History of the music video.

History of the music video.

Kelly Nicholls.

Music videos represent a crucial part of the music industry and its history.  Most or all artists owe their careers to music videos as they are being given the chance of impressing the public with not just their vocal talent, but also with their looks or dance moves. A music video is a short film clip that uses both song and imagery as a promotional tool for the artist. Modern day music videos use a range of techniques such as animation and can often take the form of documentaries, such as The Beatles in their mock documentary ‘A hard day’s night’ in 1964. Before music videos, feature films were used to view the artist and to see them perform, and The Beatles are considered the first to use this technique. During this time, the band had reached a status that no other group had reached before and were a worldwide phenomenon, and were one of the few artists such as Bob Dylan that actually wrote their own music. It was not possible for them to perform for the masses of people that came to their concerts, so they used the feature films to perform the songs instead.  An anti-realist narrative was used throughout the documentary and was segmented with music clips. This style was then the base for many of the future music videos and inspired the American TV series ‘The Monkees’ which aired 1966- 1968.                                                                                                                     After the success of ‘A hard day’s night’, (filmed in black and white and consisting of hardly any editing or cinematography) followed their 1965 film ‘Help!’ that was filmed in colour and shot in numerous London and international locations. Even in the short space of time between the feature films, it’s easy to see that the technique had been developed and the feature film had grown in importance.

The modern day music video is considered to have been born in 1975 with Queen’s ‘Bohemian rhapsody’ that was made to be aired on Top of the pops and cost £4000, which is a miniscule amount compared to the hundreds of thousands or even millions that are spent on current day videos. Two of the videos that are most famous for being two of the three most expensive music videos of all time are Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream" which cost $7 million to produce, and Madonna's "Bedtime Story" which cost $5 million. "Scream" is still the most expensive video ever made. In 1981, the American video channel MTV was launched and thus began the age of 24-hour music television. They launched the channel with the video, "Video Killed the Radio Star."  From then on videos became an important part in marketing an artist, with singers such as Madonna using them to not only promote her song, but to promote her ever-changing image.                                                                                             From 1992, MTV began listing it’s producers and directors of music videos  and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors such as Spike Jonze and Hype Williams all got their start around this time; all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed. Some of these directors, including, Gondry, Jonze and F. Gary Gray, went on to direct feature films. This continued a trend that had begun earlier with directors such as Lasse Hallström and David Fincher.

                                                                                                                                        Through the years, music videos have changed from being mainly an artist performing to focusing on the song or narrative used. For example, David Bowie’s ‘Space oddity’ in 1972 consists mainly of the artist on a guitar, with few special effects used. The video is repetitive and used the same dissolves in every sequence to show the mixing board, which is supposed to be new technology which in turn relates to the song. This contrasts with the recent Fatboy Slim single ‘Right here right now’ that has no appearance of the artist whatsoever, and focuses on the narrative of evolution and the song itself.  The Fatboy Slim video therefore goes against the conventions of the music video form as there are no close ups of the artist and therefore not promoting the person.

After the development of Napster, ( a music sharing service – peer to peer), 2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier; Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook and MySpace's video functionality, which uses similar technology. Websites like theses had a profound  effect on the artist’s popularity, and most realised that in order to be successful, they must have a successful music video. This is still used to market and distribute those who cannot afford the promotional material that most major labels can, such as bands or artists that are signed to indie labels, and gives niche audiences the chance to see music videos that they would not normally see on mainstream music television. The band OK Go may exemplify this trend, having achieved fame through the videos for two of their songs, "A Million Ways" in 2005 and "Here It Goes Again" in 2006, both of which first became well-known online. (OK Go repeated the trick with another high-concept video in 2010, for their song "This Too Shall Pass".) Artists like Soulja Boy Tell 'Em and Marié Digby also achieved some level of fame initially through videos released only online. The success of the music video on the internet can also be seen in Lady GaGa’s video ‘Bad romance’ on Youtube which became the most viewed video on the music streaming site, receiving a colossal 130 million views. This was later beaten by Justin Beiber’s ‘Baby’.