A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. Modern music videos were primarily made as a marketing device to promote the sale of music recordings and the artist itself.
The first video ever is considered by many to by 'St. Louis Blues' by Bessie Smith (released 1929).
The earliest music videos or 'promos' as they were called were filmed in the mid 1950s, however, before then, the 1920s, such as the one above, and other animated films by animators such as Oskar Fischinger were accompanied by musical scored called 'visual music'. Early animated films, by people such as Walt Disney and his song 'Silly Symphonies', were built around the music. Live musical videos, by people such as Cab Calloway, were distributed to theatres for members on the public to see.
1950s and 60s development
In 1956, Tony Bennett was filmed walked along The Serpentine in Hyde Park, London for the video of his song 'Strangers in Paradise'. This film was then distributed and played British and American TV stations, which later lead to Bennett claiming that he made the first ever 'proper' music video.
In 1960, the Scopitone, which is a visual jukebox, was invented in France. This then lead to many French artists, such as Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc to create videos to go with their own songs. The use of the Scopitone was quickly spread to other countries in the world, and similar products were invented, such as the Cinebox, in Italy and the Color-Sonic in America.
The defining music video made in this era was made by The Beatles, to accompany their song 'Hard Day's Night' in 1964, as it was the first major motion picture ever made. An American TV show was then created call 'The Monkees'. This was also another very important point in the development of music videos, as each episode included various short films that were specially made to fit various songs by The Monkees. The series ran from 1966 to 1968.
The Beatles then topped the video of 'Hard Day's Night', with the release of 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane' in 1967. These videos were important as they were the first videos to use effects that were only meant to be used in films, such as dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles and rhythmic editing. These videos were created during the 'psychedelic period' of music and were the first music videos to attempt to 'illustrate' the song in an artful manor, rather than just creating a film to fit around the lyrics.
Modern era (1970s onward)
The creation of Top of the Pops (TOTP) in Britain was very important, as it gave artists a reason to create music videos in order to perform on the show, and for a larger audience to then see. For an artists song to remain on this show, the public had to go out and by the song, as it only showed the top 40 songs. This meant that more people would be aware of an artists song, and it also meant the artist would make more money by the public buying their song.
The release of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen was huge, as it was the first song to have a video created especially for the song only, not for anything else. This then started a whole new era of music videos as other artists were inspired by this video, and started to make videos to fit around their own songs.
The 1980s were very big for music, as there was a lot of things created that would have a permanent effect on music.
In 1981, Music Television (MTV) was created. This was important as it became the first channel on TV to play music videos 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The very first song played on MTV was 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by The Buggles. This song was played first as the title had relevance to the situation, as by then, music videos were becoming a lot more popular than songs on the radio, as before music videos were created, radios were the main source of music.
In the early to mid 1980s, artists started using more sophisticated effects in their videos and started adding plots/story lines to their videos. The best example of this is 'Thriller' by Michael Jackson, released in 1983 as he was the very first artist to create the concept of a short film for a music video. It is considered a short film because there are several film like features in the video, such as speech, voice overs and credits at the end of it. Jackson had done similar things with the videos for 'Billie Jean' and 'Beat It', however they were not as long or story line focused as 'Thriller'.
The first songs to include the male gaze theory to an extreme were 'Girls On Film' by Duran Duran, and 'Relax' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Because of the explicitness of these videos, when they were on TOTP, they had to get dancers to dance to the song, as the videos were too inappropriate to show on TOTP as it was always shown before the watershed.
In 1984, Duran Duran released a video for their song 'Wild Boys'. The narrative of this video was lots of abnormal people having a mad obsession with Duran Duran, and the video included computer generated images, lots of stunts and they had to build a set especially for the video, and it ended up costing £4m to make, which is a lot of money now, so it was majorly expensive back then, and it was the most expensive video ever made for a song, and it held this record for many many years.
In 1985, VH1 was released. This channel, like MTV, was specifically created for showing music videos, but VH1 showed softer music, as it was meant for an older demographic compared to MTV, as that was created for younger people.
In 1986, the Chart Show was released in the UK. This was played every Saturday, and it allowed the British public to see the most popular songs from the previous week. This was so influential that even now there are lots of different versions of this, and they play throughout the day on various music channels, but they were all influenced by the one released in 1986 as it was first major chart program were only videos were shown, unlike TOTP where there were videos and performance.
In October 1988, Dire Straits released the song 'Money For Nothing'. This had a massive affect on the music video world as it was the first ever video to be properly and totally animated. Since then, many big artists have had fully animated music videos for their songs, such as 'One More Time' by Daft Punk and 'Good Morning' by Kanye West.
After many years of massive development in technology, in 1995, Michael and Janet Jackson released the video for their song 'Scream'. Although there are not many special effects in the video, the special effects that
are in there were quite high-tech for 1995, as back then we didn't have the capability to make massive special effects. Also, a special set had to be designed and made specifically for this video, and all of these things added up and in the end, it cost £7m to make, making it the most expensive video to make, and it still has that record now, and no other video has surpassed that cost to make it.
