History of music

videos.Millie Sharratt

What is a music video?

A music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are made due to marketing devices, promoting the sale of musical recordings of a band or artist. Through time music videos have evolved and changed, along side music culture. I will be exploring the history of music videos, which will hopefully help me develop initial ideas.

1920’s

An early example of a music video, is St Louis Blue’s – Bessie Smith. Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called Saint Louis Blues 1929 featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. It was shown in theatres until 1932.

1940’s

In 1940, Walt Disney released Fantasia, an animated clip featuring several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music. In the 1940s, ‘Soundies’ were produced and released from 1940 to 1947. They were musical films that often included short dance sequences similar to later music videos. There fore it is apparent that later music videos have adapted from older music videos.

1950’s

In his autobiography, Tony Bennett claims to have created "...the first music video" when he was filmed walking along the Serpintine in Hyde Park, London in 1956, with the resulting clip being set to his recording of the song “Stranger in Paradise".

The clip was sent to UK and US television stationsIn 1957, the second music video of the story is set in United States starring Elvis Presley item Jailhouse Rock, the famous theme prison rock, disseminated images in black and white of the time.

1960s

In the late 50’s the Scopitone, was invented in France. A scopitone was a visual juke box and short films were produced by many French artists, such as Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy, to accompany their songs. The trend was spread to other countries, and similar machines were used such as Cinebox in Italy and Colour Sonic in the USA. The 60’s saw a rise in music videos through bands such as, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and the Beatles. The Rolling Stones appeared in many promotional clips for their songs in the 60s.

1970’s

The long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s, although the BBC placed strict limits on the number of 'outsourced' videos TOTP could use. Therefore a good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week. In 1974, the American rock band Sparks was sanctioned by the UK to create a video clip to promote their hit single "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us", and this use of music in video has been considered by many to be the first of its kind in Britain.

1980’s

During the 1980’s Rock music videos were starting to become mainstream. Rock bands such as Guns’N’Roses released performance based music videos which really reflected their rock star persona. Typical 80’s rock clothing was worn including platform boots and flared trousers. In 1983, the most successful, influential and iconic music video of all time was released: the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller", directed by John Landis. The video set new standards for production, having cost US$800,000 to film. The video for "Thriller", along with earlier videos by Jackson for his songs "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", were instrumental in getting music videos by African American artists played on MTV.

MTV is a 24 hour entertainment programme that has been running in the UK since 1997. The programme features music videos from the latest artists, and now has different genres for all types of target audiences. In the 90’s MTV was the main source of watching music videos in the UK. It was not until the mid 00’s when the internet became the main source of watching music videos.

In recent years music videos have been featured online. Audiences are able to listen and watch music videos through webpages and apps such as You tube, Twitter, Facebook and Vevo. Online stores such as iTunes enable audiences to download music videos. Therefore music videos have become increasingly popular with the audiences.