History of music video
A music video is known as a short film that often shows a story or narrative in conjunction with the piece of music. Music videos have revolutionised the music industry ever since the supposed first music video release around 1929. Often referred to as promos or promotional videos, music videos frequently involve the advertisement of products. I will discuss the revolution of the music video throughout the last century.
The 1929 music video.
Compared to the modern music videos, this was more of a short film. The 1929 short sound film of St. Louis Blues starred Bessie Smith. The video features a woman being left alone by a man. This was shown in theatres around the conutry until 1932.
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Post 1960.
This is when the Beatles began to take their toll. They used their popularity and film to increase their reputation even more. They starred in a number of features such as 'Help'.
Post 1950's.
This was the time of the introduction of the juke box. These jukeboxes would play short 3 minute long films that involved dance and music in particular, called soundies. These were frequently played in bars, clubs and pubs. Also around this time was the introduction of promos. The first promo was created in 1957 by Tony Bennett.
1970 onwards.
The UK is affected mssively by the introduction of weekly TV show 'Top of the Pops'. This was shown every saturday morning on the BBC, showing new pop music along with their music videos.
1981.
This is when MTV was introduced. This is a music television channel that shows the latest music and the videos. This made more people aware of the music videos with the songs.
Massive breakthrough in 1982.
This massive breakthrough in the music video industry seemed to shake the indusrty up as it was completely different to any others. Michael Jackson's 1982 release 'Thriller', one of his most famous songs involved a particualrly long and different music video. The video involved a spefic narrative. The Thriller itself cost around $500,000 to make, revolutionising the market as one of the most expensive in history.
Debate.
Particularly with the recent and modern music videos, they have created a number of heated disscussions with their provocative nature and appearing to 'cross the line' in being too explicit. An example of this is the recent Rihanna video 'Work'. This is seen below.
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