Research - History of Music Videos

History of Music Videos...

For the past 100 years there has been a huge development in combining visuals with singing music in which the music industry and audiences today still argue what or who really created 'The First Music Video''. This has been an argued top for decades due to visuals matching music but the purpose and platform of these videos contradict the generic conventions of  'an actual music video'. 

I will be discussing in chronological order, these contradictions to what videos are or can be classed as a music video and what is argued to be 'The first ever Music Video'.

1920's..

1929; Songs & Moving Images

Bessie smith appeared in a two-reel short film called Saint Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. This was the first ever video to have lip syncing due to the media platform being a film. This two-reel short film was used to promote a film, even though this is not a music video it has many similarities and elements of a music video.

1940; Songs& Moving Images

In 1940, Walt Disney released Fantasia, an animated film based around famous pieces of classical music which contained a mix of today's known Disney classic characters. This video contained various amounts of inter textual references to different shows and characters in the Disney franchise.

1920's - 1940's

• Many films were in the development of accompanying moving images in these films, especially animations.
• These were not considered as music videos but just basic editing of images to films/musicals which was a big genre of film during this period.
• Many films during this time period sometimes included live acoustic or acapella music in which viewers today would agree or disagree that these scenes would be classed as music videos.

1950 - 1960's 

1956: Tony Bennett is filmed walking in Hyde Park London for his song 'Stranger in Paradise'. The single/video was distributed on US and UK television, leading Bennett to claim he made the first music video.

This video had international distribution in the biggest music televised countries. This was hyped instantly and is also an argument on whether this is the first ever music video.

1964: Key moment; The Beatles 'A Hard Days Night' was The Beatles first ever releasing of music being accompanied by visuals. This video arguably set out the basic visual vocabulary of todays music videos, influencing a vast number of contemporary musicians at the time to create similar moving images to accompany their music. 

Although this video has some similarities to the elements of a music video, The Beatles soul purpose is not the conventional promotion or advertisement for an album or to gain more financial success whereas this videos purpose was only to promote their upcoming tour which is very unusual to be the purpose of 'a music video'.

1966 - 1968: 

'The Monkees'

'The Monkees' was a TV show. Each episode included a specially made film segment that was created to accompany their songs that was used in their TV series. This allowed The Monkees group to promote their music and allowing the music industry to identify their potential which made them an official music band which gave them a name in the industry which helped them produce more music for their main purpose of just music.



Short segments like this were used in every episode to end the episode which contained some basic conventional visuals that are often used in basic music videos. This is why 'The Monkees' songs, feautured in these episodes were also argued that these were opinionated to be one of the first music videos.

1966: The Birth of Top of the Pops

The importance of TOTP to promote a single meant that artists had to compete for air time as TOTP had a limit on the number of performances it showed therefore if you were an artist and made it on to TOTP's you were classed as one of the biggest artist after being aired on this station because they only aired mainstream artist and only artist that already had a name for themselves.

1967: These videos used the techniques borrowed from film, such as film effects, dramatic lighting, camera angles and rhythmic editing.

Modern Era of Music Videos!

1975: Queen's 'Bohemia Rhapsody' the modern music video..

• This video was created to replace a live performance on TV
• The Beatles had created videos, however Queen were specifically for that song to be played on TV.
• Bohemian Rhapsody was the first made on the 'vide' format therefore, the ''first music video'' would be accurate, as long as it isn't confused with ''first promo film''

In my opinion, this video contained many aspects of a music video which could be classed as the first music video in other viewers perspective although I think that this isn't the first music video due to their purpose only creating a video for their fans just because they didn't perform live, as according to their plan.

1970 - 1980

• The key development of the modern music video was video recording with an editing process.
• High quality videotape recorders and portable video cameras were now developed and enabled many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaper, rather than just using film which was rather expensive.
• By the mid 80's, releasing a video to accompany a new single had became standard in which this time period became a huge development in the evolution of technology in the music industry. 
• Artists were using high budgets to create these, for example 'The Jacksons' - 'Blame it on the Boogie'

This video, during the 80's; because 'The Jacksons' were so famous and were very successful at this time period, they could afford to create such a high budget music video with the use of graphic edits in sync with movement. This video has all the elements of a conventional music video in the pop genre which is simply evident with the use of green screen as todays audiences now know that the Pop Genre is known for their consistent use of green screen.

1981: MTV launch and development of music videos

MTV was launched and the first expected music video to be aired is Buggles 'Video Killed the Radio Star'.

In the early mid 1980's artist's started to use more sophisticated effects in their videos, and added or plot to the music video.
This video was instantly hyped about after release because of the harsh lyrics, clear in the title 'Video Killed the Radio Star' being ironic for the first song to be played in the launch of MTV.


1984: Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' and the concept of short film.

• A short film in the music industry is a music video longer than usual duration time that has a beginning, middle and end. 
• MJ's Thriller took the music video format to another level with the legendary breakthrough of creating short films with a narrative to relate to the music and video in the pop industry. This is one of the reasons why MJ is classed as 'The King of Pop' due to his distinctiveness in style and what he brings to the music culture.
• TOTP started to censor video content, so another approach was to produce a video that would be banned or edited and so using controversy and publicity to promote the release. Early examples of this tactic were Duran Duran's ''Girls on Film''.

1980's; MTV and Musical Success.

• Music video would, by the mid 1980's, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing.
• Madonna, owned music marketing of her success to the skilful construction and seductive appeal of her videos.
• Although many see MTV as the start of a 'Golden Era' of music video and unparalleled success of a new art form in Popular Culture whereas others see it as hastening the death of the true musical artist because true physical appeal is now critical to popularity to an unprecedented degree.