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History Of Music Videos

By christi85ez

  • Illustrated Song

    The first step towards music videos came about in 1894 when Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired a group of people to help with the promotion of their song 'The Little Lost Child'. They had electrician George Thomas project a series of still images as the performers performed. This led to Illustrated Song becoming a popular form of entertinment as it allowed both visual and auditary stimulation to audiences.

  • Talkies

    In the 20's musical short films became a popular form of entertainment, allowing short cartoons and clips to be accompanied by songs. For example Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-a-longs.

  • Bessie Smith has the St. Louis Blues

    Two-short reels from the film St. Louis Blues featured a dramatised performance of her hit song for the film.

  • The 30's, 40's & early 50's - Soundies & Musical Films

    As time occured music and video being incorporated together more often and they came about mainly through musical films. Classic Hollywood musical films included: Westside Story, Top Hat, Singing In The Rain. They often included short dance sequences, similar to later music videos.

  • Tony Bennett's Stroll In Hyde Park

    Tony Bennett walked along The Serpentine in Hyde Park to the audio recording oh his song 'Stranger In Paradise', thus his claim to the first music video, as the clip was distributed to various UK & US TV stations.

  • Elvis Rockin' In The Jailhouse

    Elvis Presley performed his hit song Jailhouse Rock on a set, and it was the first music video in the USA.

  • 'Dame Si Do Byto' - Let's Go To The Apartment

    Ladislov created one of the first music promotional video with a similar abstract nature as modern music videos.

  • The Visual Late 50's

    The Scopitone was a visual jukebox created and it revolutionised music. Short films were produced to accompany songs by artists, and this was popular in france, Italy(as the Cinebox) & the USA(as the Color-Sonic)

  • Sing-a-long Jubilee

    Manny Pittson began to prerecord audio and tape visuals were the artists performed the songs lip syncing.

  • The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night

    The Beatles were the first to have several promotional videos clips alongside a multiple number of their songs. This surely enhanced 'Beatlemania'. Not only did several videos feature in colour but they used unusual camera angles, colour filtering, reversed film, slow motion and dramatic lighting. This was the beginning of a new era. However they were criticised for lacking a narrative.

  • Propaganda Emerges On The Scene

    The Doors controtversially created an anti-war promotional video for their song 'The Unknown Soldier'. Music videos for the first time were used to promote political messages in this instance.

  • Concert Films: 60's - 70's

    Audiences were being more exposed to watching visual performances of music, hence the popularity of concert films as time progress. Great examples of concert films include, Woodstock(1969); Joe Cocker's Mad(1971) & Live at Pompeii(1972).

  • It's Coming Together Now

    David Bowie was the first to incorporate all elements of the modern music video for his music video to the song 'The Jean Genie'. It was shot in one day, edited in less than two and cost $350 to produce overall.

  • The Midnight Special

    With an ever increasing demand for video as televisions were growing in popularity in terms of households, musical television series such as The Midnight Special were introduced. They hosted over 1,200 performers and special guests over their 11 year run.

  • Video Is Art

    Night Flight became the first program to showcase videos with music as an art form.

  • The Home Of Music Videos

    MTV launched declaring itself as the first 24-hour channel dedicated to showing music videos. The first music video they aired was 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by The Buggles.

  • Thriller

    Michael Jackson 'wowed' audiences worldwide through the emergence of his concept music video Thriller, and it broke down the colour barriers in regards to music videos.

  • Rock/Rap Collab

    The musical collaboration of Run DMC & Aerosmith introduced hip-hop music to MTV, which had previously featured pop and rock in their early years.

  • Yo MTV Raps

    Rap and Hip-Hop migrated to MTV officially with the introduction of a channel dedicated to the genre. And from there MTV widened their genre based channels.

  • The Rise Of Directors (90's - Early 00's)

    Due to the high demand for music videos to promote albums, directors were in need in order to make them a success. For example the directors such as Spike Jonze, Stephane Sednauio, Mark Romanek & Michel Gordy are popular directors for music videos in Pop Culture, and also Hype Williams for his popularity within Rap Culture.

  • Hello Internet

    When the internet became more video friendly, music videos were revolutionised yet again. there was another medium for access, and the most popular medium was YouTube, and this helped increase promotion of album through allowing more exposure for music videos, and eased access to particular video, plus avoided some censorship rules; therefore affecting the explicitness featuring in modern day music videos.

  • VEVO - The internet Home Of Music Videos

    The first place you are likely to see it is VEVO. VEVO is the hub and hime of all music videos created by an array of artists. the ease of it's access has allowed music videos to reach high figures in terms of views i.e. 100,000,000 views within a few weeks. The popularity of music videos is quite emminent in this day and age, and it is apparent that they still serve a purpose in terms of promoting songs and albums; therofore it's best to make a great unforgettable one.