Music Video History

What do music videos mean to you? Tough question I know. Do you watch music videos to put a visual to the music? Do you watch them to admire the art that lies within? Or just to leave on while the song is playing? Personally I do all three. Mainly I guess I like to see a visual representation of a song to form an overall aesthetic and feeling towards the song.

Throughout the years, music videos have evolved and become significant in many ways for different reasons.

The first examples of music videos started in 1926, when musical short films, made by Warner Bros. were made to showcase the music of the time, not unlike the purpose of music videos as we know them today, however, only five were made compared to the hundreds we see on  daily basis. An example of one of these videos is Milton Charles’ “Crying for the Carolines”, featuring art deco style animations combined with performance shots, very much ahead of its time.

During the 1930’s, music within films became extremely popular and the scenes featuring the popular music were often used as promotional material for the film. Also, music was used frequently in cartoon, particularly in early Walt Disney productions such as Fantasia (1940). To this day, Fantasia features one of the most famous scenes in movie history, including the classic music to go with it. Some people consider this scene to be a music video, whereas others do not, either way, it made a huge impact on music video history.

Musical films became hugely popular in the 1950’s, where music videos were created within the films which was hugely significant because to this day, many modern artists take inspiration from these musicals in their own work and imitate them in some way. A prime example of this would be Madonna’s music video for her single ‘Material Girl’, where she mirrors Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ classic from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

The next major step in the music video world was the creation of the widely popular British music chart television programme Top of the Pops in 1964. The show was introduced to help people enjoy the popular music of the time by getting the artist/band to perform on the show. If the artist/band could not be on the show, their spot would be filled in with a group of dancers named ‘Pans People’ performing over their song being played. In order for a song to be more of an important part of the show, artists started making music videos to be played when they were unable to attend the show, this made music videos more significant as they were an essential marketing tool.

In 1965, The Beatles released their video for ‘Help!’ which was album promo for their album of the same name. This video was more artsy and conceptual than any music video people of the time had seen before. Following the huge success of The Beatles, a similar US boyband was manufactured to compete with them named The Monkees. They were totally controlled by the industry and had no input as artists which eventually proved boring to the public and their popularity died down.

A huge trailblazer in the music industry came in the late 1960’s, and was known to the world as David Bowie. As a huge Bowie fan, I don’t struggle when describing the ways in which he innovatively led the way through the music industry and the music video industry. His music was extremely conceptual and he used multiple personas (Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane etc.) to create depth and stories that his fans could enjoy, the same way someone reading a book could enjoy its narrative. This meant that Bowie’s videos had to further tell these stories, so his videos became just as important as his music. Also David Bowie liked to create art with his music videos, so it became a significant turning point in the music video industry where the videos themselves were to be appreciated in themselves rather than just to be used as a promotional items for the songs. This was also exhibited by rock band Queen in 1975 with the release of their video for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, which was so iconic for its new use of technology that it will go down in music video history.

In 1981, a television channel called MTV was introduced, which was the first and only music video channel at the time. Due to MTV being launched, more pressure was put on artists to make memorable music videos so that they would be chosen to be aired on the channel and be seen more.

In 1983, Michael Jackson released a music video that would soon be known as the most commercially successful video of all time. Thriller will go down in history as it was a convergence between music video and film. It combined the typical music video with a story in a spooky thirteen and a half minute long masterpiece of cinematic art. This begun an era of cinematic music video, followed by artists like Lana Del Rey with her short film ‘Tropico’, and Beyoncé with her hour long spectacular visual album ‘Lemonade’.

Another music video first was Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer released in 1986. The video was compiled entirely of still shots/stop motion animation. The video was directed Nick Park, who would later go on to create stop motion classic ‘Wallace and Gromit’. At the time it was unlike anything people had seen so it went on to win nine MTV Video Music Awards.

And that brings an end to my journey through music video history, hopefully now we can appreciate the artistry and legacy behind the music videos we now know and love today.