History of Music Videos

Music videos have evolved massively as a result of the growth of both television and the music industry in the past 50 years or so. The very first form of the music video began in the 1920's with the veta phone  and spooney melodies. with short extracts of films being extracted and accompanied by a particular song or jazz piece. The establishment of the commercial radio in the 1930's  was the first time in which music could reach a large audience, and during the war years music by artists such as Vera Lynn was able to manipulate and uplift a broken Britain and keep the spirits up of the people as well as maintaining the Dunkirk spirits. From then on the radio became a key aspect of broadcasting music and has continued right up to the present day with radio music representing a massive 40% of the way in which a global audience listens to music daily with radios still being used in the car, home and on line.

The definition of a music video is ' a short film which accompanies a song, they are produced for either promotional or artistic purposes'. The 1960's saw the first modern form of music video with the creation of one of the most recognisable pop groups of all time 'the Beatles' Their music video 'hard days night' is probably the earliest form of what we would now call a modern music video. It was produced in 1964 and directed by Richard Lester and depicts the boys from the Beatles as ordinary and relatable. This convention is still highly used today as it allows the audience to connect better with the artist and see that they are just having fun and appeal to a wide audience. The video from a short film had a big influence on the music industry and paved the way for similar bands such as 'The monkees' to begin producing their own music videos largely because of the amount of audience appeal and commerical benefits the Beatles received, as the song and video was able to be branded together therefore making more profit. 

Queen at the start of Bohemian Rhapsody

British TV programme 'Top of the pops' began to influence the world of music further in the 1970s where a top 40 chart used to showcase the most popular music on a weekly basis. Artists aimed to be shown on this programme as it would massively increase sales of a song to the viewer, and the audience would hope to see the audience the following week if the song was still in the charts. This led for popular rock bands such as 'queen' to produce iconic music videos such as 'Bohemian Rhapsody' which again proved to be a vital tool for making the song a success and influence a greater number of people. Music videos shown on television continued to grow in popularity throughout the 1980's as a way in which an audience, TV channels specifically designed to showcase music such as MTV in particular was aimed towards a younger audience who could connect with the songs and for the artist ultimately give the musician better sales.

By far the most iconic and expensive music videos was for Michael Jackson's song 'thriller', this 13 minute long film was released in 1983 and cost a massive 7 million dollars to produce. The video itself was eagerly anticipated for weeks and shown all over the world late at night in order not to scare and frighten minors because of its explicit and for the time scary scenes. This only anticipated the release of the song 

further and made the production of thriller more exciting and generated more money for the record label. The groundbreaking video has won Grammies, and the technologies at the time were used to realistically recreate gore and shock the audience which ultimately were taken in by the music video and then went and bought the song making top of the charts around the world for a long time. Michael Jackson then went on to create the most expensive music video to date 'scream' which was created in 1995 and cost an amazing $12 million dollars to create. The lack of special effects at the time meant that all the effects had to be made by hand, with the model of the space craft being crafted without the aid of advanced computer technology. For the time the video was incredible with the scenes looking very futuristic and completely extraordinary.

Music videos now have became one of the major and most recognisable ways in which an artist can relate and sell themselves and there music to the public. The creation of digital media such as smart phones, youtube, and websites such as 'vevo' have only made the medium of music videos excel further. The changes in music videos and the more accessible they have become in the present day is manipulated by the music industry as they know they can target a much bigger audience and make a lot more gross profit by creating further anticipation from the release of music videos, and then stream them on line. Advertising is also used in music videos now with certain products paying millions to be featured in a world famous artists music video. Social media sites such as twitter enable the release of a music video to be heightened further with fans of an artist tweeting and blogging about the video to get it trending on line and allowing it to reach a larger audience this is encouraged by the music industry who can promote the video further and the record label can make more money from it. Music videos now are completely diverse and can use extreme amounts of special effects thanks to the advances in technologies. This is the main difference regarding the changing music videos of the last 50 years. The more technology available with special effects and CGI being used frequently, means that unlike in the 80's and 90's budgets for music videos has actually gone down allot, with iconic videos nowadays being created cheaper because of the technology and green screen technology that is readily available for a much cheaper price.

To conclude ultimately technology is changing. and special effects and changes in the music video will only evolves and trends we are seeing today in the music industry. The production of music videos for world artists is timely and expensive, this combined with the information on social media has made the viewing of music videos much quicker as world wide audiences can count down the release and view the video of they're favourite artist online. Music channels such as MTV still showcase a variety of music which again adds to the success of the song, and appeal to the target audiences. Music videos have changed massively over the years with popular genres evolving over time and different trends in style and music videos changing with it. The changing music videos now appeal to a variety of conventions from Goodwin's theory such as the portrayal and sexualisation of females, according to genre and this only adds to the success of the artist and the music industry. Collaborations within music videos also makes a video more popular when two world artist's come together this combines the target audience and fans of the artist who are intrigued too see two iconic musicians perform together. In conclusion music videos will change further yet one important factor remains. Music videos have always and will always have the primary purpose of advertising both the artist, song and record label which will give more profit to the record label and its subsidiary companies with the most talked about videos generating the most money.

Beyonce and Lady Gaga perform
in the iconic video 'Telephone'