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Musical Short Film
Eva Puck and Sammy White were the first to star in a Phonofilm in the early 1920s. The phonofilm, Opera vs. Jazz, was used a year later by Max Fleischer in his animated series ‘Song-Car Tunes’. -
Television
As there were gaps in television schedules, music videos were played in order to fill them between programmes. This was provided by Snader Telescriptions, where popular jazz, pop and country artists made four minute long videos to accompany their music. -
Stranger in Paradise - Tony Bennett (First Official Music Video)
The first official record for a music video is Tony Bennett’s Stranger in paradise. Since its release in the middle 50s, the video was posted onto YouTube via Vevo in 2011 and has reached over two million views. -
MTV
MTV was launched in the UK and Ireland to provide a mass audience with popular music and allow new artists to have a platform in which they could successfully release videos. Since 2011 MTV replaced its content to entertainment. This resulted in a 150% audience increase and is now in over 10 million homes. Immediately, music videos became popular amongst the younger generation as the cross media convergence between music and film appealed to fans. -
Vevo
Launched in December 2008, Vevo was founded by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. The multinational video hosting service incorporates music from a wide variety of both artists and genres which is now available in 16 countries. The creation if Vevo immensely increased the interest in music videos due to the accessibility of the innovative, artistic promotional material. -
Thriller - Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson's controversial Thriller video is the most iconic of all time. The 13 minute video became the one of the world's most famous and popular music video from the innovative dance sequences and narrative. The story line in the music video set a trend into the 2000s to have a distinct narrative as a major aspect of music videos. -
Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
Music videos were initially filmed in many shots of the same scene of the singer. The atmosphere is created by effects, lighting and other aspects of mise en scene rather than through a narrative and actors. -
I knew You Were Trouble - Taylor Swift
The hit single 'I knew you were trouble', began a new style of music videos in 2012. In this era music videos began to be filmed in the format of a short film. This includes various scenes over a vast period of time with new elements such as voice-overs to further emphasize the narrative. -
City of Angles - Thirty Seconds to Mars
In the 2000s, artists began to release lyric videos along with their traditional music videos when releasing a single. This allows their audience to become more engaged in a song as well as releasing it to a wider audience -
Team - Lorde
In more recent years the most popular and common type of music video is the combination between performance and narrative. This involves the narrative aspect being played through multiple scenes with actors and the artist during the majority of the song and typically one separate scene of the artist performing it. -
Hello - Adele
Adele’s music video to her lead single ‘Hello’ was released on Vevo’s YouTube channel on October 23rd. Still holding the current record for highest ranking video, the hit reached over 1 billion views, with a record-breaking 27.7 million in 24 hours.
