-
Period: to
Music Videos
-
Bessie Smith- St. Louis Blue (1929)
Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period. The film introduced the idea of visuals accompanied by music, proving a success and later being preserved by the National Film Registry. These early types of production were often known as 'talkies' , containing dancers and a musical style. -
Louis Jordan- Lookout Sister (1945)
In the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film Lookout Sister. These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video. They had a narrative based around the music and were presented in a vibrant manner. Like the videos of the near decades, the term 'sound' was adopted -
The Beatles- A Hard Days Night (1964)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British musical comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring the Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists. The film portrays several days in the lives of the group. The film was unique as it was over an hour long and represented the album through a narrative. It even achieved 12 million dollars at the height of the Beatles succes -
Bob Dylan- Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)
The song was used in one of the first "modern" promotional film clips, the forerunner of what was later known as the music video. Rolling Stone ranked it seventh in the magazine's October 1993 list of "100 Top Music Videos". Promotional films were the next generation of the developing music video, as Bob Dylan used cue cards to synchronous with the audio to show off lyrics. Arguably, the video acted as one of the first lyric videos -
Queen- Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)
Though some artists had made video clips to accompany songs, it was only after the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that it became regular practice for record companies to produce promotional videos for artists' single releases.The video has been hailed as launching the MTV age.These videos could then be shown on television shows, such as the BBC's Top of the Pops. It showed the industry that live performance was no longer essential for music to feature on live TV and gain further recognition -
MTV Channel (1981)
The first music video shown on MTV was by The Buggies. The launch of the channel gave birth to mainstream music videos in the industry as their was now a platform needed to be filled for success. MTV was the first 24 hour channel to show music, mostly alongside video. The importance of the channel cannot be underestimated as the next decade was heavily influenced by the popularity of the channel. MTV sparked the Second British Invasion also as British music was shown. -
Michael Jackson- Thriller (1983)
The video was a mix between a short film and the conventional as it lasted fourteen minutes. The video is famously known for Jacksons performance and graphic imagery. The budget of the video was a huge 500,000 dollars. However, showtime paid 300,000 itself for first broadcasting privileges.Jackson envisioned the main character of his short film to undergo similar transitions parallel to those of the characters in Landis' horror film. The video has since been accoladed from NME and MTV -
Michael Jackson- Scream (1995)
The 4:46 minute music video for "Scream" was choreographed by Travis Payne, LaVelle Smith Jnr, Tina Landon and Sacha Lucashenko in May 1995.In 1995, Scream gained 11 MTV Video Music Award Nominations—more than any other music video—and won "Best Dance Video", "Best Choreography", and "Best Art Direction.shortly afterward Guinness World Records listed it as the most expensive music video ever made at a cost of $7 million, -
The Verve- Bitter Sweet Symphony (1997)
Single continuous shot docu-fiction music video which was nominated for a number of awards, including three MTV Awards at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards. The unique composition of the video highlighted that videos were now highly considered and part of the mainstream. Music videos were developing in creativity alongside the quality of technology. -
Johnny Cash- Hurt (2002)
In 2002, "Hurt" was covered by Johnny Cash to commercial and critical acclaim; it was one of Cash's final hits released before his death, and the related music video being considered one of the greatest of all time by publications such as NME. The video formed a tribute for the recently passed Cash, a montage of clip made the clip emotion for fans and proved that videos now had a multi purpose to the previous 'promotional clip' -
YouTube
YouTube is an American video-sharing website. The site offered artist a chance to promote their music videos for free to audiences, while gaining significant ad revenue as the views stacked up. The site has many features, such as sharing clips to social media and embedding on blogs which heighten its value to the industry as all videos, many uploaded from older generations, being available. The site owned by Google now has links to Play Music, allowing users to buy the music for offline use -
Lady Gaga- First Artist To 1 Billion Views
In 2010, Lady Gaga became the first artist to reach the milestone of 1 billion views for her efforts on YouTube. By 2010, YouTube was the main source of music videos and offered these huge artists the desired audience to reach worldwide. -
Psy- Gangnam Style (2012) MOST VIEWED
The music video of "Gangnam Style" by recording artist Psy is currently the most viewed video on YouTube.Following its July 15 release, "Gangnam Style" overtook Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" to reach the number one position on the YouTube Top 100 Music Videos during the week of August 28, 2012. The video invented a dance craze and merchandise was widely available due to the videos strange popularity, proving the power of YouTube and Music videos. -
Charlie Puth ft Wiz Khalifa- See You Again (2015)
The official music video for the song "See You Again", is the most liked, subscribed, and second most viewed video on YouTube. It is one of only 62 videos to exceed 1 billion views, 11 videos to exceed 2 billion views, and 3 videos to exceed 2.5 billion views. It was the second video ever to record 2 billion views. The video and song was based around Fast and Furious and was a tribute to actor Paul Walker. Music Videos often feature in films, as deals with conglomerates for soundtracks exist.
