History of Music Videos
An early example of a music video, St Louis Blue's - Bessie Smith 1929.
Blue singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called, 'Saint Louis BLUES' featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song.
It was also shown in features until 1932.
Music videos are often called promotion videos or simply promos, due to the fact that they are usually promotional devices. Sometimes, music videos are termed short-form music videos to distinguish them from full length movies pertaining to music.
In the 1980s, the term 'rock video' was often used to describe this form of entertainment although the term has fallen into disuse.
In 1940, Walt Disney released Fantasia an animated film based around famous pieces of classical music.
The earliest music video were filmed in the mid 1950s, however, before then, as early as the 1920s, films by animators such as Oskar Fischinger were accompanied by musical scores labels 'visual music'.
The early animated efforts of Walt disney, were built around music, the warner brothers cartoons, even today billed as Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific shorts, featuring such popular performances as Cab Calloway, were also distributed to theatres.
1950's and 60's development
In 1956 Tony Bennett was filmed walking along The Serpentine in Hyde Park, London as his recording of 'Stranger in Paradise' played, this film was distributed to and played by the UK and US television stations, leading Bennett to later claim he made the first music video.
According to the internet accuracy project, disk jockey-singer J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson was the first to coin the phrase 'rock video'.
Around 1960 the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists, such as Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc to accompany their songs. Its spreads to other countries and similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Colour-sonic in the USA were patented.
The defining work in the development of the modern music video was The Beatles first major motion picture. A Hard Day's Night in 1964, directed by Richard Lester,. The musical segments in this film arguably set out the basic visual vocabulary of todays music videos, influencing a vast number of contemporary musicians, and countries subsequent pop and rock group music videos.
The Beatles took the genre to new heights with their groundbreaking films for 'strawberries Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane' made in early 1967 which used techniques borrowed from underground and avant grade film, such as reversed film effects, dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles and rhythmic editing. Created at the height of the psychedelic music period, these two landmark films are among the very first purpose, made concept video attempts to illustrate the song in an artful manner, rather than just creating a film of an idealised performance.
In 1966 the clip of Bob Dylan performing Subterranean Homesick Blues filmed by D A Pennebakbr was much used. The clip ironically portrayals of a performance and the seemingly random inclusion of a celebrity in a non performing role also became mainstays of the form.
Modern Era
The key innovation in the development of the modern music video was, of course, video recording and editing processes, along with the development of a number of related effects such as chroma-key. The advent of high quality colour videotape recorders and portable video cameras coincided with the DIY ethos of the New Wave era and this enabled many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply, in comparison to the relatively high costs of film. However, as the genre development music video directors increasingly turned to 35mm film as the preferred medium, while others mixed film and video.
By the mid-1980s releasing a music video to accompany a new single had become standard, and acts like The Jacksons sought to gain a commercial edge by creating lavish music videos with million dollar budgets.
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 the shows producers placed limits on the number of videos it would use, therefore a god video would increase a songs sales as viewers hoped to see the video gain the following week.
The early self produced music by Devo, including the pioneering completion, The Truth About Devolution' directed by Chuck Statler, were also developments in the evolution of the genre and these Devo video cassette releases were arguably among the first true long form video productions.
1980s
1981 MTV is launched, the first video to be aired is Buggles 'Video killed the Radio Star'
David Bowie scored his first UK number one in nearly a decade thanks to director David Mallets' eye catching promo for 'Ashes to Ashes'.
In the early to mid 1980s, artists started to use more sophisticated effects in their videos, and added a storyline or ploy to the music video. Michael Jackson was the first artist to beginning, middle and end. He did this in a small way with Billie Jean, directed by Steve Barron, then in a west side story was with director Bob Gerald's Beat it, but it wasn't until the 1984 release of the Thriller short film that he took the music video format to another level.
MTV
Music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing.
Madonna, owed a great deal of her success to the skilful construction and seductive appeal of her videos. Some academics have compared music video to silent films, and it is suggested that stars like Madonna have constructed an image that in many ways echoes the image of the great stars of the silent era such as Greta Garbo. Although many see MTV as the start of a 'golden era' of music videos and the unparalleled success of a new art form in popular culture, others see it as hastening the death of the true musical artist, because physical appeal is now critical to popularity to an unprecedented degree.
Music Video today
In the information technology era, ,music videos now approach the popularity of the songs themselves, being sold in collections of video tape and DVD. Enthusiasts of music videos sometimes watch them muted purely for their aesthetic value. Instead of watching the video for the music the videos are appreciated for their visual qualities, while viewers remain uninterested in the audio portion of the performance. This is a normal sociological reaction some say, to the increasing trend in the music business to focus on the visual appeal of artists, rather than the quality of the music. Critics say that the corporate music managers, over the course of logical and calculated business decisions, have sought to capitalise on the sex appeal of females in music videos rather than in choosing less profitable musicianship-based music.
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