History of Music Videos

History of Music Videos

c1900 - Edison invents the gramophone in the USA: first shift from music as a solely live and audiovisual experience to recorded audio on various forms of disc

1920s - Fischinger experiments with sound/vision synchronisation on film

1927 - First sound film, The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, USA

1930s - Creation of first ‘soundies’

1939 - Introduction of the Panarom

1940s - Peak period of MGM Hollywood musical

1954 - Elvis Presley records That's All Right (Mama)

1960 -  Scopitone introduced in France

1963 - UK’s first music TV programme, Ready Steady Go (ITV)

1964 - Top of te Pops TV programme begins (BBC). Th Beatles release the film and album A Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester, UK)

1966 - The Monkees’ TV show starts on NBC in the USA

1967 - The Beatles release TV promos for Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever

1975 - Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody (Bruce Gowers)

1977 - Saturday Night Fever (Jogn Badham, USA)

1979 - Buggles: Video Killed the Radio Star (Russel Mulcahy)

1980 - David Bowie: Ashes to Ashes (David Mallet and Davie Bowie)

1981 - Pop Clips on Nickelodeon. MTV starts. Duran Duran: Girls on Film (Kevin Godley and Lol Creme)

1983 - Michael Jackson: Thriller (John Landis). Beginning of Country Music Television (CMT)

1984 - Music Box starts in Europe. MTV Video Music Awards launched.

1985 - VH1 begins. MTV taken over by Viacom. Live Aid

1986 - Dire Straits: Money for Nothing (Steve Barron) is top video.

1987 - MTV-Europe (MTV-E) launched, broadcasting to 1.6m homes. Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer (Stephen Johnson), wins best director award.

1988 - MTV-Europe achieves 3.5m subscribers

1989 - MTV-Europe reaches 6.7m homes. Live broadcast from Moscow Peace Festival. Madonna: Express Yourself (David Fincher), wins best director award.

1990 - Madonna: Vogue (David Fincher), wins best director award. Launch of MTV-Unplugged

1991 - Madonna: Justify My Love (Jean-Baptiste Mondino)

1992 - MTV launches The Real World, a fly-on-the-wall documentary following the lives of seven people sharing a New York loft

1993 - MTV launches TV series Beavis and Butthead

1994 - REM: Everybody Hurts (Jake Scott), wins best director award. Launch of VH1 in UK. Launch of MTV-Europe Music Awards

1997 - MTV UK and Ireland launches as stand-alone channel

1998 - Launch of Celebrity Deathmatch

1999 -Fatboy Slim: Praise You (Spike Jonze), wins best director award

2000 - Launch of Jackass

2001 - Launch of MTV Dance

I thought it would be interesting to look at the time line of music videos. I looked at various different genres to get an overall understanding of the progression of music videos as time went on.

1930s:

1930s was the era of the big bands and music was up beat and grand.

Videos were shot in black and white as the technology was basic and colour film was unavailable. The first music video is of the band playing their instruments. The camera work often uses zoom to slowly zoom in and out of long shots and mid shots regularly. There are various two shots, close ups of musicians playing instruments, and low angle shots to show the importance and authority of these players. The set is basic there is a plain background and the video is filmed in a studio. There is an element of comedy through the facial expressions of the musicians. There are leafless trees in the background matched with the shadows of the trees and the musicians which signifies there is a dark side to the music.

1940s:

Unlike in the video from the 1930s this video is of a female singer, Judy Garlard. The main focus of the video was Garlard.

Just as previous this music video was shot in black and white due to the undeveloped technology. Garlard is wearing a glamorous floor length gown that is not revealing. She is stood performing to a live audience and is accompanied by a band. This shows that a grand live band was a common theme in music video between the 30s and 40s. The video opens with a mid shot and then cuts to an establishing shot, this shows the audience that she is the main focus of the video and that she is that artist the song is by and then the establishing shot is to give the audience an idea of where the video is set and the theme and genre of the video. The establishing shot makes it obvious that this is a middle class video due to the mise-en-scene as the costumes are 'posh' and look expensive suggesting they are wealthy. Also having a band play at what is being portrayed as a sophisticated party would not be a regular occurrence at a working class party. The video shows Garlard singing along with the song and performing. She makes small and simple dance moves as she moves around the space as the camera tracks.

1960s:

The 1960s brought us The Beatles. The Beatles' genre of music is very different to music in the past, it was the beginning of rock music and The Beatles had fans all over the world in hysteria. Many of their videos are very simplistic and just feature the band performing.

In the 1960's it was not uncommon to see The Beatles dressed in smart, fitted suits and simply performing in their music videos. Music videos usually represent an 'image' for the artist. In the video for Twist and Shout the band look sophisticated and gentlemanly which was appealing to their large fan base of young women. 

As The Beatles brought the music industry the first real element of rock music as a genre, the importance of the artists playing there instruments was particularly played on. Various close ups on guitars etc is common throughout the video for Twist and Shout. This type of shot has been used in music videos since the 1930's and as music videos of 'big bands' included frequent close ups on the instruments and this was more of a focus than the artists themselves.

One must of a music video is to include close ups. This is important for an artist to do in their music videos in terms of their marketing. It allows their faces to to be seen which makes them more recognisable to the public making them a more successful artist and celebrity. As The Beatles had a huge fan base these close up shots of their faces were what their primary audience of young women went crazy for.

1964:

In 1964 Diana Ross and The Supremes were very popular. 'Baby Love' was their second of 12 number one singles.  The Supremes were one of the first Black American girl groups to climb to the top of the charts.

At this point music videos were still being shot in black and white as the technology to film in colour was still not available. There is no storyline to this video just the artist performing the song. The video shows the tree women stood performing throughout the video wearing classy dresses and jewellery with large sophisticated up do's. There dance moves were minimalistic and mainly just swayed with the music. The women were represented as classy and angelic.

The video uses a panning motion through out to capture the video from different angles. It also zooms while panning to allow a continuous shot to move from a long shot to a medium two shot.

1966:

The music video for 'Wild Thing' by The Troggs is the first video I've looked at so far which has a beginning of a (kind of) storyline as they move locations by walking through a door from a room to an underground train station platform. The band perform in both locations.

The video uses extreme long shots which puts the focus on the location of the video. This sees music videos take a more artistic approach.

1967:

The music video for Penny Lane by The Beatles includes mainly conceptual clips rather than all performance clips that have been used in all the videos that I have previously looked at. The is the first video on the time line to be filmed in colour. The video tries to be artistic by showing The Beatles riding around on horses and drinking tea (not at the same time, obviously).

Despite the video not being soley focused on the artist themselves and including shots of London buses etc the video still includes the required close ups.

Another video also by The Beatles is Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. The video does not feature the band themselves but cartoon versions of the band. The video is bight and colourful and very different to the earlier videos by The Beatles which only included performance clips of them performing to a small adoring crowd.

1974:

In 1974 Abba released Waterloo. Great song... not so great video. The video is mainly performance clips with the band stood still and look quite awkward and not very confident and it quite uncomfortable to watch. The video also includes brief clips of conceptual clips of a statue head. There are fast paced up cuts between  close ups of the band members and the statue.

Their outfits could not be more iconographic of the 1970's if they tried. The colourful and eccentric clothing contrasts the plain white set the mise en scene signifies to the audience that the artists are stand out artists and bring something different to the music industry. There genre of music is pop.

The trend of having a focus on the instruments within music videos is still applied for the Waterloo music video. This is done through different angles like close ups of guitars this shows that even though the genre of the music is pop, the music is still important and this is shown through the close ups of the instruments.

1979:

Video Killed The Radio Star is a song about the increased popularity of music videos and the decrease of radio popularity.

The video uses special effects to combine conceptual clips with performance clips. In this part of the music video there is a mid-close up performance clip edited in black and white over a long shot conceptual clip  which is in colour.

There is still a focus on musical instruments in the video. The use of a low angle shot shows the importance of the music.

1983:

Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want To Have Fun includes a lot of cheesy very 80's editing styles with transitions between shots swishing about in a pink bubble. 

This shows that the editing software available was improving but editing such as this could only be acceptable for cheesy pop songs in the 80's.

1984:

Madonna's Material Girl is one of the first videos that I looked at when creating this time line which uses an editing technique which is most common in music videos we see today. There is face paced editing including various different angles and jump cutting to each angle to the next. This type of editing is used in most genres of music video especially pop and dance music as it is edited to the beat of the track. There are occasional swipes and other types of transitions used in this video but this song is from the 80's and that's a good enough excuse if any.

1991:

The music video for Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana uses mise en scene to link the lyrics of the song to the music video. The video is set in what looks to be a dingy school gym, iconography is used here so that the audience assume this through the use of basketball hoops in the background of shots and cheerleaders often in the foreground.

Different angles are used and are cut together but do not necessarily run consecutively. In terms of editing fast paced jump cuts are used to go from one shot to the next.

1996:

Wannabe by Spice Girls appears to be shot in one shot. The video follows the girls around a middle class party whilst they cause havoc. Different camera angles are achieved by the band moving close to the camera and the camera panning and zooming.

1997:

The video for Barbie Girl by Aqua uses different settings and locations, outfits etc and edits them together which means that the footage we see is not happening in real time and consecutively, this is show obviously by the change in costume, location and the people in the shot but also by over the top editing including every type of swipe you can imagine. You'd expect nothing less for bubble gum pop about Barbie's. This is the first video I have looked at which has used the technique of using different locations at once, this is a common feature you see in music videos today.

1999:

The video for Britney Spears' Baby One More Time backs the theory that music videos are made from the perspective of men. In the video the girls are dancing provocatively wearing a 'sexy school girl' costume which is a disturbing fantasy many men have. The video plays on this fantasy which would give the video more popularity.

2001:

The video for Bootylicious could be viewed as being full of girl power as the lyrics suggest that men aren't good enough for them while attractive topless men dance around them. However the video could also be seen as being made from the perspective of men because the band is wearing exposing clothing and dancing provocatively. 

Another video from 2001 is Da Funk by Daft Punk

This video is very interesting as there is no performance at all in this video which is common for dance music videos these days. The footage is captured in real time and the clips follow consecutively.

2004:

This video for Call On Me by Eric Prydz is famous for the women in (very little) gym clothing. The women are thrusting around clearly made for the viewing of men. As a woman it makes me uncomfortable to watch women parading around like that for the viewing of men on such a large scale because that's what has become a common theme in music videos.

2005:

The video for Buttons by The Pussycat Dolls takes the provocative dancing seen in the previous videos on the time line to a whole new level. The dancing has become extremely sexual and sees the band dancing wearing very little clothing on chairs and bars. Definitely supporting the theory that music videos are made from the perspective of men.

2011:

This video for 'Sweat' by Snoop Dogg is completely ridiculous. It's just shots of scantily clad women fallen all over themselves for Snoop Dogg and feeding him grapes and many other things that I'm not too sure they'd do if they were not being paid to be in this video. This is seen the be the 'dream' from some men but it completely disrespects women and it's disgraceful that they willingly took part in this video. Music videos have become overly sexualised.

2012:

The controversial video by Rihanna - Pour It Up got a lot of complaints about how sexual the content is and was banned just 10 minutes after it was released. The video is available for 18+ viewing. The women in the video are wearing G-Strings and 'bras' which do not cover much at all, these women are pole dancing and twerking around a pole.

In the video Rihanna is seen grinding on the chair wearing basically nothing at all with her legs wide open which is suggestive. Again this video was made from the eye of males.

2013:

In 2013 the video for Blurred Lines was one of the most talked about things around and was extremely controversial. The video saw three women wears skin colours tiny knickers and literally nothing else. They were parading around dancing for the male artists with their breasts out. This draws the idea where is the line for what is acceptable to be shown in music videos.

Similarly with Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball in 2013

The video sees an emotional Miley Cyrus crying on a big close up shot then contrasted with her completely naked swinging around on a wrecking ball and suggestively licking hammers.

2014:

This music video for Sia's Chandelier I find quite disturbing as this is an eleven year old girl dancing around in a costume designed to make her look naked to a song about drinking alcohol. This just emphasises the level of negative influence music videos with such content which is commonly seen in music videos these days. Also in close up shots of the girls face she appears to be wearing a noticeable amount of make up which I think is also inappropriate for such a young girl which is setting a bad example and suggests that she needs to wear make up to look beautiful which is not the case.