Early days....

Music video isn’t that new, in fact they’ve been around since before films could have sound. Some performers would project images onto a screen as they played live, these images would then reflect the themes and emotions of the music played.

From the 1930s to the 1950s Musicals were one of the dominant genres in film and many set pieces were extracted to promote the films.

How ever the common people did not have TV’s

This is Marilyn Monroe singing Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend from Gentleman Prefer Blondes.

TV & Rock N Roll Things stayed pretty much as they

were for a while and then two huge things happened. Rock and Roll hit and television became the dominant media form.

Suddenly popular music was on the telly and when the big stars couldn’t appear something had to replace them.

Some musicians had already started to experiment with promotional film. These were experimental and more arts based.

Considered to be the first real music video by many, Bob Dylan does Subterranean Homesick Blues in 1965.

In 1964 The Beatles made the film A Hard Day’s Night with the director Richard Lester. It was a mock documentary but in the music inserts he established a visual style for music video that you can still see.

In “You’ve got to hide your love away” you can see the two key elements of music video; Performance and narrative.

Top of the Pops!...and more TV’s In the late 1960s and

early 1970s music video benefited from the flood of new film makers coming out of art schools. Music video became a serious medium and the videos became more challenging.

In 1975 Queen were at number one with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody” the video considered ground breaking at the time was aired all the way through and hugely popular. Many feel this heralded the “Music video as we know it”

1981 and MTV was launched Music videos were now

an established part of music television shows like 6:5 special and Top of the Pops, in fact some were more popular than the live performances.

This led to the launching of MTV in 1981. MTV was a channel that played music video 24 hours a day and made stars overnight. Madonna, Duran Duran and Dire Straits owe their careers to MTV.

“Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles appropriately launched MTV

1980’s Music Videos Are Big Business

MTV and the music video channels that copied made the music video big business.

Duran Duran flew to locations around the world

George Michael hired the world’s top super models.

Michael Jackson’s got the record of $7 million for the Scream video although Madonna had a $5 million budget for Bedtime Stories

Michael Jackson got director John Landis to direct his Thriller video and the big budget video came about.

Quick Recap…1. Started with rock & roll

becoming popular at the same time as TV became affordable.

2. Artistes made videos for their songs before 1975 – but generally little bits only ever got played on TV (& not everyone had TV). Some argue the 1st was the Beatles 1964 – A hard days night; others Bob Dylan with Subterranean Homesick Blues in 1965

3. In 1975 – some argue that Queen’s video was the first proper promo video. Mainly rock artistes produced videos so they were often called “Rock Videos”

4. In1981 – MTV was launched with Video Kills the Radio Star. This was when the promo videos or ‘rock videos’ became known as music videos.

• Some say Elvis had the first music video.

• Before 1975 - Very basic videos - mainly either a video the artistes performing on stage, dancers dancing or arty type films (there are exceptions – “ticket to ride - has lip syncing” and “you got to hide your love away” has narrative AND performance-1964 Beatles )

• This perception it probably due to it’s popularity , that it was played all the way through in the No1 spot and was surreal and experimental.

• They were used to promote the music and the image of the artiste. Artistes and groups from all different genres produced music videos.

Fill in the gaps... Consider what has

happened in the 90’s and the start of the 21st Century?

What Videos can you remember?

What ones have influenced developments?

What has caused Controversy?

What styles of music videos have developed in each genre?

Aphex Twin ‘come to daddy’ is one video you have looked at as a class . Chris Cunningham won awards for this controversial video

Modern Times Now music television is in

decline and the internet has taken over as the platform for music video.

Youtube, Facebook, Myspace and iTunes are now the go to places for artists.

Lily Allen is probably the best example of an artist promoted and established through the internet.

Cheap technology also means videos can be made on any budget.

The video for Ok Go’s A Million Ways cost less than £30 and was filmed in the singer’s back garden. The dance routine became an internet sensation and was downloaded over 9 million times.