History Of Music Videos

A music video is a short film or video clip which accompanies music often called 'promos' as a main function is to promote the song with the use of visual imagery.

The first step towards musical videos was in 1894 when Edward B. Marks an Joe Stern sheet music publishers, as part of promotion for their song "The Little Lost Child", they hired electrician
George Thomas who used a magic lantern (an early model of a image projector) to project still images at live performances. The method became known as 'Illustrated Song'. Although not a music video as such, it was using media image to accompany a song in a live performance which to this day many artists have imagery and visual elements during their live performances.



There is debate surrounding when the first music video was produced. Some say Bob Dylan was the first music video as it was a promotional 2 minute video dedicated to a singular song and had no other purpose than to be a 'trailer'. However other artists had also taken this idea and created small promotional clips like The Beatles. To fully understand how music videos developed we have to recognise what came before which was the idea of promoting music through the use of film and how it progressed into today's modern day music videos.

In the 1950s Elvis, who never played outside of the USA, featured in a film as a way to reach out to fans internationally. It featured his songs but Elvis did not act as himself but a character. It was played in cinemas across the world however was not very highly rated. But this was an introduction to music and moving video imagery being played together for a purpose of selling the music unlike in the films industry where music was created for a certain film to help sell the film. More artists began to take to this idea as a way of promoting their music.

Cliff Richard in 1963 took the same idea where he created a movie called Summer Holiday, using 16 songs and musical numbers within the film. The film was the second most popular movie at the British box office in 1963, however this was not so in the U.S. Within the film Cliff also did not play himself and played a character.

After staring in their first feature film in 1964,  A Hard Day's Night , The Beatles starred in two more feature films and had begun to create promotional videos for their music to be distributed among the US and other countries so they cold promote their work without having to make appearances, this led to The Beatles stopping touring in 1966. Their work was highly thought of and in 1967 they released two colour promotional videos which 'took the promotional film format to a new level'. They used clever editing techniques like slow-motion, reverse camera, dramatic lighting and added colour filters in post-production. Later in the year they released their third film 'Magical Mystery Tour', written and directed by the band. It was shown on the BBC on boxing day however many of the film had colour as a main effect of the film, but unfortunately was aired in black and white. The film received a lot of criticism for its weak narrative however it still shows The Beatles as creative and innovative music video creators.




In 1967 Bob Dylan released a 45 minute film 'Don't Look Back'.   At the beginning of the film he included a 'trailer' which was unrelated to the plot and film. The song was "Subterranean Homesick Blues" a 2:18 clip yet was the first, many would argue, individual music video concept. Although the original idea was to be a promotional film, the music video was recognised by Rolling Stone in 1993's October Rolling Stone magazine in October 1993 in their list of  "100 Top Music Videos" showing even years later the stamp that this video has left on music video history. The video is one shot, Bob Dylan is famous for his lyrics therefore the video is focused on the lyrics of the fast paced song. Below is the trailer.


This video many argue was the pioneer of music videos, which I understand why people would think this. In the shot we have the rule of thirds, the workmen and scaffolding are to the left, the lyrics are central and Bob is to the right, highlighting the lyrics as the most important aspect, however I think the scenario to the left with the work men and scaffolding is still there to represent the working class and to be noticed. After researching I found it is set in the back alley behind a hotel. Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in Westminster, London still to this day. The irony in this video is that Dylan is filming at the back of the hotel, not the front which is a music video we would expect artists to take advantage of glamorous locations however Bob Dylan uses the back of the hotel which can represent Dylan's anti-establishment views.  Although not given a visual developing narrative with a plot the video through the use of mise-en-scene is still creating an ideology we cannot ignore. Bob Dylan is in a back-alley of city which appears quite dirty and like a rough area, from the clothing and the work man to the left generally this conveys the idea of the working class. Bob Dylan's outfit isn't over the top which I think helps him to relate with the audience particularly young males, his image isn't trying to say he's better than anyone because he's famous, like many people may feel is present in modern day music videos. On the cue cards which Dylan helped write, there is deliberate miss-spellings and puns. This could have multiple interpretations, perhaps Dylan waned to intentionally involve some imperfections to spark the audiences attention or it could be to go along with the 'rebellion' idea which is reflected in the lyrics. The pace of the song and movement of the lyrics keeps the audience engaged throughout the whole video therefore there is no need for any editing or different shots as the lyrical work alone is so effective and it has to be said it is impressive how the cue cards are in time with the lyrics. The monochrome video also creates this working-class look because the production company may not of had the money to create the video in colour however I think the lack of colour is effective means the bright white of the paper allows the bold black writing to stand out to the audiences eye.

1975 Bohemian Rhapsody
Queen released the first music video to be taped on magnetic video tape. This was a cheaper and quicker way to make music videos as there was no process of developing. The song spent nine weeks at number one showing how big of an impact their video had. This was played on television programme Top of the Pops which was based around live performances and miming. As the song was deemed hard to mime the band produced the video this also meant that the band did not have to make physical appearances on the show and could still reach their audience. After the success of Bohemian Rhapsody it became more regular for record companies to produce artists promotional videos in order to accompany single releases. Impressively the video was filmed in four hours and cost £4,500. As there was such a rush to get the video to the BBC for broadcasting the editing process was only a total of 5 hours and all special effects was done while recording. Following the first few weeks at number one a more in-depth edit was created of the video with alternative camera angles and superimposed flames over the introduction scenes.


MTV 1980s
With an increase of bands creating videos the question was how people could view these. As the Top of the Pops was mainly artists miming to their songs live there wasn't a platform for people to see all the music videos artists was making. MTV launched in 1981 which was a television programme which had special 'video jockeys' (VD) who picked music videos to air. The first music video shown was 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by The Buggles. So to speak the song could be interpreted to be saying that the invention of 'video' and music videos affectively made radio stars less popular and to have asuccessful hits music videos were needed as a visual.


1980s-2000
MTV created fast proliferation within the music video craze. The 1980s produced memorable music videos like, Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics), Thriller (Michael Jackson), Hungry Like The Wolf (Duran Duran). As the years progressed it became more normal for an artist to release a single along with a music video. The most common theme among them all was that all their music videos always contained a story. This theme started to change during the 1990s as more inexpensive advanced equipment and editing techniques were developed, this allowed artists to experiment with different visual effects and filming techniques. Thus, leading to more advance music videos.

2000s Onwards
From here technology advanced and brought a whole range of new, exciting and complex ways for music videos to be created. When artists release music it is unusual for them to not release a music video especially if its the artists single. Sometimes it is the music video that can create 'talk' and attention around a song, for example Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball video was extremely controversial and caused a lot of media attention around it. Some may say the video was more popular than the song and will be memorable for a very long time. With many indie bands rising into the music industry there are a lot more conceptual videos. Too Much by Pale is one shot of a girl covered in 'goo' the shot is reversed backwards in slow motion and her face is revealed at the end, there isn't a story to it and it is purely an abstract modern music video.