The History of Music Videos

What is a music video?

• A music video is a short film that accompanies a song, usually produced for either promotional or artistic purposes. The majority of modern day music videos have been produced to boost sales of the song. By the 1980s it became a regular thing for a song to have a music video. These days most music videos focus on different things, some have a short narrative that relates to the lyrics, it can just be random with little relevance to the song or it can also be a live performance of the song.

How it started

Muic videos developed from “talkies” which started in 1926. In the early 1930’s this developed into cartoons which were accompanied by music, which segments of the video showing the artist performing the song. As they became more popular they challenged small time film makers by giving them the opportunity to develop new ideas and create something original.

Modern Day Music Videos

• These days the most important part of music videos is the editing and recording. As technology has rapidly progressed, producers have to ability to use more effects, transitions and better quality equipment, therefore they can produce higher quality videos.

Music Videos and Television

• As music videos greatly developed, so has television to create channels such as MTV which were dedicated to the broadcasting of music videos, boosting the publicity and fame of stars like Madonna and Duran Duran. MTV has contributed greatly to the success of music videos, for example Michael Jackson’s “Scream” music video got a record of $7 million.

Budgeting

• As music videos were becoming more extravagant, obviously they were also becoming more expensive. Film directors started becoming involved with the production of music videos, for example George Michael and Madonna had videos created by the director of Fight Club and Se7en, David Fincher.

• After the development of MTV, several internet sites came around for the promotion of music, such as Youtube, iTunes and Facebook. Artists such as Justin Bieber and Lily Allen achieved fame through publicising their music on the internet, Bieber on Youtube and Lily Allen on MySpace. This is a common way for aspiring artists to promote themselves as due to the recent advances in technology it has enabled people to create music videos with minimal cost and effort.

The present day

• When looking back at the first music videos, its not hard to see how they’ve developed. Artists such as Kanye West and Lady Gaga have turned the concept of a music video from a visual accompaniment to music to a short film, for example Lady Gaga’s music video “Telephone” has a duration of 7 and a half minutes, and Kanye West directed a short film “Runaway” which last 35 minutes.

• Due to the amount of television channels now showing music videos, it is not unusual to see extravagant, spectacular videos with high budgets and a lot of effort put in. With songs sung by female artists, the majority of them are dressed provocatively and objectify themselves to make it more enjoyable for the viewer, as the video has become equally important as the song itself.