-
Illustrated Song
Referred to as the first step towards music videos.
Live performers and music recordings were used accompany still images projected from glass slides. This allowed the images to be painted in colour by hand. A single song was usually accompanied by a range of different images that represented the lyrics. Supposedly the first one was 'The Little Lost Child' by Edward Marks and Joseph Stern -
Talkies
Talkies were motions picture with synchronised sound. Originally they were just short clips, but then moved onto feature films. The first 'talking' film was 'The Jazz Singer', that came out in 1927. These talkies were made with a Vitaphone, which became a successful sound-on-disc system -
Soundies
Soundies were classified as a three minute long American music film. These included short dance sequences (one of the first steps towards choreography in later music videos) Musical films were a large development in the future for music videos. Soundies specifically led to the Scopitone (that was created in the 50's), a type of jukebox, that played short musical films -
Manny Pitson
Perhaps one of the first music videos that are alike to todays. For a Canadian TV show, Manny Pitson pre-recorded the music audio, and then taped various visuals/images with the musicians lip-synching, then edited the sound and visuals together. -
Filmed Inserts
The Beatles began making promotional clips for distribution and broadcast in other countries (mainly the USA) so they could promote their records without having to make in real life appearances. These included a range of different narratives -
Australian Music & Television
Due to the popularity of the music video genre, more shows were created in order to show these. In need for more videos for the show, Russell Mulcahy shot film footage to accompany songs. The success of this led to the belief that 'film clips' (later music videos) were an important element of music marketing. Many memorable music videos were created by Russell Mulcahy -
MTV
MTV, the American video channel launched, airing 'Video Killed the Radio Star' and began the era of 24 hours a day music on TV. This became one of the reasons many artists gained success, as they could promote their stuff easily -
Music Videos + Meaning
The 80's were the beginning of music videos that explored social issues, for example David Bowie's 'China Girl' and 'Let's Dance' which both explored racial issues. Music videos were now being used as a platform to address and show a range of different messages -
Thriller (Michael Jackson)
Perhaps known as one of the most influential and successful music videos of all time, Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' which lasted a whole 13 minutes. It involved several dance sequences and a zombie related narrative, with a budget of $800,000. This video set a new standard for music video production -
MTV Video Music Awards
This award show highlighted the popularity of videos and also the individuality of a music video, as the award was for the music video alone and song awards were an award on their own. Madonna performed at the first awards show -
Computer Animation
One of the first music videos to incorporate computer animation was the Dire Straits 'Money for Nothing'. It was considered groundbreaking when it was released and perhaps the reason artists started to use computer animation and special effects in their videos. The video helped make the song an international hit and other songs like Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' also became hugely successful due to the special effects and animations in the music video -
Directors + Expanding Audiences
MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, showing how valued music videos were. Many of these directors, like Felix Gary Gray went onto direct feature films. During this decade, MTV also launched several different channels to target specific countries and their music videos for audiences -
Youtube
One of the most popular sites today and perhaps a revolution in music video viewing. Youtube was a quick and easy way to watch music videos and to also share them. It is now the main way artists upload and show their music videos to their audiences, many artists have over a billion views -
Most Viewed Music Video
Today the most viewed music video is Psy's 'Gangnam Style' with over 2.5 billion views (June 2016). The video generally became popular due to it being humorous
