History of the music video

Short films that were made to showcase the artist emerged in the early days of sound filmmaking. Films of up to eight minutes were used by artists such as Billie Holiday. These were mainly shown on the forerunner of a jukebox, the Panarom.

It was in the 1960's in France that this idea became popular with the scopitone. This machine provided films in colour and mainly showed song-and-dance performances shot on cheap sound stages or outdoor and usually casted female actors for their attraction. This machine was a success in France and arrived in the US where by mid-1965, around 1000 machines were installed.

The music video began to increase in popularity with the introduction of the musical feature film. And appeared through the MGM musicals of the 1940s and such appearances as Little Richard's in the rock 'n' roll film, The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, USA, 1956), these influenced the style of the music video.

Television was the first to attempt to capture the attention of the teenage audience with pop music from American Band stand in the USA in the 1950's to Top Of The Pops in the 1960's in the UK. This lead to the creation of short promo shows used instead of studio appearances, when the the acts were not available, this signaled a shift from being a touring band to become studio recording artists.

It was in the 1970's that 'serious rock' gained slots on TV such as The Old Grey Whistle Test, many films began to make use of pop and rock artists. Rock began to become increasingly popular and began to dominate radio making it harder for pop groups to break through. TV had also not yet generatedincome to pay for it's own programming, a combination of these factors meant "the time was right for music television".

Over in England British groups usually had their videos played before it was heard on the radio and took advantage of the first years of MTV's existence. Notable successes such as Duran Duran with heir highly budget sexy videos.

MTV grew rapidly in the USA, american artists began to realise the potential of the promo clip and followed n the footsteps of the british. in the early years lead to a domination of white acts and male rock. however there was success for black artists such as Michael Jacksons, Thriller, it was almost a decade before any black artists wrk broke through.

a famous black director lead the way for black artists with such productions with TLC, R Kelly and Missy Elliot. By the late 90's he was commanding budgets of $2 million, this in turn lead to hip-hop effectively replacing rock as the dominant music form. some artists even began to bypass the stage of live performances. Such artists as Madonna, whose videos have always been high profile, she lead a host of female artists who also used music videos to promote their talent.

By the mid-1980s, MTV, now owned by Viacom (major media conglomerate). Viacom was responsible for the shift away from the narrow rock video market, towards a wider range of music genres, which would include rap and indie.

"As this brief history illustrates, while the music promo video is only the most recent (and most successful) development of the fusion between music and image, it, together with MTV and the introduction of the CD, was basically responsible for the revival of the music industry, particularly in improving sales. It established image as a key factor in artist promotion and, by the end of the 1980s, the music video was a prerequisite in the promotion of singles."

(taken from Pete Fraser teaching music video 2005)

Luke