A music video is a short film that combines song with video, as the name would imply. Most people are familiar with music videos, but not many would know just how deep the history of the music video goes. They are made for promotional and artistic purposes, and modern music videos are mostly used as marketing tools intended to boost sales of music recordings. A wide range of video making techniques are used for music videos, such as animation, live-action, documentary, non-narrative abstract, or any combination thereof. Many music videos interpret scenes from a song’s lyrics, while others take more thematic approaches or have no concept at all, like a live performance of the song. Below, we will look at the history of the music video, following its birth up until recent years with the rise of new media, including computer animation and the Internet.

 

EARLY MUSICAL FILM

 

The earliest conception of associating music with images was in 1894 when sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern wanted to promote their song “The Little Lost Child”. The idea was to use a stereopticon, a slide projector, to integrate a series of images to show a narrative story while the song was being sung, with lyrics appearing toward the bottom of the images. This practice went on to become what was known as the “illustrated song”, a popular form of entertainment in the early 20th century.

 

“Talkies” were films with synchronized sound, dialogue, and images, the first being The Jazz Singer in 1927. It was made with another innovation of the time, Vitaphone, which was the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology. Screen Songs and Song Car-Tunes, animated cartoons by Fleischer Studios, were sing-along musical shorts, that prompted audiences to “follow the bouncing ball”. Walt Disney helped to pioneer animated musical short films, with Silly Symphonies and Fantasia. Warner Brothers also produced their own animated short films with music, with Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. St. Louis Blues was a two-reel film from 1929 starring Bessie Smith giving a dramatized performance of the song. Soundies were 16mm films containing song, dance, and band or orchestral pieces displayed on jukebox-like machines in bars and restaurants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Musical films, a genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, are another relevant precursor to the music video, the golden age of which was the 1930s through 1950s. Many more modern music videos are actually modeled after famous Hollywood musicals, such as Madonna’s 1985 hit “Material Girl”, which directly follows the staging of “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” from the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Michael Jackson’s hits “Thriller” and “Bad”, which were influenced by the stylized dance “fights” from the 1961 film version of West Side Story.

 

Tony Bennett claims in his autobiography that he made the first music video when he was filmed walking along the Serpentine in London in 1956, with the resulting clip set to his song “Stranger in Paradise”. Czech filmmaker Ladislav Rychman was a key figure in nontraditional music films that were heavier in art direction and abstraction with “Dáme si do bytu" ("Let's get to the apartment"), in 1958. Musician and disc-jockey Jiles Perry Richardson, also known as The Big Bopper, was a coined as having first used the phrase “music video” in 1959. The late 1950s also brought the Scopitone, Cinebox, and Color-Sonic, which were visual jukeboxes that enjoyed some brief success in Europe and the US.

 

PROMOTIONAL CLIPS

 

The Beatles are arguably the most influential group in the video medium. They harnessed the power of film to not only market their records, but to express themselves as artists. They created three full-length features, A Hard Day’s Night in 1964, Help! in 1966, and Let It Be in 1970, as well as the television film Magical Mystery Tour in 1967. They also filmed many promotional films for their singles, meant to be shown on television shows when they could not appear live. The title track sequence for Help! is a prime example of the modern performance-style music video, while also utilizing unique filming techniques like cross-cuts, contrasting wide and close-ups, and unusual camera angles. The later promo clips such as “Strawberry Fields Forever” in 1967, took a new format, shot in color and borrowing techniques from underground, avant-garde film, including reversed and slow-motion film, dramatic lighting, and color filtering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bob Dylan was another pioneer in the promotional clip craze, with “Subterranean Homesick Blues” in 1965. The video lacks any narrative structure, simply showing Dylan standing in an alley dropping cue cards with key words from the song’s lyrics. Other groups who created promo clips during this period include Pink Floyd, The Kinks, The Who, and The Rolling Stones. David Bowie also jumped on the promo clip bandwagon in the 1970s, such as “John, I’m Only Dancing” in 1972, which was made with a low budget and filmed in one afternoon at rehearsal for a concert. Queen's “Bohemian Rhapsody” was released in 1975, and is one of the first songs in which the video was key to the song’s massive success. It was also innovative in the sense that it uses effects and editing methods that were unique for the time.

 

David Bowie went on to create the most expensive video ever made at the time, with a production cost of $582,000, the first to cost more than $500,000. It was for the song “Ashes to Ashes”, released in 1980. It was made in solarized color with stark black-and-white scenes and filmed in multiple locations. To this day, it’s one of the most influential and complex videos because of its uses of visual effects, filteration, multiple locations, and actors. Another important video is “I Got You” by Split Enz in 1980, marked for its visual effects.

 

MUSIC TELEVISION

 

Australia was one of the first places to air teen-oriented music programs, with the launching of Countdown and Sounds in 1974. The format of the show was quickly picked up in other countries, such as Video Concert Hall in 1978 and Night Flight in 1981, which showcased music video as an art form. In 1981, the US video channel Music Television (MTV) launched, fittingly airing “Video Killed The Radio Star”, and beginning an era of 24-hours-a-day music videos on television. This new outlet became a central role in popular music marketing. In 1983, Country Music Television (CMT) was launched, and in 1984 the MuchMusic channel was launched in Canada. Also in 1984, MTV premiered the MTV Video Music Awards, an annual awards event that would come to further aide MTV’s importance in the music industry. The first event awarded the Video Vanguard award to The Beatles and David Bowie for pioneering the music video. In 1985, MTV launched VH1, abbreviated from Video Hits One, featuring softer music and meant to cater to an older demographic. MTV reached global significance when it launched MTV Europe in 1987, MTV Asia in 1991, MTV Latin America in 1993, MTV India in 1996, and MTV Mandarin in 1997. MTV2 debuted in 1996, designated for more alternative and older videos. The UK’s The Chart Show started in 1986, with a similar structure to MTV but linked video to video with computer graphics rather than announcers. In 1988, Yo! MTV Raps debuted on MTV, which brought hip-hop music to wide audiences for the first time. By the mid-2000s, MTV and many of its related channels and shows had either ended or abandoned showing music videos in favor of reality-television shows, which became more popular with audiences.

 

MUSIC VIDEO TAKE-OFF

 

The 1980s and 1990s brought a period of wide hysteria in the realm of music videos. This was largely due to key breakthroughs in filmmaking. This included cheaper and easier-to-use video recording and editing equipment and the expansion of visual effects. The arrival of high-quality color videotape recorders and portable video cameras, coinciding with the do-it-yourself spirit of the new wave era, allowed acts to make videos quickly and affordably, in comparison to the high cost of film. During the 1980s, music videos became the etiquette for most recording artists.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Because of this, artists began to explore form and style in their videos while using more sophisticated effects. This brought forth many more non-representational videos in which the artists themselves aren’t shown, such as David Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure”, or Prince’s “Sign O’ The Times” in 1987, which featured only computer animated graphics of the song’s lyrics. This period also brought political observation in music videos. David Bowie’s “China Girl” and “Let’s Dance” looked at race issues and oppression, Bowie himself saying “let’s try to use the video format as a platform, for some kind of social observation, and not just waste it on trotting out and trying to enhance the public image of the singer involved.” In 1983, the most iconic music video of all time was released: Michael Jackson’s 14-minute long “Thriller”, which cost $800,000 to make. Michael Jackson was key to getting music videos by black artists on MTV. Among other videos that set precedence for music videos were Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing” in 1985 and Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” in 1986, both of which used state of the art special effects and animation.

 

The 1990s saw music videos becoming more refined, cohesive bodies of work because of the people who directed them. In 1992, MTV began to list directors along with artist and song credits, reflecting the idea that music videos were becoming an auteur medium, where filmmakers had just as much influence on the work as the music artist. Directors such as Chris Cunningham, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Floria Sigismondi, Mark Romanek and Hype Williams all got their start in this time, bringing unique styles and vision to the videos they directed. Gondry, Jonze, and Sigismondi went on to direct feature films. Romanek directed two of the three most expensive videos of all time, Michael and Janet Jackson’s “Scream”, costing $4 million, and Madonna’s “Bedtime Story”, costing $5 million.

 

THE INTERNET

 

The early days of the Internet brough file-sharing sites like iFilm and Napster. 2005 saw the launch of YouTube, which made online video viewing much faster and easier. MTV itself also now provides streaming of music videos online. The iTunes store sells music videos for Apple devices. Most recently, Vevo was launched in 2009, which syndicates videos to YouTube. All of these sites have a profound effect on the way people watch and interact with music videos. Some artists reached success through gaining an audience mostly or completely through the Internet. OK Go is an example of this, as their videos “A Million Ways” in 2005 and “Here It Goes Again” in 2006 both originated on YouTube and put the band on the map. We should also remember that superstar Justin Bieber was discovered via YouTube. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Internet age has also brought forth the notion of the "viral" video, videos that sweep the world and accumulate several billion views. Everyone remembers "Gangnam Style", the music video with a corresponding dance that took over the Internet in 2012. Many star-studded videos are very successful, such as the 2008 video for Weezer’s “Pork and Beans" that featured at least 20 YouTube celebrities, or Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" that featured 17 other actors, singers, and models as characters. The most viewed music video of all time on YouTube is Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito", with over 5 billion views, despite having only been uploaded in 2017. Though YouTube is a video sharing site of all kinds, only 6 out of the 100 most viewed videos of all time are not music videos, making YouTube prime real estate when it comes to releasing a music video. 

 

With the world of music videos blown wide open in the age of the Internet, we begin to see a lot more callbacks to the early examples of music video. We've seen music in film go viral, such as with Anna Kendrick's "Cups" made famous by the film Pitch Perfect. This video had everyone recreating the infamous beat with plastic cups. We've also seen reverting back to DIY, lo-fi videos to make a big impact, like with Gotye and Kimbra's "Somebody That I Used To Know" and Kanye West and Paul McCartney's "Only One", both reminiscent of the more stripped-down, low-budget videos of the early days, proving music videos don't need impressive special effects or elaborate sets to still be successful.