Music Video Music Video history 1970s – history 1970s – present daypresent day

Music television emerges0In the late 1970s the British TV show Top of

the Pops started playing music videos, however the BBC gave limits on the number of 'outsourced' videos they could use. Therefore a good music video would increase a song's sales as the viewers hoped to see it again the following week.

0In 1981, the American video channel MTV was launched. It started of by airing "Video Killed the Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24/7 music on television.

Importance of videos Alan Parker filmed the Pink Floyd ‘The wall’

which is highly metaphorical and is rich in symbolic imagery and sound. It was a video of great importance as rather than being created for entertainment it was created to share political views.

The most notable acts of this era where Adam & the Ants, Madonna and Mylène Farmer whom all used the great skilful construction of seductive appeal in their music videos for their success. Some people have compared music videos to silent films and found that stars like Madonna have, often quite deliberately, constructed an image that in many ways echoes the image of the great stars of the silent era such as Greta Garbo.

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)

0 In 1975, Queen had Bruce Gowers make a promo video for their new single "Bohemian Rhapsody" to show it in Top Of The Pops; this is also notable for being entirely shot and edited on videotape.

Michael Jackson In 1983Michael Jackson's released a music

video for ‘Thriller’ in which was 14 minutes long and is said to be the most successful and influential music video ever was released.

The music video cost $500 000 to produce and film.

Michael Jackson not only with his song ‘Thriller’ but also with many of his earlier songs like ‘Beat it’ and ‘Billie Jean’ held a great role in music history as Jacksons fame led to music videos by African-American artists also being played on MTV.

1986Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer

0 In 1986 a British studio called Aardman Animation developed special effects and animation techniques used in Peter Gabriel's song ‘Sledgehammer’.

0This music video went on to be a phenomenal success and win nine MTV Video Music Awards.

The rise of the music video directors

0 In December 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had now becomemore of an auteur's medium.

0 Directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek and Hype Williams all got their start around this time; all having thier unique styles to the videos they directed.

0 Some of these directors, including, Gondry, Jonze and F. Gary Gray, went on to direct feature films. This continued a trend that had begun earlier with directors such as Lasse Hallstrom and David Fincher.

0 During this phase MTV started up channels around the world to show music videos produced in each area. For example MTV Latin America in 1993, MTV India in 1996 and MTV2 also in 1996 which was a channel that showed more alternative and older music videos.

3D Videos0In 2008 the first ever 3D video was

created by Dave Meyers and Missy Elliott for her single Ching-a-Ling for the 3D movie Step up 2.

2000 and beyond0By the mid-2000s, MTV and many of its other

channels had largely stopped showing music videos and instead starting screening reality television shows which were more popular.

0YouTube was released in 2005 which made the viewing of online video faster and easier and became one of the most famous websites to be ever created.

0MySpace's similarly added a feature in 2007of video viewing and sharing.

0Such websites had a great effect on the viewing of music videos and some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online.

0For example, the band OK Go achieved fame through videos for two of their songs, ‘A Million Ways’ in 2005 and ‘Here It Goes Again’ in 2006, both of which first became well-known online.

The rise of YouTube0 The 2008 video for Weezer's "Pork and Beans" also captured this trend, by

including at least 20 YouTube celebrities; the single became the most successful of Weezer's career, in chart performance.

0 In 2007, the RIAA issued cease-and-desist letters to YouTube users to prevent single users from sharing videos, which are the property of the music labels. After its merger with Google, YouTube assured the RIAA that they would find a way to pay royalties through a bulk agreement with the major record labels.

0 This was complicated by the fact that not all labels share the same policy toward music videos: some welcome the development and upload music videos to various online outlets themselves, viewing music videos as free advertising for their artists, while other labels view music videos not as an advertisement, but as the product itself.

Online Music0 MTV itself now provides streams of artists' music

videos. The internet has become the primary growth income market for Record Company produced music videos.

0 At its launch, Apple's iTunes Store provided a section of free music videos in high quality compression to be watched via the iTunes application. More recently the iTunes Store has begun selling music videos for use on Apple's iPod with video playback capability.

0 Online music video streaming has now become a great phenomena with radio stations showing top 10 music videos and YouTube recently introducing the YouTube awards.