Insight into the history

1. THE HISTORY OF MUSIC
VIDEOS

2. WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF
MUSIC VIDEOS?
Music videos are extremely important to the music
industry- so important that some artists’ careers
wouldn’t have taken off without their music videos.
Music videos allow the artist to attempt to impress the
public by also expressing themselves within it.
However, artists do risk getting judged by the public
for the way that they put together a video for their
track-not only are they judged on this but they have to
try and grip the audience with their vocals as well in
order to create profit and build a career.

3. EARLIEST MUSIC VIDEOS
The earliest music videos were filmed in the mid
1950’s. Before then though, film animations were
often accompanied by musical scores including
companies like Walt Disney and Looney Tunes. Disney
produced Fantasia which was an animated film purely
based around famous pieces of classical music.

4. MUSIC VIDEOS IN THE 1960’S
•Tony Bennett was filmed in Hyde Park, London as his recording of
‘Stranger in Paradise’ played; this recording was then distributed to
and played by UK and US TV stations which led to him claiming he
made the first music video.
•The Beatles made their first motion picture to their track ‘A Hard
Day’s Night’. This video is said to have influenced a large number of
contemporary musicians within the pop and rock genre with their
music videos. Moreover, the Beatles also the first people to create a
music video with special effects such as dramatic lighting and
reversed footage.
•The Monkees TV series were also an influence to the music video
genre with each of episode including a number of specially made film
segments to accompany their various songs.

5. MUSIC VIDEOS IN THE 1970’S
•In the UK, artists relied on Top of the Pops to promote
their tracks; this platform allowed them to have
healthy competition with other artists and record
labels. A good music video in the 1970’s would
increase the song’s sales as viewers would want to see
the video on the show the following week.
•Queen created the video for Bohemian Rhapsody
which started a whole new era as it was so different to
anything else on the market.

6. MUSIC VIDEOS IN THE 1980’S
•MTV was launched and the first video aired was the Buggles ‘Video
Killed the Radio Star’
•David Bowie received his first number one because of the video for
‘Ashes to Ashes’ as it was so eye catching.
•Artists started using more sophisticated effects and including
storylines and plots to their video
•Michael Jackson was the first artist to create a short film with a plot
for his track ‘Thriller’

7. MODERN MUSIC VIDEOS
•In today’s society, technology is on the increase and it will continue
increasing. Music videos now approach the popularity of the song and
they are distributed largely including on the internet and on the TV.
•In today’s society there is a large focus on cinematography to make
the music video stand out to the audience. Also, some music videos
have different types of narratives to make their videos stand out from
others.
•There is now a large focus on the visual appeal of how artists are
portrayed in their video rather than the music itself.

8. THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF MUSIC
VIDEOS
•Full narratives: Tell a story and have a clear narrative- the video may
not eve feature the artist/band at all.
•Split narrative- this would mean the video partially tells a story but it
is interrupted with footage and cuts of the artist/band.
•Performance: Only feature the band/singer performing.
•Conceptual: Be an abstract video and have nothing to do with the
song- the video would be completely random.

9. CENSORSHIP OF VIDEOS THE
YEARS1980’s: Top of the Pops was censorious with their approach to video
content. Some artists purposely created controversial promotions for
their track that would get banned- this would create publicity and would
therefore promote the release of the track.
Queen are known to have released controversial videos. Their hit ‘Body
Language’ was seen to have nudity and homosexual connotations. Also,
the ‘I Want to Break Free’ video was censored and almost banned due to
the public being outraged at men wearing dresses.
1990’s: The prodigy’s video for ‘Firestarter’ was banned because of
references to arson.
Michael Jackson’s ‘Black and White’ was censored due to violent scenes
in the video
2000’s: people know believe censorship is on the increase however it’s
not as strict as it used to be. It’s now rare music videos are banned
together. Artists will often release two versions of a video ( a clean