AOB1 - History Of Music Video

History of the Music Video

The 1930’s marked the beginning of music videos, minus the typical conventions we associate with them today, but with similarities such as eccentric dance routines to music which lasted roughly 3 minutes long. The ‘Soundies’ were an early version of the music video produced in New York, Chicago and Hollywood between 1940 and 1946, with the last group released in March 1947. They were displayed on Panoram’s, coin-operated jukebox’s which appeared in nightclubs, bars, restaurants, factory lounges, and amusement centres. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (commonly known as MGM) produced big budget films which, although not being conventional music videos or ‘soundies’, contributed to shaping music videos into what they are today.

The 1950’s brought the first colour TV transmission, and ‘rock and roll films’ such as ‘Blackboard Jungle’ and ‘Jailhouse Rock’. Controversy was caused as the classification of ‘teenager’ was brought on by the imitation of the behaviour shown in these films, and the culture surrounding them. Adolescent teens were given their own fashion and music, however, on screen behaviour resulted in them rioting and ripping up theatre seats.

Music videos as we know them today were first brought to us by The Beatles, with their video for ‘Strawberry Fields’. This was inspired by Top of the Pops, who used to play short video clips recorded by a band or artist to accompany the playing of a track when they were unable to make an appearance on the show. These were very basic and with an extremely low budget.  The 1970’s brought us the start of the modern music video, and gave us one of the greatest videos of all time, Queens ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Unlike today, the only effects were achieved by camera tricks rather than post-production editing techniques. The producer and crew had a budget of just £3500 to work with and the video was also filmed in just three hours, which is nothing compared to the time and money that would be spent today. Music videos were widely unaccepted at this time, as people believed that it took something away from the music and that it was just a ‘fad’ that would soon pass by.

The 1980’s brought us a new trend within music videos, in the form of intertextual reference. This was usually in the form of imitating popular films such as Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ imitating Westside Story, Queen’s ‘Radio Gaga’ imitating Metropolis and Tupac’s ‘California Love’ imitating Mad Max. This trend still continues today, with a good example being Katy Perry’s ‘Last Friday Night’ and the film ‘She’s All That’ which is directed by Robert Iscove. The music video has been structured similarly to the film: a stereotypical ‘geeky’ girl with glasses, who admires a ‘popular’ boy in school, with the outcome being that they fall in love with each other. There is a clear bond between the music video and the film, which allows the audience to reinforce and expand the meaning of the music video, almost transforming it into a short film.

Former Monkee Michael Nesmith completely revolutionised the history of music video in 1981, by creating MTV (music television) which would be a television channel dedicated to the play of music videos, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Buggles ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ was the first music video to be broadcast on MTV when it went live on August 1^st at 12:01am. Three years later it was recognised that business had become revolved around making music videos, and that money was needed to be made off them. This ended an era of unpredictable, free and creative music videos which previously existed. The growing demand for music videos from artists resulted in image becoming seeming more important than actual music and talent, and it was clear that MTV had impacted the music industry in a way that was irreversible. “Music videos (were now) advertisements for lifestyles” – Laurie Anderson.

One of the most successful artists at this time, who gained fame through music videos, was Madonna. She showed that fame could be achieved through creating an image, via music video, which would otherwise have been achieved through touring and radio play (most probably over a much longer time scale). The rock genre was a late comer to the music video trend, partially due to the fact that these artists believed it was a promotion of image rather than raw talent, and possibly because characteristics of the genre is to ‘rebel’ or to be alternative. However once the success took over, there was a lot of pressure from record labels for artists of all genres to start creating music videos.

After the fascination and novelty of music videos started to wear off, artists wanted to push boundaries and create controversy and uproar. The first music video to be banned was ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Phenomenal public outrage was causes by the highly homoerotic themes, which resulted in the video being banned from television completely. This then caused more interest in the video leading to its huge success. Other artists then caught on to this, such as The Prodigy with ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ and Madonna with ‘Justify My Love’ and they then tried to gain more success through ‘shock value’.