History of Music Videos

What is a music video? •A music video is a short film or video that

accompanies a piece of music, most commonly a song.

•Modern music videos were primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the band/artist.

An early example of a music video•St Louis Blue’s- Bessie Smith 1929 .•The blues singer Bessie Smith featured in

a two-reel short film called ‘Saint Louis Blue’s’ featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. It was shown in theatres until 1932

•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNWs0LsimFs

•Music videos are often referred to as promotion videos of ‘promos’ for short. Sometimes music videos are termed short from music videos to distinguish them from full length movies which include a soundtrack.

•In the 1980’s, the term ‘rock video’ was often used to describe this form of entertainment.

Disney •In 1940, Walt Disney released Fantasia,

an animated film based around famous pieces of classical music.

• The earliest music videos or music promos were filmed in the mid 1950’s, however before then, as early as the 1920’s films were accompanied by musical scores labelled ‘visual music.’

• The early animated efforts of Walt Disney, his ‘Silly Symphonies’ were built around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons were and still are based around music.

1950’s and 60’s developments • In 1956 Tony Bennett was filmed walking along The

Serpentine in Hyde Park as his recording of ‘Stranger in Paradise’ played; this film was distributed to and played by UK and US television stations, leading Bennett to later claim he made the first music video.

• According to the Internet Accuracy Project, disk jockey singer J.P “The Big Bopper” Richardson (1959) was the first to coin the phrase ‘rock video.’

• Around 1960 the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists, such as Serge Gainsbough, Francoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc to accompany their songs. Its use spread to other countries and similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Color-Sonic in the USA were created.

1950’s and 60’s continued • The defining work in the development of the modern music video was ‘The

Beatles’ first major motion picture, ‘A hard days night’ in 1964 directed by Richard Lester. The musical segments in this film arguably set out as basic visual vocabulary of todays music videos, influencing a vast number of contemporary musicians, and countless pop and rock music videos.

• Although unashamedly based on ‘A hard day’s night’ the hugely popular American TV series The Monkeys was another important influence on the development of the music video genre, with each episode including a number of specially-made film segments that were created to accompany the various Monkees songs. The series ran from 1966 to 1968.

• The Beatles took the genre to knew heights with their ground-breaking films for ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’ produced in early 1967.

• In 1966 the clip of Bob Dylan performing ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues” filmed by D. A Pennebaker. The clips iconic portrayal of a performance and seemingly random inclusion of a celebrity (Allen Ginsberg) in a non-performing role also became mainstays of the form. The clip has been imitated by a lot of artists.

Modern Era • The key innovation in the development of the modern music video was of

course, video recording and editing processes, along with the development of a number of effects such as Chroma-key. The advent of the high-quality colour videotape recorders and portable video cameras coincided with the DIY ethos of the New Wave era and this enabled many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply, in comparison to relatively high costs of using reels of film. However, as the genre developed music video directors increasingly turned to 35mm film as the preferred medium, whilst others mixed film and video.

• By the mid 1980’s releasing a music video to accompany a new single had become standard, ad acts like The Jackson’s sought to gain commercial edge by creating lavish music videos with million dollar budgets; most notable with the video for ‘Can you feel it’

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW1fXL3s7bk

Modern Era of Music Video 1970’s • In the UK the importance of Top of the Pops to promote a single

created an environment of innovation and competition amongst bands and record labels as the show’s producers placed strict limits on the number of videos it would use- therefore a good video would increase the songs sales as viewers hoped to see the video again the following week.

• Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody also started a whole new era for using music videos as promos.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW1fXL3s7bk • The early self-produced music videos by Devo, including the

pioneering compilation ‘The Truth’ directed by Chuck Slater, were also important (if somewhat subversive) developments in the evolution of the genre and these Devo video cassettes releases were arguably among the first true long-form video productions.

1980’s • 1981- MTV is launched. The first video aired is Buggles ‘Video

killed the radio star.’ • David Bowie scored his first UK number one in nearly a decade

thanks to director David Mallets’ eye catching promo for ‘Ashes to Ashes’

• In the early to mid 1980’s artists started to use more sophisticated effects in their videos. Michael Jackson was the first artist to create the concept of the short film. A sort film is a music video that has a beginning, middle and end. He did this in a small way with Billie Jean directed by Steve Barron, then in West Side Story directed by Bob Giraldi who also directed Beat It, but it wasn’t until 1984 when the release of ‘Thriller’ came out as a short film which took music videos to another level.

MTV• Music video would, by the mid 1980’s grow to play a

central role in popular music marketing. • Madonna, owed a great deal lot of her success to the skilful

construction and seductive appeal of her videos. Some academics have compared music video to silent films, and it is suggested that stars like Madonna have often quite deliberately constructed an image that in many ways echo's the image of great stars of the silent era such as Greta Garbo. Although many see MTV as the start of the ‘Golden Era’ of music videos and the unparalleled success of a new art form in popular culture, others see it as a hastening the death of the true musical artist, because physical appeal in now critical to popularity to an unprecedented degree.

Music Video’s Today •In the information technology era, music

videos now approach the popularity of the songs themselves, being sold in collections on video tapes and DVD.

•New editing techniques and modern day cameras help to build an artist a lot more and get them to become famous compared to thirty years ago where you would have to watch them in theatres to see them.