History of the music video

What is a music video?

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a piece of music. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos date back much further, they came into prominence in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 80s, these works were described by various terms including "illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promotional (promo) film", "promotional clip" or "film clip". In Chinese entertainment, music videos were simply known as "MTVs" because the network was responsible for bringing music videos to popularity in that country. Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques, including animation, live action filming,documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation and live action. Many music videos do not interpret images from the song's lyrics, making it less literal than expected.

Source: Banks, Jack (1996)

Early example of a music video; St Louis blue's – Bessie smith 1929

Blues singer Bessie smith, appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis blues featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song.

Music Video's are often used as promotional devises, to brand the artist therefore they are sometimes referred to as 'promotional video's or simply promo's.

In 1940 Walt Disney released 'Fantasia' an animated film based around famous pieces of classical music

The music video became popular when MTV exploded onto the music scene in the early eighties, Graduating from stark videos from the sixties and seventies that featured bands strumming away on gaudy sound studio sets, MTV music-videos incorporated story elements. Butdebunking the traditional role of music underscoring a film's story, film's role in the music-video was to support the music - a crucial difference between music-videos and other forms of film. New and exciting ways to film a song's story or essence quickly developed so that music stars would stand out. A video's originality could lead directly to the popularity of a song, but the song always took precedence. hello

The music video became popular when MTV exploded onto the music scene in the early eighties, Graduating from stark videos from the sixties and seventies that featured bands strumming away on gaudy sound studio sets, MTV music-videos incorporated story elements. But debunking the traditional role of music underscoring a film's story, film's role in the music-video was to support the music - a crucial difference between music-videos and other forms of film. New and exciting ways to film a song's story or essence quickly developed so that music stars would stand out. A video's originality could lead directly to the popularity of a song, but the song always took precedence.

History: The history of the modern music video has its roots in the early 1960s with The Beatles first major motion picture, 'A Hard Day's Night'. This 1964 Beatles movie included musical segments that resemble today's music videos. That same year, the band began filming short promotional films for their songs which were then aired on television variety shows.

By the time the band stopped touring in 1966, they used the promotional films to tour for them. Soon it was common place for artists to do this, and bands like The Byrds and The Beach Boys were also filming promotional films.

The first music videos of the modern era were produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith who started making short musical films for 'Saturday Night Live' in 1979. In 1981, he released 'Elephant Parts', the first video album and first winner of a Grammy for music video. A further experiment on NBC television called 'Television Parts' was not successful, due to network meddling (notably an intrusive laugh track and corny gags).

In the information technology era, they are now just as popular as songs themselves, being sold in collections on video tape and DVD. Growing sales of videos on the DVD format led to a 33% rise for music-videos worldwide in 2002, according to the first worldwide music-video statistics report released by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry(IFPI).

In the UK the importance of top of the

pops to promote a single created an

environment of innovation and

competition amongst bands and record labels as t shows producers placed strict limits on the number of videos it would use- therefore a good video would increase a dongs sales as viewers hoped to see the video again the following week.

1981–1991: Music videos go mainstream- In 1981, the U.S video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed the Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period, most notably Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran and Madonna, owed a great deal of their success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos.

Youtube- 2005- Internet becomes video friendly- 2005 saw the release of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier; MySpace's video functionality, which uses similar technology, launched in 2007. Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online. The band OK Go may exemplify this trend, having achieved fame through the videos for two of their songs, " A Million Ways " in 2005 and "Here It Goes Again" in 2006, both of which first became well-known online. Artists like Soulja Boy Tell 'Em and Marié Digby also achieved some level of fame initially through videos released only online. The 2008 video for Weezer's "Pork and Beans" also captured this trend, by including at least 20 YouTube celebrities; the single became the most successful of Weezer's career, in chart performance. In 2007, the RIAA issued cease-and-desist letters to YouTube users to prevent single users from sharing videos, which are the property of the music labels.

After its merger with Google, YouTube assured the RIAA that they would find a way to pay royalties through a bulk agreement with the major record labels. This was complicated by the fact that not all labels share the same policy toward music videos: some welcome the development and upload music videos to various online outlets themselves, viewing music videos as free advertising for their artists, while other labels view music videos not as an advertisement, but as the product itself.

MTV itself now provides streams of artists' music videos, while AOL's recently launched AOL Music features a vast collection of advertising supported streaming videos. The internet has become the primary growth income market for Record Company produced music videos. At its launch, Apple's iTunes Store provided a section of free music videos in high quality compression to be watched via the iTunes application. More recently the iTunes Store has begun selling music videos for use on Apple's iPod with video playback capability.