The History of Music Videos

Music videos have developed over the years and are used to promote the single/ album and the artist/ band. In the 1920s there were films accompanied by musical scores labelled 'Visual Music'. They were something that resembled the music video. Some people think that one of the first ever music videos/ visual music was in St Louis Blues' which was sung by Bessie Smith in 1929. This is because artists started to perform in short films but often the videos were filmed in one shot. Bessie Smith did a performance that also had narrative.



In the 1930s there was experimentation of having music videos. Len Lye used the kaleidoscope.

In 1940 Walt Disney released 'Fantasia' on animated film based around famous pieces of classical music. Some people see this as a music video because there was music to an animation and it was seen as a mile stone in the creation of music video.



The earliest videos that were truly classed as being the start of the music videos or music promos in which we class as music videos today were created in the mid 1950s. In 1960 the Scopitone Jukeboxes were created which were visual jukeboxes. People would watch these jukeboxes in which there would be a 'music video' in which there would be a performer and often many dancers however, there was often no narrative or concept to the music videos.



In 1964, The Beatles were in a film called 'A Hard Days Night' in which they performed their songs from this album. A Hard Day’s Night didn’t just capture a pop moment of 1964 but people believe that it actually invented pop itself in a visual sense, setting the tone for how bands and songs would be depicted on screens both big and small for the next 50 years. Although 'The Beatles' created a film with music in which people believe music videos really started to begin, in the UK 'The Kinks' made one of the first "plot" promo clips for a song. The Monkees were another important influence on the development of the music video genre, with each episode of their hugely popular American TV series including a number of specially made film segments that were created to accompany various Monkees songs used in the series. The series ran from 1966 to 1968.




In 1966, Bob Dylan created a music video for 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' which was shown in a film documentary called 'Don't Look Back'. Although some people see this as an early music video, the music video lacks any narrative and shows Bob Dylan standing in a city back alley, silently shuffling a series of large cue cards, bearing key words from the song's lyrics.



In the 1975 Queen released a music video for their song 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. This was seen as a new era for using music videos as promos. The whole piece was shot and edited on video tape. Queen wanted their music video to be shown on 'Top of the pops' as once songs were performed on this television channel songs normally went to number one. Top of the Pops promoted a single and created an environment of innovation and competition amongst bands and record labels as the show's producers placed strict limits on the number of outsourced videos it would show.

In 1981 MTV was launched. The first video to be aired was 'The Buggles' song called 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. In the 1980s there was more use of sophisticated effects in their videos and a storyline of plot was often used in music videos. Michael Jackson was the first person to make a music video like a short film. It had a narrative with a beginning, middle and an end. He did this with 'Billie Jean', 'Beat it' and then 'Thriller'.



In 1985 VH1 was released for softer music meant for an older demographic to show that music videos weren't just for teenagers. There was also the chart show channel 4 in 1986 which was solely for music video. In 1986 Peter Gabriel released a song called 'Sledgehammer' which used animations to make a different kind of music video. This won 9 MTV music awards. The 80s saw the start of directors getting involved in helping to create music videos.

In 1994 Scream by Michael and Janet Jackson was released and the music video cost $7 million which at the time was the most expensive music video ever made. During the mid to late 90s, MTV launched channels around the world to show music videos produced in each local market including MTV Latin America in 1993, MTV India in 1996, and MTV Mandarin in 1997, among others. MTV2 meant to show more alternative and older music videos, debuted in 1996.

In 1996 the music video for Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai was released. The video featured a combination of dancing and an 'apparently' moving floor, enabling singer Jay Kay to perform the vocals in memorable fashion. While it appears that the video is all one shot, it is actually in fact several sequences edited together with the subtle use of camera pans. The floor isn’t really moving; rather, the camera is fixed to the set, which is being moved around on a grey, featureless floor.
As this had never been used in a music video before “Virtual Insanity” won four awards at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, where the band gave a memorable performance, with Jay Kay dancing on two moving walkways installed on the stage.



Between 2000 and 2005, there really wasn’t a single place to tune in and see a whole lot of music videos. MTV was inundated with television shows and video on the web still wasn’t accessible by the mainstream. Most peoples music video needs were through DVDs and Torrent packages of “The Top 50 Music Videos Of All Time”, which alluded to the music video being something of a lost art for a few years.

In 2005 YouTube was released which meant that artists were releasing more music videos and therefore most artists nowadays create music videos to promote themselves and their song as many fans/ people that enjoy their songs in particular youth use websites such as YouTube. Statistics suggest that YouTube has over 1 billion users each month.