HISTORY OF MUSIC VIDEOS

• A music video is clip or short film which accompanies a piece of music (a song).

• Music videos now are used mainly for promotional reasons i.e. to promote an artist and their new song.

• This can create major success to the artist as it helps them to go ‘global’ (reaching viewers across the globe), for example Justin Bieber putting his video on the sharing site Youtube and going global.

What is a music video?

Why are music videos used?

Early examples of music videos…• In 1894, the first music video was produced by sheet

music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern who hired electrician George Thomas and various other performers to promote sales of their song "The Little Lost Child"

• Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances by using a magic lantern.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Who6fTHJ34

Early examples of music videos…• Another example of a music video occurred in 1929. This

consisted of Bessie Smith singing St Louis Blues throughout the video.

• This music video illustrates the major changes to how a music video is produced and edited in the 21st century in comparison to the late 1800’s to the 1900’s.

• For example the camera is very shaky in this video and also the is only in black and white whereas now, the camera is completely still and the video can be watched in a range of formats and is shown in full colour.

• This is the link to Bessie Smiths music video

More recent examples of music videos…

The Buggles- Video Killed A Radio Star

This music video was released in 1979. It was the first music video to be shown on the American music channel MTV at 12:01 pm on the 1st of August 1981.

Jay Kay- Virtual Insanity

Jay Kay performed his music video live at the MTV awards 1997, recreating the official video. At the 1997 MTV awards he was nominated for ten awards and won four of them for his song Virtual Insanity. This included ‘Break through video’ and ‘Best video of the year’.

Timeline for ‘History of music videos’

1926-1959: Talkies, sounds and shorts.

1960-1973:Promotional clips and others.

1974-1980:The beginning ofmusic television.

1981-1991:Music videos go mainstream.

1992-2004:The rise of the directors.

2005-present:The internet becomes music video friendly.