A History Of Music Videos

1929- Bessie Smith- St. Louis Blues

This is one of the earliest examples of music videos that we are familiar with today. It was shown in theatres in 1932 and this just sjhows how much technology has improved that we can now view it online in our own homes, but back then, you had to visit a theatre to access it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpVCqXRlXx4


1956- Tony Bennett- Stranger in Paradise 

This music video was filmed in Hyde Park, London. It was played across UK and US television stations. However, Bennett later claimed that his music video was the very first. This was the first example of using music videos on TV, this would lead on to create channels like MTV and Top Of The Pops.



1964- The Beatles- A Hard Day's Night

This video was a crucial moment in the development of music videos as The Beatles 'A Hard Days Night' is the influence of majority of the filming of videos that many contemporary artists use today. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70QfHtKdh_0


1967- The Beatles- Penny Lane

The Beatles took music videos to another level with their next video and started using the codes and conventions that modern post productions teams know today, such as dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles and rhythmitic editing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU1rQYlLD_c


1973- The Jackson Five- I Want You Back

The 1970's saw the music video change with more emphasis on just the artist singing. This style lead to music videos to the "Cross-Cutting" stage where the song would portray a story that accompanied the lyrics and "cross-cuts" to the artist singing it. However the key to this innovation was the edting process, dealing with more professional techniques like "Chroma-Key".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_tR1INvY7o


1972- Devo- The Truth About De-Evolution

This was early example of a self-made music video, this started the devlopment of the music video genre "Experimental". However this music video was seen as the first 'Long-form video production'.


1975- Queen- Bohemian Rhapsody

This style started a whole new era for the music video and the introduction of "Top of the pops" which would promote the music and then created a competion between artists for the first time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ


1980- The Buggles- Video Killed The Radio Star

In 1981 it was the introduction of "MTV" and the first video aired was "Video Killed The Radio Star", it was a real break-through in the evolution of music videos and as you can see it was a very high-budget video in which we can see more devlopment in editing such as "Over-laying". MTV was responsible for the succes of artists like Madonna as it played a central role as marketing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r-tXRLazs


1983- Michael Jackson- Thriller

This video was the pioneer of the 'Storyline' video which has a plot, almost like a 'mini' movie. It contains sophisticated visuals and it took the music industry to another level. Now music videos were really being seen as promotion and made into high-budget productions. It was directed by John Landis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA


1985- A-ha- Take On Me

The comic book/live-action combination is called rotoscoping and took 16 weeks to complete. This just shows how the song relies on this type of promotion, mainly because it was the only the form of marketing for a song in the 20th century.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914


2012- Emeli Sande- Next To Me

Music video enthusiats often like the aesthetic appeal of them and often watch them muted. Moden artists like Emeli, whose contemporary 'soul' music needs to have their music video reflect the genre and many artists do this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nwdjQmc_N8


2013- Iggy Azalea- Work

In the current music video era that we live in today the adoption of the 'Sex Appeal' of females has monoplised the music industry, rather than choosing the more traditional methods becuase they are less profitable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zR6ROjoOX0