History of Music Videos

A music video is a short film or video which is put out to advertise and sell a piece of music or song. Sound films and talkies were introduced in 1926, Vitaphone shorts which was created by Warner Bros, featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. A series entitled Spooney Melodies is arguably the first introduction into music videos, these videos lasted about 6 minutes featuring art deco style animations and backgrounds combined with the film of the singer singing their song. The first proper sign of a music video surfaced in 1940 which were called promotional clips, these were just one-song films which were made for the Panoram visual Jukebox. This device consisted of a jukebox played a close-looped 16mm film reel projected onto a glass screen. In the late 1950s the Scopitone was invented in France and this enabled French artists to use a video to accompany their song. In 1961 Ozzie Nelson directed and edited the video of Traveling Man by his son Ryan Nelson an featured images from around the world which were mentioned in the lyrics. In the 1960s, one of the earliest performance clips was the promo video for the band 'The Animals' hit 'House of the rising sun'. This clip was was filmed in a studio on a specially-built set which was in high-quality colour featuring the band lip syncing their performance which was depicted through an edited sequence of tracking shots, closeups and longshots. In 1964 the Beatles starred in their feature film 'A Hard Days Night' which was shot in black and white and was presented as a mock documentary. It had countless subsequent promo clips and music videos which had a huge influence on the style and visual vocabulary of the genre. This was a breakthrough for music videos as other bands started to base their ideas around the Beatles. For example Bob Dylan brought out a film documentary which was very similar called 'Don't Look Back'. In 1972-73 music videos became more advanced and important when David Bowie featured in a series of music videos which were directed by photographer Mick Rock. In 1974 Australian TV shows Countdown and Sounds were significant in developing and popularizing the music video genre in Australia and other countries, and in establishing the importance of music video clips as a means of promoting both emerging acts and new releases by established acts. In 1981 music videos began to go mainstream with an American channel called MTV launched airing 'Video Killed the Radio Star' and this began an era of 24 hour-a-day music in television. Artists like Adam and the Ants, Madonna, and Mylene Farmer owe a great deal to MTV for the clever construction of the playing of their music videos which gave them audience viewing meaning they would sell more records. The two key innovations in the development of modern music videos were the development of relatively inexpensive and easy to use video recording. The advent of high-quality color videotape recorders and portable video cameras coincided with the DIY ethos of the New Wave era, enabling many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply, in comparison to the relatively high costs of using film. However, as the genre developed, music video directors increasingly turned to 35 mm film as the preferred medium, while others mixed film and video. In 1983 the most successful and influential video of all time was released (Michael Jacksons Thriller). The uncut version of the music video lasted nearly 14 minutes and at the time set new standards of production costing $500,000 to film. In 1985 MTV launched the channel VH1 and this featured softer music and catered to the older generation of music fans. In 1986 The Chart Show on the UK's channel 4 was launched and this is an important development in music videos as it was a programme that showed only music videos without presenters. In 2005 the website YouTube was released and this enabled people to stream music videos of their choice at any time.