History of Music Videos
Music videos are sometimes called promotion videos or promos
because they are usually promotional devices used to promote the artists album.
The earliest music videos were filmed in the mid 1950’s with films by animators
such as Oskar Fischinger being accompanied by musical scores labelled as ‘visual
music’ and a wave of ‘rock ’n’ roll’ films with songs such as ‘Rock Around the
Clock’, ‘Don’t Knock the Rock’ and Elvis Presley making famous music videos. In
1956 Tony Bennett was filmed walking along The Serpentine in London as his
recording of ‘Stranger in Paradise’ played. This film was distributed to and
played by UK and US television stations with Bennett later claiming he made the
first music video.
In the 1970’s, Top of the Pops became the main way to
promote a single as it created competition between artists as there was a
strict limit on the number of videos that could be played leading to better
videos being shown more on the show. The US market adapts the format with
Hullabaloo being one of the first US shows of this kind. In 1975, Queen released
their video for Bohemian Rhapsody which marked the beginning of the video era
and set the language for the modern music video. In 1979, Devo releases 'The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise', which was the first music video to include computer animation as well s the first to include traditional animation.
In 1981, MTV was launched, a channel solely dedicated to showing music videos. This led to artists using more sophisticated effects in music videos and adding narratives. The first artist to do this and make their music video into a ‘short film’ was Michael Jackson with his song ‘Billie Jean’ but it wasn’t until the 1984 release of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ short film that music videos were taken to another level.
Top of the Pops was censorious when it came to the videos that they showed. This led to artists creating videos that would be banned or edited so the controversy would lead to the band being promoted. The first examples of this were ‘Girls on Film’ by Duran Duran and ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. By the mid 1980’s, music videos would grow to play a central role in the promotion of an artist’s music with artists such as Madonna owing a great deal of her success to her music videos, with the construction and seductiveness of her videos increasing their popularity. In recent years music videos have become a new art with huge amounts of money being spent on music videos with many becoming short movies with most having their own narrative.
In 1981, MTV was launched, a channel solely dedicated to showing music videos. This led to artists using more sophisticated effects in music videos and adding narratives. The first artist to do this and make their music video into a ‘short film’ was Michael Jackson with his song ‘Billie Jean’ but it wasn’t until the 1984 release of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ short film that music videos were taken to another level.
Top of the Pops was censorious when it came to the videos that they showed. This led to artists creating videos that would be banned or edited so the controversy would lead to the band being promoted. The first examples of this were ‘Girls on Film’ by Duran Duran and ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. By the mid 1980’s, music videos would grow to play a central role in the promotion of an artist’s music with artists such as Madonna owing a great deal of her success to her music videos, with the construction and seductiveness of her videos increasing their popularity. In recent years music videos have become a new art with huge amounts of money being spent on music videos with many becoming short movies with most having their own narrative.
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