History of Music Videos

Music Videos are short films that have been made to accompany songs since the late 1920’s. In 1929 Bessie Smith created a short film to accompany here song ‘St. Louis Blues. The video is very simplistic, it is literally a film of her singing live in a bar. As you would expect from the 1920's, the quality of the picture is very grainy and the sound quality is very poor compared with the equipment available now, recording equipment would have been very basic. Looking beyond the relative poor quality, it is still great to be able to see live music from the late 1920's. Although restricted by basic equipment, the video shows use of some of the techniques we use today, for example, panning shots showing the audience enjoying live music, close ups to show artist's emotion and establishing shots to show surroundings. 

In 1965 Bob Dylan filmed 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' as a segment to the film 'Don't Look Back', which was widely credited as one of the first modern music videos. Dylan's simplistic use of words on cards was effective because it worked in time with the music, needing no editing together. Like many of the music videos today it links lyrics to the video, however in this case quite literally. 

In the 1970's, the music industry realised that TV shows were a great opportunity to promote artists, and by creating short promos to replace the live performance on stage meant the artist could be in various places at once, making more money for the industry, creating more awareness of the artist and increasing media platforms. 

In 1975, the modern music video era was born. Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was unveiled. It was a revelation in the music industry, not only was the video in colour but great artistic effects were used to create this mysterious vibe. The video included fading the different cuts onto the next, creative high key under-lighting, clips from stage performances and close ups to show the artists singing. 

In 1981 music PR changed forever. MTV was launched in the US! This was an artist's dream, the largest promotional tool for them to make purpose-made videos to promote themselves and their songs/albums. MTV was targeted at older teenagers and younger adults from the middle classes, as in the 1980's cable was expensive and only a small proportion of the population could afford it. The music video industry grew from there, each year more money was being pumped into the industry and evermore impressive and expensive music videos were being created. In 1983 Michael Jackson's Thriller was the first music video with a budget above $1Million. It was a long music video/ short film that is very narrative, it tells a story throughout, it also uses amazing Mise-en-scene with the costume designs, location and makeup. Also brilliantly choreographed dance routines which are legendary and still used today! Michael Jackson still holds the record for the most expensive music video today at $7Million, with his video 'Scream!'

However, there were a few problems with the MTV generation, because of the cost, it meant that there wasn't a great deal of variety in music, as smaller artists didn't have the budget to create competing videos. The success of these videos meant money was constantly being reinvested into these artists leaving it harder for the smaller artists to promote themselves and to gain the money they need for the music videos...and the vicious circle continued!

In 2005 the biggest revelation in musical history was the launch of YouTube! This made it possible for smaller artists to promote themselves free of charge. The free promotion was at the fingertips of any artist who wanted it, allowing new artists to be more creative and humorous and appeal to a younger audience. YouTube is used today as a main form of promotion for artists and their albums and many artists wouldn't have been discovered without it! For example PSY-Gangnam style. Maybe not such a good thing after all??