History Of Music Videos

History Of Music Videos

A music video is a short film of video that accompanies a complete piece of music most commonly a song.

1920s-

The first versions of what we would call a music video came from the 1920s from vitaphones shorts and Spooney Melodies.

1930s-1960s-

Musicals were dominated genres in film as many were used to promote the songs. The Beatles made a film called 'A Hard Days Night' which was a mock documentary but was established for the music video.

1964-
Top of the pops was made by the BBC. It was a great way to promote an artists single.

1970- MTV arrived and was the phenomenon that gave so much power and importance to the music video.


1981- The first video ever played on MTV in the USA was 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by the Buggles. As MTV is a 24 hour programme music videos were needed to broadcast and so they became an important part in artist's careers.

1980s- David Bowie scored his first UK number one in nearly a decade thanks to his catchy promo for 'ashes to ashes'. Secondly, Michael Jackson was the first to create the idea of a short film- a music video with a beginning, middle and end.

Mid 1980s- Music videos came to play an essential role in the marketing of a band or artist.




Modern Era-
The key development of music videos was the recording and editing process. Due to the increase in quality of cameras promotional videos are able to be produced quickly and cheaply. Michael Jackson was the first to produce a short film for his song 'Billie Jean'. One of the first official music video was Queens 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.




2005- One of musics major forums 'Youtube' was created. The first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. This website allows any artist whether they are famous or not to publish their songs and covers and create fame for themselves. It's a great website to put yourself out there and in return have hundreds of thousands of people admiring your work.

Today-
Nowadays music videos are shown on TV channels for pure popularity and have an aesthetic value. the videos are appreciated for their visual value. Music  videos these days include elements of artistic value so extreme that fans are watching the on mute to appreciate the visuals.