The History of the Music Video

1964: The Introduction to Music Videos

Music Videos first became an established way of marketing music in 1964 when the Beatles produced their first major motion picture film ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ to accompany their album. The film was cheaply produced but at the time, nobody had ever seen a musical film accompanying an artist’s album before and this inspired other artist’s to use music videos when producing their songs in order to attract a wider audience and add a visual concept to music.

This video clearly shows the effect that ‘The Beatles’ had on people at the time , especially teenage women. The chaos of this opening scene of their film portrays the lifestyle they were living and how they couldn’t go anywhere without people screaming and running after them hoping to catch at least a glimpse of this world renown group of men.

1965: Bob Dylan

 Bob Dylan (Born 1941) was a fairly well-known artist in 1965 when he sang for the first time, a song called Subterranean Homesick Blues. With this song, he also brought out a music video to go with it. Again, music videos were fairly new at this time and so, like the Beatles, it was a cheap and easy production. This music video was one of the first proper music promo's to come out. Although inspired by the Beatles with their musical film accompanying their album, this video was actually played with this one particular song and only lasted around 2 minutes, making it one of the first proper music videos shown with the same concept as in modern times.

 

1967: Strawberry Fields Forever:

The Beatles took the promo to new heights with their ground breaking film for ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ in 1967.  The promo used techniques borrowed from underground and avant garde film, such as reversed film effects, dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles and rhythmic editing. Created at the height of the psychedelic music period, this landmark film is among the very first purpose-made concept video that attempts to "illustrate" the song in an artful manner, rather than just creating a film of an idealized performance.

1968: Manfred Mann and the Monkees:

Manfred Mann were a British pop group that were regularly in the charts throughout the late 60's and early 70's. This video of them performing their hit single, 'The Mighty Quinn', shows them performing on a very popular televison show that had the highest ratings of any show of televison in 1969, 'Top of the Pops'. This show was based solely on music, where bands and single artists would perform their music live to an audience or have music videos played in their abscence instead. Performances on Top of the Pops were highly sought after due to the huge increase in sales and popularity for the bands that such a massive show brought with it. This video is the actual music video for the song, with actual live footage of them performing 'The Mighty Quinn' on stage at one of the 'Top of the Pops' shows in 1968.

At this time, music videos were becoming increasingly popular as famous groups like 'The Monkees' and 'The Rolling Stones' began to produce some of their own to accompany their songs. The Monkees in particular were big in the USA at this time with their own versions of music videos using wacky comedy and chaotic concepts in their videos.

1970: Queen:

In the 70's, there is no doubt as to who were the biggest band around, Queen. Nobody had really evere seen a band quite like this, with their pop/rock fusion music making them the biggest stadium band ever by 1980. Recognisable anthems that are still known and heard fairly regularly today like 'We Will Rock You' and 'We are the Champions' were both found on their 'News of the World' album in 1977. Queen also had a huge impact on the music video side too with their hit single ;Bohemian Rhapsody, which people still say was the first ever pop music promo. Their use of advanced editing and camera effects, providing a stepping stone towards the modern world of music videos.

 

1981: MTV:

In 1981, music videos were now used by almost every artist throughout the UK and USA. Mike Nesmith (The Monkees) then had an idea that changed the face of music, by introducing the first promo-based cable television programme, Music Televison (MTV). This was quickly noticed by artists as a way of advertising their music on a larger scale, and also meant that music videos were on constant show, causing a massive increase in the sales of music due to the idea of songs containing a story that can be seen because of the visual aspect of the music video.

1983: Thriller:

A song by one of the most inspired and outstanding pop music artists to have ever lived. Thriller by Michael Jackson was MTV's first world premiere video and also stands today as the world's most watched music video, seen by over 4 billion people throughout the world. This 14 minute video, costing around £500'000 was like nothing nobody has ever seen before. Unlike in the 60's, there was nothing simple about this video, with it's amazing choreography, make-up work, different sets and a massive aray of actors and dancers, it's easy to see why this music promo was voted as the most influential pop promo of all time every year until 1992. It was also listed by the Guiness Book of World Records in 2006 as the most successful muwsic video of all times, selling over 9 million copies. This music video is definitely a key point in the hsitory of music video's, astounding people all over the world when it premiered on the 2nd of December 1983, watched live on MTV by  14.7 million people.

1984: Duran Duran:

This introeduction of a promo-based televison programme meant that production budgets went through the roof, with artists paying more and more money to produce music videos to accompany their songs. Duran Duran's 'Wild Boys' cost a whopping $1 million to produce, making it the most expensive music video ever produced! This was then played on MTV and was then certified as a double platinum record in the USA, reaching number 2 in the Billboard Top 100 Hits of all time in 1985.

1987: MTV Europe and VH1:

MTV Europe and VH1 launched in 1987, allowing for a greater diversity of music genres and cultures. More genres of music became famous, like rap, country and alternative music instead of the usual 'main genres' like rock and pop.

The Present:

The convergence of many types of media all combined into one programme or device is one of the biggest things for the music industry to have ever happened. Music has become so popular since the introduction of things like Spotify and ITunes, and the availability of music on music video-specific television channels, mobiles and internet sites like Youtube and Vevo.




Also, many of the music promo-based television channels are genre spcific in order to cater for speciftic niche audiences including channels like MTV Classic, for people who enjoy listening to classical music, and FloMusic for people who like country and indie music.



To summarise, music promo's in recent years are so much more advanced in almost every aspect in comparison with they way they used to be produced. Music videos nowadays have more advanced camerawork, more tehcnical editing and clever effects as well as intertextual references from other sources and a wider range of music genres and amazing lighting and costumes. Also, modern music videos always seem to have story behind them, usually matching the lyrics and it would be said that a music video without a concept is unconventional in comparison with the 20th century when most music videos were just low cost, simple videos that advertise the band and add a visual enjoyment to music.