History of Music Videos

In 1894, Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song The Little Lost Child. Using a magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. This became a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, which was the first step toward music videos.

In 1926, with the arrival of “talkies" many musical short films were produced. Early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. Early animated films like Fantasia by Walt Disney which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films.

 

 

 

 

Between 1940 and 1946 Soundies were produced. They were 3 minute musical films that often included short dance sequences, similar to later music videos. The films were displayed on the Panoram, a coin-operated film jukebox or machine music, in nightclubs, bars, restaurants, factory lounges, and amusement centers. 

In 1964, The Beatles starred in their first feature film A Hard Day's Night, directed by Richard Lester. The film was shot in black and white it combined comedic and dialogue sequences with musical ones. During the 1960's it was very hard for bands to tour therefore this was an easy way for the fans to stay connected to the artist; by going to see them in the cinema.

The Beatles' second feature Help! (1965) was a much more lavish affair, filmed in colour in London and on international locations. The title track sequence, filmed in black-and-white, used diverse camera angles and brand new ways to stimulate the audience with rhythmic editing is arguably is what modern-day performance videos are based around. In 1965, The Beatles began making promotional clips (then known as "filmed inserts") for distribution and broadcast in other countries—primarily the USA—so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances. By the time The Beatles stopped touring in late 1966, their promotional films, like their recordings, had become highly sophisticated.

Top of the Pops began on New Year's Day in 1964 and was a new way for the audience to consume music and really helped promote artists globally. the show ran every Thursday evening and showed popular artists from that week that would perform their track live and would be broadcasted nationwide, the shots were very basic with not many cuts and normally a fade in and out. This was revolutionary for the music industry as it was the first television programme like it. In the clip below you can see David Bowie challenging tradiotanal masculintiy in the way that his costume is unlike normal clothes in this time period, this is reinforced by the audience dancing behind are in very different clothing. By having his arm around another male he is challenging hetrosexuality, this would be  

Michael Jackson released Thriller in 1983 and was the most expensive video at the time to have ever been produced (budget of $500,000). It was a very iconic video and introduced new and exciting techniques in makeup and costume. The video is 13 minutes long and was MTV's first world premiere video. Voted as the most influential pop music video of all time, Thriller proved to have a profound effect on popular culture and was named "a watershed moment for the [music] industry" for its unprecedented merging of filmmaking and music. Guinness World Records listed it in 2006 as the "most successful music video", selling over nine million copies. It is one of the most watched videos of all time and has been viewed over 4 billion times across the world.

Vogue was seen as one of Madonna's mast piece’s as across the world 'Vogueing' became a new phenomenon and was a great influence within the homosexual community’s. The black-and-white video, set in Art Deco-themed 1920s and 30s surroundings, starts off showing different sculptures, works of art, as well as Madonna's dancers posing. When the dance section of the song starts, Madonna turns around, and, similarly to the lyrics, strikes a pose. The video was received with much enthusiasm and was voted 2nd after Thriller in 1999 for Best Video of All Time. "Vogue" music video received a total of nine MTV Video Music Awards nominations, becoming her most-nominated video at the award show. It won Best Direction, Best Editing and Best Cinematography.

The website iFilm, which hosted short videos, including music videos, launched in 1997. Napster, a peer-to-peer file sharing service which ran between 1999 and 2001, enabled users to share video files, including those for music videos. By the mid-2000s, MTV and many of its sister channels had largely abandoned showing music videos in favor of reality television shows, which were more popular with its audiences. 2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video much faster and easier; Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook and MySpace's video functionality, use similar technology. 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. Miley Cyrus was the most-watched YouTube channel in the world in September 2013 with 270.1m views for Wrecking Ball according to industry site Tubefilter's monthly Top 100 chart, with her monthly view-count leaping 222% compared to August. The video was largely accepted as having portrayed Miley in a sexual way which was too much for the Disney Star and was met with negative reviews. Over time you can see the music videos have changed and what has been accepted in society has become more extreme.