History of music videos
The first type of music videos started in the 1940’s, as there were few TVs in the 1920-30’s, therefore no promotion. Music videos were a lot different than they are today; they were called promotional films. They were short films starring the artist, artists never sang live- they used to lip sync all videos, examples of these artists were Elvis Presley (Jail House Rock), The Beatles, Bill Haley (Rock around the clock), Bob Dylan and others.
In 1967, Bob Dylan’s documentary included his version of a music video, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. Since then Music videos have changed, as the video was in black and white, it has a very slow zoom, and then the camera is hand held as it is very shaky and there is no tripod to keep it steady. Dylan is stood holding card with words from the lyrics of his song, but because of the change in technology since then, as he could have been listening to a cassette tape whilst turning the cards but because a cassette tape doesn’t play back at the exact speed as the original track that has been placed on the top of his video as he is very out of time when turning the cards, there is no lip syncing it is just music placed on top of the video.
When the music industry started in the 1960’s, artists never wrote their own songs, they were controlled by their managers. On the 1st of January 1964 the BBC broadcasted Top of the Pops (TOTP) and it was broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. Each weekly programme consisted of performances from some of that week's best-selling popular music artists, with a rundown of that week's singles chart. In the late 1970’s Top of the Pops began playing music videos, and were able to have the band in the studio, i.e.- more promotion. Initially acts performing on the show mimed to their previously released record, but in July 1966, after a lot of discussions with the Musicians' Union, miming/lip syncing had been banned. A few weeks after this rule had been put in place, after singing live, a lot of the acts seemed to have been lacking their original energy from what had been previously recorded, and as artists didn’t seem to have the talent as what had been previously thought, a compromise was reached whereby artists where allowed to have a specially designed backing track as long as all the artists on the track were present in the studio.
The first proper music video was in 1974 this was, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, this video took £4500 to make, and took under four hours to film. Some artists had made video clips to accompany their songs, including Queen themselves; for example, "Keep Yourself Alive", "Seven Seas Of Rhye", "Killer Queen" and "Liar". It was only after the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody" the single that it became regular practice for record companies to produce promotional videos for artists' single releases, especially as they became so popular and well known, as queens single “Bohemian Rhapsody” was number one in the chart for nine weeks. These videos could then be shown on television shows, such as the BBC's Top of the Pops, therefore the artists would not have to appear in person. The Top of the Pops Orchestra, led by Johnny Pearson improved the tracks when necessary. This set-up continued until 1980, when a prolonged Musicians' Union strike resulted in the dropping of the live orchestra altogether and the use of pre-recorded tracks only. This accounts for a number of acts who never appeared on the show due to their unwillingness to perform like this.
MTV (Music Television) started in 1981 in America which started a worldwide phenomenon, the first video that aired on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. MTV was aired for 24 hours a day, and as there were very few music videos made, therefore videos were needed to be quickly produced. Consequently, music videos became very important for artists, as they were being judged not just on their vocal abilities, but also on their performance and appearance. MTV has been highly debated, as a lot of people saw this as the beginning of a new era in music whereas others considered it to mark the end of music as a talent, as artists are more focused and appreciated on their appearance instead of their vocal abilities. Now on channels like MTV, it’s almost like a rarity to see music videos as a lot of these channels are now full with reality shows.
Now in modern day music videos have changed radically since they were first created because of the change in technology. Throughout the majority of the 1980’s most music videos stuck to the “original” conventions of old-style performance but, occasionally branching out into different types of special effects to help promote their videos more than others, as special effects were very new, even if they are a lot different as they are today. The 90s brought out more videos with a specific narrative for example "Smells like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. In this video, we are given the impression of torment and chaos and this is being demonstrated, with dark lighting, fire, a lot of people, which also makes people feel intimidated. This was made possible by new music video effects and styles which have been altered over time to make videos connote the artist’s appearance and impressions. Because a lot of videos such as “Smells like Teen Spirit”, other artists felt that they were able to put a political spin on their image. Entering the 21st century the music industry and music videos are still changing even up until today. There are still a few videos that are trying to cling on to the old style of music videos, but the majority use a whole lot of different techniques and special effects, I feel that if and older generation audience were to view artists’ music videos such as Katy Perry or Lady GaGa, and try to compare them with original old style artists such as Elvis Presley or Bill Haley, they would feel that it has probably changed, as a lot of these new videos are a lot more provocative.
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