Music videos have been around since the 1920s where they were called Promotional videos. In 1923 these short films were made by Lee De Forest, featuring bands, vocalists and dancers.
In 1929 Dziga Vertov made the 40 minute Man With the Movie Camera, an experiment filming real events, paired with a musical score.
In the 1930s Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which allowed audiences to sing along easily.
In the late 1950’s a new format of filming live performances came about, such as Stravinsky’s orchestra or Tony Bennett singing becoming popular.
In 1959 the Disk-jockey/singer J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson coined the phrase “music video”, as the rise of television allowed popular music to gain exposure through programmes such as “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “American Bandstand”.
In 1960’s one of the earliest performance clips in 1960’s pop was released. It was the “promo film” made by The Animals for their breakthrough hit House of the Rising Sun (1964).
This high-quality colour clip was filmed in a studio on a specially built set and features the group lip-synching and walking around the set in a series of choreographed moves.
The video depicted the group through an edited sequence of tracking shots, close ups and long shots, and was a new form of the music video medium.
In 1964 The Beatles took the music video further, and began starring in a series of feature films which interspersed comedic dialogue with exciting and innovative musical sequences. These films helped cement their international fame and exerted a massive influence on the style and visual vocabulary of the genre.
In particular, Help! (1965) is considered one of the prime archetypes of the modern performance style music videos.
It employs rhythmic cross-cutting, contrasting long shots and close ups and usual shots and camera angles.
In 1965 The Beatles began making promo clips, known as “filmed inserts” which were distributed and broadcasted in other countries (primarily the USA) so they could promote their records without having to make in-person performances. Soon after, other British artists began to follow suit and the popularity led to the pop music phenomenon known as the “British Invasion”.
This included such artists as: Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, The Kinks, The Who, etc.
In 1966 Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” deliberately eschewed the attempt at performance or narrative and simply presented Dylan standing in a city back alley silently shuffling a series of large cue cards with lyrics from the song in time to the music. The cue-card device has since been imitated in numerous other music videos.
In the 1970’s several TV shows became significant in developing and popularizing the music video genre.
In the UK, the long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970’s which was extremely popular with many.
In 1975 Queen had a major hit due to their promo for Bohemian Rhapsody, and Pink Floyd’s confrontational and apocalyptic The Wall helped transform their image. In 1980, David Bowie scored his first UK number one thanks to his eye catching promo for “Ashes to Ashes”.
The 1980’s was an important decade in music for many reasons. MTV debuted in 1981 and began the era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would grow to play a major role in popular music making by the mid-1980’s.
In December 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek and Hype Williams all got their start around this time; all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed.
Some of these directors, included: Gondry, Jonze and F. Gary Gray, went on to direct feature films. This continued a trend that had begun earlier with directors such as Lasse Hallstrom and David Fincher.
2005 saw the release of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier; MySpace's video functionality, which uses similar technology, launched in 2007.
Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online.
In 1929 Dziga Vertov made the 40 minute Man With the Movie Camera, an experiment filming real events, paired with a musical score.
In the 1930s Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which allowed audiences to sing along easily.
In the late 1950’s a new format of filming live performances came about, such as Stravinsky’s orchestra or Tony Bennett singing becoming popular.
In 1959 the Disk-jockey/singer J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson coined the phrase “music video”, as the rise of television allowed popular music to gain exposure through programmes such as “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “American Bandstand”.
In 1960’s one of the earliest performance clips in 1960’s pop was released. It was the “promo film” made by The Animals for their breakthrough hit House of the Rising Sun (1964).
This high-quality colour clip was filmed in a studio on a specially built set and features the group lip-synching and walking around the set in a series of choreographed moves.
The video depicted the group through an edited sequence of tracking shots, close ups and long shots, and was a new form of the music video medium.
In 1964 The Beatles took the music video further, and began starring in a series of feature films which interspersed comedic dialogue with exciting and innovative musical sequences. These films helped cement their international fame and exerted a massive influence on the style and visual vocabulary of the genre.
In particular, Help! (1965) is considered one of the prime archetypes of the modern performance style music videos.
It employs rhythmic cross-cutting, contrasting long shots and close ups and usual shots and camera angles.
In 1965 The Beatles began making promo clips, known as “filmed inserts” which were distributed and broadcasted in other countries (primarily the USA) so they could promote their records without having to make in-person performances. Soon after, other British artists began to follow suit and the popularity led to the pop music phenomenon known as the “British Invasion”.
This included such artists as: Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, The Kinks, The Who, etc.
In 1966 Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” deliberately eschewed the attempt at performance or narrative and simply presented Dylan standing in a city back alley silently shuffling a series of large cue cards with lyrics from the song in time to the music. The cue-card device has since been imitated in numerous other music videos.
In the 1970’s several TV shows became significant in developing and popularizing the music video genre.
In the UK, the long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970’s which was extremely popular with many.
In 1975 Queen had a major hit due to their promo for Bohemian Rhapsody, and Pink Floyd’s confrontational and apocalyptic The Wall helped transform their image. In 1980, David Bowie scored his first UK number one thanks to his eye catching promo for “Ashes to Ashes”.
The 1980’s was an important decade in music for many reasons. MTV debuted in 1981 and began the era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would grow to play a major role in popular music making by the mid-1980’s.
In December 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek and Hype Williams all got their start around this time; all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed.
Some of these directors, included: Gondry, Jonze and F. Gary Gray, went on to direct feature films. This continued a trend that had begun earlier with directors such as Lasse Hallstrom and David Fincher.
2005 saw the release of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier; MySpace's video functionality, which uses similar technology, launched in 2007.
Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online.
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