The description of a music video on Wikipedia is 'a
short film integrating a
song and imagery, produced for
promotional or artistic purposes'. For our generation, music videos have been around for a while. However, they're not as new as we would think. Here's a timeline of how music videos became:
Timeline Of The Music Video:
It all started off when sheet music publishers in 1894 wanted to promote their song 'The Little Lost Child'. Still images were projected onto a screen whilst live performances were happening using a 'magic lantern'. This technique became known as the illustrated song and it's the foundation of music videos.
50s
In the later period of the 1950s in France, a visual jukebox called the Scopitone was created. Short films were created to go alongside french artist's music and this spread to other countries such as Italy and USA where they had their own versions.
60s
1964
We all know The Beatles and their famous music. However, they supposedly started the trend of music videos by starring in a feature film directed by Richard Lester named 'A Hard Day's Night'. It was conveyed as a mock documentary (mocumentary). Wikipedia describes it as a 'loosely structured musical fantasia interspersing comedic and dialogue sequences with musical ones'. This is supposedly what started up the craze of putting a video with music.
After The Beatles had introduced this idea, the idea of promotional clips came about. Artists such as Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Small Faces, The Doors, David Bowie; the list goes on! All of this was between 1967-1973. All of these artists made or were in promotion al films to go with their music. These were literally short films to the length of their music and I suppose you could say these were literally the first music videos.
Top Of The Tops danced onto British screens on New Years Day in 1964!
70s
There are lots of music programmes on television now but the first one to start playing music videos was of course Top Of The Pops! Top Of The Pops (TOTP) was a music programme in which bands would go on to play their music 'live' (or lip synch) and to promote their music. The introduction to music videos on TOTP meant that a good video would increase song sales as audiences would want to view it again.
80s
MTV was released on our screens in 1981. MTV stands for Music Television and the video it first aired was Video Killed The Radiop Star by The Buggles. MTV began to air for 24 hours and this meant that music videos beccame a central role in music marketing creating the desire for all artists to do one.
In 1983 Michael Jackson released possibly his most famous song; Thriller. One of the reasons it's so famous is because of the video, who hasn't seen it? It was so influential and inspirational and pretty much everyone has seen it. This is the turning point in the history of music videos.
In 1985 VH1 (Video Hits 1) aired on television. VH1 was produced in order to bump up the succes of its sister channel MTV by playing music videos that appealed to a slightly older audience by focusing on the lighter, softer side of pop music.
90s
In 1992 it became more common for the directors of the music video to be credited.
In 1995, The Jacksons made a video for their song Scream whihc cost $7 million! To date, it is the most expensive music video ever made.
Of course in the nineties girl bands and boy bands were popular so they would have been doing music videos for their songs too.
2000s
In 2005 youtube was put online. Youtube is a site to upload videos and of course music videos get uploaded. Some reach millions of views and this is a very important marketing tool. However, a few years ago they decided to take off all music videos as the felt it wasn't copyrighted. But they've since started putting them back on in order to continue the sales success and this is also a place where new talent is discovered.
Also in 2005, iTunes was created. Although iTunes is predominantly for downloading music, there is now the option to download music videos too.
