History of the music video

As far as music spans back over history, the use of a music video is a fairly modern introduction. In 1927 Al Jolson led the way for the kind of films we see today, when starring in the first talking film in history ‘The Jazz Singer’. Being the first film with synchronised dialogue paved the way for all future films with sound. Since then, many bands performed live music performances on television shows like top of the pops. Throughout the 1950’s and 60’s shows such as Top of the pops, and The Monkees showed music live on television, giving audiences the chance to see their favourite music performed, but in only in the standard way with no effects, just plain playing.

The first time a video was directed and used to promote or show a song in the late 1970’s with the song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. The band Queen released a promotional video along with this single which was considered to be ground-breaking. Before this ‘ground breaking’ video, many bands often used short promotional clips to accompany songs, but this release from Queen seemed to shape the way for the future. The piece helped establish the visual language of the modern music video and set the way for many bands to start following suite. It started to become regular practice for other artists to release a promotional video to accompany their songs.



Such videos became very useful tools for bands, as it meant they would no longer have to perform on music shows such as Top of the Pops, as the video could be shown instead. This was particularly very useful for Queen at the time as it meant they would not have to mime to such a complex song, and they would be away on tour at the time of the broadcasting anyway. The ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ video was said to have paved the way for the MTV age.

MTV (music television) was launched in 1981, and marked the point at which music videos went mainstream. MTV was a 24 hour channel of which played music videos throughout the day for viewers to watch. Artists took note and realized the success that could be had from this form of outlet, and so therefore the music video became a vital ingredient in helping promote an artist. With the ability to create a seductive appeal to a video an artist could gain popularity, as Madonna was said to with her sexy and appealing look. Many people had different opinions of this new phenomenon, both positive and negative. Lots saw it as an ingenious, amazing new era in music, whilst others saw it as the end of real talent in music. This was based on the ideal that viewers may be swayed be the image of the artist or the appealing video rather than the actual quality and effort of the song.

For a long time, music videos were mostly cheap and simple to produce, meaning that pretty much any artist could have a go at creating one. The bar for these videos was shot skywards however, upon the release of the video for Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. The video cost a whopping $500,000, which at the time was a huge cost. It revolutionized the spending artists were prepared to make upon production of a video, as many artists began to spend similar amounts to make the most appealing and high budget video possible. The different concepts of the video, the horror film like feel, the chilling voiceover and the choreographed dancing were all iconic features, of which have helped shape the way in which many videos are developed today.