did in before and more on other mediums such as reality TV.

Due to this music videos began to be broadcasted on YouTube. Now music videos can become viral and reach mass audiences worldwide in a matter of minutes.

Artists used to have to post their music videos on their own individual channel but now YouTube has introduced VEVO. VEVO is operated by Universal Music and Sony. This means that their conglomerates artist all have an account on VEVO however Warner Music acts can’t put their videos on VEVO but have it on their own account.

Now fans of artists can compete to beat the ‘VEVO record’, which the most views in 24 hours of release, it is currently held by Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’ (as of 24th September 2014).

Despite the introduction of VEVO and YouTube, there are still music channels today but they are not as popular as they once were.

2000- Today… Despite the proliferation in hardware, bigger budget and access to a

more mediums. The conventions of a music video still match those from the very first music videos back in the 1960s.

However, some music videos take those traditional music video concepts but modernize them. For example Beyoncé's ‘Single Ladies’.

‘Single Ladies’ music video goes back to basic. It is focused on the choreography and the performance of Beyoncé and her two dancers. The mise-en-scene is very simplistic and there is no editing, one continuous shot.

This makes the music video memorable, therefore effective.

Overall, present day music videos incorporate the conventions and aspects of early music videos but manipulate them to make them relevant for modern times.

This shows that music videos are continuously developing.