History of the Music Video Timeline

History of the Music Video Timeline

Micheal Jackson's 'Thriller'

A Hard Day's Night

Example of a Warner Brothers Vitaphone Short

'Bad Blood'

The Little Lost Child

'Black Magic'

Example of a 'Screen Song'

2000s

Origins

1980s

1960s

The first step towards a music video was in 1894. Edward Marks and Joe Stern (both sheet music publishers) hired George Thomas an electrician to promote their latest song 'The Little Lost Child.' This was done via the use of a magic lantern (image projector) which George projected a series of images on a screen next to a live performance of the song. This later became a common form of entertainment known as an illustrated song.

In 1926, there was the invention of 'talkies' which triggered the release of musical short films. A 'talkie' is a motion picture with sound. Vitaphone shorts (a short video) featured multiple bands, artists and dancers and were produced by Warner Brothers. Animator Max Fleischer created a number of sing-along short cartoons (called Screen Songs) which encouraged its audiences to sing-along with the help of a bouncing ball.

The development of 'shorts' caused the development of 'soundies' which were produced and released between 1940 and 1947. These were musical films which often contained small dance routines.

1980 saw the most expensive video ever which was David Bowie's 'Ashes to Ashes' which had a production budget of $582,000. It was shot in solarised photography (dark is shown light and light is shown dark) with black-and-white scenes. It is one of the most significant videos ever made and was one of the first videos to have had a complex plot.

In 1981 there was the launch of MTV which is an American channel airing music videos originally targeted at young adults. The first music video to be aired on MTV was 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by 'The Buggles.'

This decade saw the releases of video albums. New Zealand band 'Split Enz' released their album 'True Colours' and produced alongside it promotional clips for each song the album which were all marketed on video cassettes.

The 1980s also saw the development of key equipment such as high-quality colour videotape recorders as well as portable video cameras.

The decade saw music videos themed with political and social issues. One of the most popular videos of all time is 'Thriller' by Micheal Jackson which cost $0.8 million was 14 minutes long and helped with the emergence of African Americans being shown on television along with his other hits 'Beat It' and 'Billy Jean.'

In 1984 there was the emergence of the MTV Music Video Awards, one of the most important events in the music calendar now. 'The Beatles' and 'David Bowie' were rewarded with 'Video Vanguard Awards' due to their work of pioneering the music video.

Music videos today are just as important to artists than the actual albums and singles themselves. There are more and more awards dedicated purely to music videos. YouTube was founded in 2005 and has become the biggest platform to store music videos. Artists and their videos became more successful due to this as well as from social media such as Facebook, Google Videos and Yahoo! Videos. The variety of music videos increased into the noughties with more unique videos becoming a hit.

More money is now being spent on music videos and companies are marketing their products via music videos. For example, 'Black Magic' by Little Mix shows the advertisement of Beats Headphones. Due to the development of editing and recording equipment special effects are seen hugely within music videos; such as 'Bad Blood' by Taylor Swift.

The evolution of music videos really came to the scene in this decade thanks to 'The Beatles.' It was called 'A Hard Days Night' which acted as a promotional clip for their feature film also named 'A Hard Days Night.' The band were one of the first to explore different styles as they shot it in black-and-white which is now a key technique used in music videos today such as 'One Direction's' 'History.' Videos in the 1960s were essentially not music videos but just promotional videos for their albums mainly consisting of a performance by the artist and as well as advertisement. In 1967, 'The Rolling Stones' released their song 'We Love You' which had a promotional video consisting of sped-up footage of them recording the song.

1970-1980s

1990s

1950s-1960s

2000s-

1890-1940

1990s

1970s

1950s

On the 1st June 1956, Tony Bennett played a concert at Hyde Park, London which was filmed and broadcast to UK and US television stations. The song was 'Stranger in Paradise' and was the first music video to be shown on television. Without this happening, the world would not have channels dedicated to music such as MTV.

The 1990s was one of the most diverse decade in terms of music genres, seeing the development of R&B, Teen Pop and Hip-Hop. 1995 saw the release of 'Scream' by Micheal and Janet Jackson which is still one of the most expensive videos to date at $7 million. The decade also saw the development of MTV worldwide in order to capture the local market in each area, with channels created in Latin America, India and Mandarin.

The concept of music videos in this era began to grow as artists were drawn into reverse videos,

Promotional videos were still popular in this decade and began to expand over more genres such as country. David Bowie explored more concepts with music videos. For instance his 1972 hit 'John, I'm Only Dancing' contained his afternoon rehearsal for Bowie's Rainbow Theatre, the band miming with his dancers performing. It was originally rejected by the BBC but it later appeared on the programme 'Top of the Pops' with the dancers changing into bikers instead.

One of the first country music video to be released was Dom Williams's hit 'The Shelter of your Eye.' This was a 3 minute clip consisting of him walking around rural areas and farms. It was labelled as a picture story however reviews stated that the video took away from their live performances.

Music videos became more popular in 1974 when Australian TV shows 'Countdown' started to be aired. This helped to promote both upcoming acts as well as new releases by already existing acts. Sounds also began which was a teen targeted TV music show.

John, I'm Only Dancing

'Stranger in Paradise'

'Scream'

By Lauren Shiels