Media Timeline
A2 Media Studies
Lauren Barrett

History of the Music Video
DEFINITION: “a music video is a short film
integrating a song and imagery, produced for
promotional or artistic purposes.”
Music videos are primarily used as a marketing
device – to promote the sales of music
recordings.

History of the Music Video
The First Steps:
• 1894
• Sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern.
• They hired an electrician and performers to promote
sales of their song “The Little Lost Child.”
• A magic lantern is an early type of image projector
developed in the 17th century.
• It was used to project a series of still images on a
screen alongside live performances of the song.
• This became a popular form of entertainment known as
the ‘illustrated song’.
• This was the initial development of the Music Video.

History of the Music Video
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1926 - 1959
1926 saw the arrival of “talkies”.
“Talkies” were short sound films incorporating
synchronized dialogue.
Musical short films were starting to be produced with
the arrival of the “talkies”.
In the early 1930’s cartoons began to feature
popular singers and musicians performing their
songs in live-action segments during the cartoons.
Walt Disney’s earlier creations including Silly
Symphonies and Fantasia featured several
interpretations of classical pieces.

History of the Music Video
1926 - 1959
• Then came the introduction of live musical
films, with Blues singer Bessie Smith
appearing in a short film called ‘St. Louis
Blues (1929)’ which featured her
dramatizing the performance of the song
of the same name.
• Then, in the mid 1940’s, musician Louis
Jordan created short films for some of his
songs, which were all the cut together to
create the feature film ‘Lookout Sister’.
• Historian Donald Clarke, has deemed these
films the ‘ancestors’ of music video.

History of the Music Video
1926 - 1959
• Another Important precursor to the
music video were musicals (as in the
film genre).
• Many modern music videos now
Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’
imitate the style of classis Hollywood
music video.
musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s.
• A brilliant example is Madonna’s music
video for ‘Material Girl’ (1985) which
resembled parts of the song
‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’
from the musical film Gentlemen
Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend
performed in Gentlemen Prefer
Prefer Blondes.
Blondes.

History of the Music Video
1960 – 1973:
• Late 1950’s
• In France, the Scopitone, a visual
jukebox, was invented
• Short films by many French artists
were created to accompany the
Scopitone’s songs.
• The short films were shown on a
small screen on the Scopitone whilst
the songs played.

History of the Music Video
1960 – 1973:
• In 1961, music shorts were
produced for the Canadian show
Singalong Jubilee.
• The music was pre-recorded, and
then musicians and actors went onlocation and filmed lip-synching to
the audio, before the footage and
the music were then merged
together.

History of the Music Video
1960 – 1973: THE BEATLES
1964. The Beatles featured in A Hard
Day’s Night, their first feature film. It
was completely shot in black and
white, and was presented as a mock
documentary – a type of film or TV
show where fictional events are acted
out and presented in a documentary
style to create a parody. Both comedic
and dialogues scenes were edited with
shots of musical scenes cut inbetween.
The Monkees (1966-1968) was an
American TV series created in the same
way but to accompany various
Monkees songs.

History of the Music Video
1960 – 1973: THE BEATLES
The Beatles’ second feature film, Help! (1965) was much more
creative and influential to the world of the music video. It was
filmed in colour in both London and various other international
locations. The ‘title track sequence’ was filmed in black and
white, and to this date is arguably one of the prime examples of
modern performance-based music videos, as it employed a
very complex and creative range of shots types and camera
angles.
They also created promotional clips known as ‘filmed inserts’
for the distribution and broadcast of their records in other
countries, to save them time from making personal
appearances. The Beatles finished touring in 1966, and by this
time, their promotional films had become highly sophisticated.

History of the Music Video
1960 – 1973: THE BEATLES
Their third film, Magical Mystery Tour, aired on the
BBC on Boxing Day of 1967, and was completely
written and directed by the group. It was poorly
received at the time, but has since shown the group
to be accomplished music video makers.

History of the Music Video
1960 – 1973:
In the UK, The Kinks made one of the first
narrative-based promo clips for their
single Dead End Street (1966) which
involved a miniature comic movie.
Other key artists during this time were The
Rolling Stones and David Bowie, who both
had clips rejected by the BBC for
distasteful content, starting with footage
based on the drug prosecutions of Mick
Jagger and Keith Richards (The Rolling
Stones) in “We Love You” and the
homosexual themes in Bowie’s “John, I’m
Only Dancing”.

History of the Music Video
1974 – 1980:
The beginnings of music television started in 1974 when
Australian radio DJ, Graham Webb, launched a new TV
music show aimed at teenagers, which became titled
Sounds. He approached several people to shoot film
footage to accompany popular songs for content for his
new show. In total he created a collection of about 25
different clips for the show. The clips were quite
successful, prompting Webb to quit his position on TV
and become a full-time director, creating clips for popular
Australian acts including AC/DC.

History of the Music Video
1974 – 1980: TOP OF THE POPS
The British TV show Top Of The Pops then launched in
1970. The concept was to attempt to increase a song’s
sales through a good music video as viewers would hope
to see it again on the show the following week. During
this time, David Bowie reached number 1 in the charts for
the first time in nearly a decade after the success of his
eye-catching music video for ‘Ashes to Ashes’. Other big
names and music videos during this time included:
•Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
•Pink Floyd The Wall
•The Old Grey Whistle Test

History of the Music Video
1974 – 1980:
Before the launch of MTV came Video Concert Hall (VCH)
in 1979, a television network which simply played music
videos on a continuous rotation.
1980, New Zealand group Split Enz produced a complete
set of promo video clips for each song on their
album, True Colours.
Then, in 1981 the first American video album was
produced by The Tubes; The Completion Backward
Principle.

History of the Music Video
1974 – 1980:
The first real music videos were produced by exMonkee band member Michael Nesmith, who started
creating short musical films for the American
program Saturday Night Live. He then released
Elephant Parts in 1981 which was awarded a Grammy
for the music video. It was the first ever music video
to win a Grammy Award.

History of the Music Video
1981 - 1991:
MTV was then launched in 1981, with
‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ being the
first video to air. With the success of
MTV, the music video became a new
central role into popular music
marketing.
Big names during this period included
Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran and
Madonna.

History of the Music Video
1981 - 1991: TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT
In this time period also came the development of
easy-to-use video recording and editing
equipment, and the development of basic filming
techniques such as image compositing.
Directors and their acts began to explore and expand
the form and style of the genre, using various effects
in their videos and beginning to add plot or storyline
to the footage.
The ‘non-representational’ form of music video came
about in this time, where the music videos didn’t
physically feature the artists themselves.

History of the Music Video
1981 – 1991: THRILLER
•1983
•One of the most iconic and successful music
videos of all time.
•Michael Jackson – Thriller
•Nearly 14 minutes long
•The video set new standards for
production, costing nearly $800,000.
•Jackson’s other music videos including ‘Billie
Jean’ and ‘Beat It’ saw the breakthrough for
African American artists’ music videos on MTV.

History of the Music Video
1981 – 1991: TELEVISION
BREAKTHROUGH
•1983 Country Music Television (CMT)
was launched in America.
•Canada then launched the music channel
MuchMusic in 1984.
•The MTV Video Music Awards were then
launched in 1984 (now known as the
VMA’s).
•MTV launched the channel VH1 in
‘85, with the aim of targeting an older
audience by playing softer, slower music.

History of the Music Video
1981 – 1991: TELEVISION BREAKTHROUGH
•In 1988, MTV also launched Yo! MTV Raps, bringing
hip-hop music to a mass audience for the first time.
•MTV then goes worldwide with MTV Europe
launching in 1987, and MTV Asia in 1991.
•The next big development came with the launch of
The Chart Show on the UK’s Channel 4 in 1986.
•The program consisted of music videos on loop, and
was the only outlet music videos had on British TV at
the time. The show then moved to ITV in 1989.

History of the Music Video
1981 – 1991:
•In 1985, the idea of conceptual-based music videos
started to become popular.
•Dire Straits’ song ‘Money For Nothing’ created a
music video consisting of computer animation.
•Then in 1986, Peter Gabriel’s song ‘Sledgehammer’
had a music video created consisting of computer
animations and special effects, and it went on to win
9 MTV Video Music Awards.

History of the Music Video
1992 - 2004: AUTEUR THEORY
•In 1992, MTV started to list the directors with
the artist and song credits, as music videos
were increasingly becoming ‘an auteur’s
medium’.
•An auteur’s medium, or auteur theory, is the
idea that a film created by a director reflects
the director’s personal creative vision. ‘Auteur’
is derived from the French word for ‘author’.

History of the Music Video
2005 – PRESENT: TAKEOVER OF THE
INTERNET
•iFilm launched in 1997; a website
dedicated to showing short films and
music videos. And Napster, a file-sharing
service which ran between 1999 and 2001
enabled users to upload and share video
files, including footage of music videos.
•During the mid-2000s, MTV began to
reduce the number of music videos they
showed dramatically in favour of reality
television programs which proved more
popular with audiences.

History of the Music Video
2005 – PRESENT: TAKEOVER OF THE
INTERNET
•2005, YouTube is launched, and allows
audiences to view videos online much
faster and easier.
•Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook
and MySpace all used/uses similar
technology.
•These sites had a strong effect on the
viewing of music videos, and some artists
began to see success due to their videos
being seen mostly or entirely online.

History of the Music Video
2005 – PRESENT: WHAT IS THE CORRELATION?
‘Thirty Seconds To Mars’ Example
•The music video for Thirty Seconds To Mars’ single
‘Kings And Queens’ was uploaded to YouTube in 2009.
•It was uploaded the same day as the singles’ release.
•The video has received nearly 20million views on
YouTube alone.
•It also received more than 40million views on
MySpace.
•The video was featured as iTunes music video of the
week and was one of the most downloaded videos to
be featured.
•They also received 4 nominations for MTV Video
Music Awards in 2010 for the video.
•It made them the most nominated rock artist for the
VMA’s in a single year.

History of the Music Video
2005 – PRESENT:
•The Internet has become the primary growth income market for
record company-produced music videos.
•At it’s initial launch, Apple’s iTunes store offered a selection of
music videos for free viewing to be watched via the iTunes
application.
•The iTunes store now sell music videos to be downloaded to and
viewed via Apple products such as the iPod and iPad.
•Apple also list a music video chart showing the weeks most
popular video purchases through iTunes .
•A new music video website, Vevo, was launched by a
collaboration of major music publishers in 2009. Their videos are
automatically linked to YouTube, and they share the advertising
revenue with Google.