The history of music videos began with abstract films by Oscar Fischinger that were synchronized to music tracks. Early music videos were displayed on Panaroms and Scopitones, film reels shown in public spaces and bars that featured short films set to popular songs. In the 1960s, British TV shows began airing music promos to feature bands. The concept of a cable TV channel dedicated to music videos was proposed by Mike Nesmith in the late 1970s. MTV launched in 1981 and helped break new artists, especially British new wave bands. The channel initially focused on white rock acts but later played more black artists and genres like rap and R&B. By the mid-1980s, MTV had become a
2. Oscar Fischinger
• In Oscar Fischinger’s work, there was notably a close relationship between
music tracks and visual material.
• He was well-known for his abstract synchronisations and visual
interpretations such as ‘Komposition in Blau’ (1935) and his work on the
Disney film ‘Fantasia’ (1939).
• Some of Fischinger’s films were made on a contract with Electrola Disks
with an end title advertising the track which the audience had just heard
and a suggestion to ‘get it at your local record store’.
3. The Panarom & the Scopitone
• Short films showcasing artists were displayed mainly on reels on the forerunner of the video
jukebox called the Panarom.
• The Panarom weighed about 2 tons and contained a 20 inch screen with a black projection. They
often used the screen to show a wide variety of current and popular music in places like bars.
• As well as music, short films were also shown on the Panarom. These films were often more daring
sexually and at times politically than the features of the day as they were less likely to be checked by
the censor.
• The machine contained a reel of eight shorts which were set to play in sequence; thousands of these
16mm films known as ‘soundies’ were produced in the heyday of the Panarom from 1939-46 but the
Panarom soon died out quickly after the war.
• In the 1960s, the idea was recreated in France with the Scopitone (a machine which provided
individual selection as well as play and rewind for 36 short films). The films were also in colour and
gave the consumer a choice unlike the Panarom. Song-and-dance performances were mainly shot
on cheap sound stages or outdoors. They often involved a high level of female display and garish use
of colour. The machine was very successful in France before it gained success in the USA and by
mid-1965, around 1000 were installed.
• Films by the US were produced by a company called Harman-ee. Again, these included a lot of
sexualised dance routines performed by females. When rock music became popular, they began
shooting films for bands like Procul Harum although pop was still the most popular music genre.
However with competition from TV, the Scopitone also died out.
4. Television Coverage
• During the 1960s in the UK, shows such as ‘Ready Steady Go’ and ‘Top Of The Pops’ were used in an attempt to capture the new
teenage audience from ‘American Bandstand’. As they needed to have music acts on the show each week, this lead to short promo
films if acts were busy (for example, on tour). Beatles clips for ‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ provided material so
they didn’t have to appear on ‘Top Of The Pops’ in person. Other famous British acts during this era that also recorded promos
included the Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who.
• In the USA, the band the Monkees also used many devices which would later be used in music promos including surrealism,
jump cuts, wacky comedy and action mixed with a music performance. The four band members were selected for how they would
look on TV (this device was also used to create boy bands and for shows like ‘Pop Idol’).
• In the 1970s ‘serious rock’ gained slots on TV such as ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ (1971) and many films emerged which made
use of pop and rock artists, from ‘Saturday Night Fever’ (Badham 1977) to ‘Quadrophenia’ (Roddam 1979). An increasing number
of bands went down the route of producing promo clips which gained airplay within TV shows. In America, AOR (Adult Oriented
Rock) was an increasingly dominating radio and made it harder for pop singles to break through. At the same time, cable TV was
growing rapidly but had not yet generated sufficient income to pay for its own programming. A combination of these factors
meant that the time was right for music television.
• Mike Nesmith from the Mokees came up with an idea to create a promo based programme for Nickelodeon. The only cost to the
channel was royalties for airplay and the concept quickly became attractive to advertisers, making it potentially very profitable.
• Though there was insufficient contemporary material to justify such a move, the New Wave of British pop acts with their singles-
based music which came out of Punk rock soon provided an ‘invasion’ to fill the space. British groups often had video airplay well
in advance of radio play and took full advantage of the first few years of MTVs existence to break the American market.
Successful artists included Duran Duran who often shot lavish videos on location and The Eurythmics with surreal narratives.
5. MTV
• MTV soon became very popular in the USA when American artists realised it’s potential so created promo clips of their
own. However during the early years, assumptions about the demographics of the audience led to dominance by white acts
and male rock. Despite the success of ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’ by Micheal Jackson, it was almost the end of the decade before
any other black artists’ work broke through.
• The reluctance to play videos by black artists meant rap videos were only able to acquire small budgets and had to be
distributed through alternative means so couldn’t find a mass audience. Yet, when the work of MC Hammer and Coolio
became acceptable and humorous, they were eligible for bigger budgets.
• Hype William productions for TLC, R.Kelly and Missy Elliot meant that black artists and directors were commanding for
bigger budgets of $2 million. These high budget videos increased record sales and Hip Hop replaced Rock as the dominant
music genre.
• The success of the New Romantics’ highly visual style was exemplified by their videos and a combination of visual excess,
high camp performance and comedy. Duran Duran were perhaps the ultimate example of this with four high budget videos
‘Girls on Film’, ‘Hungry like the Wolf’, ‘Rio’ and ‘Wild Boys’ using expensive and exotic locations, high quality
cinematography and a filmic look, as well as a high number of females on display.
• Madonna also led a host of female artists by creating interesting and innovative music videos to showcase their talents.
Image, performance, choreography and close ups were important aspects for success of female acts.
• By 1984, MTV has its own version of the Oscars (The Music Awards) with categories including best video and best special
effects and choreography. Some directors moved to feature films from music videos and so used music videos as a training
ground for Hollywood or independent production.
• MTV was now owned by Viacom (a major media conglomerate) and by the mid 80s, launched a European version of MTV
which lead to more subscribers.
• Viacom was responsible for the shift away from the narrow rock video market towards a wider range of music genres
including rap and indie. They also succeeded in bringing MTV to the major cities where it had previously not been
available and developing more conventional scheduling, beginning to produce programmes other than video clip
compilations, giving a much greater sense of a ‘lifestyle’. The concert programme ‘Unplugged’, where artists performed
stripped down versions of their hits, usually with acoustic guitar, led to a series of successful CD releases.
