The History of
Music Videos
A general conception surrounds the era of pop in the 1950’s
that followed the trends of pop culture between Western civilisation to be the
beginning of the music video; whilst this ear did bring forth new genres of
music and new, innovative technologies for broadcasting and viewing, music
videos had relatively began some 30 years earlier. The 1950’s however, is the
starting point to where an economy, sparked by music performers, can be seen.
Time Line of Music
Videos
Generally, before the 1960’s, music video’s had been little
more than live recordings of a group or band playing – more so, the new fashion
of fresh rock music – that had eventually progressed into a sequence (with
little editing) of one live performance, multiple performances or even live
performances combined with rehearsal shots; this is what eventually developed
into promo’s for TV when a band could not be there. By the 1960’s, the likes of
The Beatles (UK) and The Monkees (USA) brought about a shift in music video
styles: more editing was beginning to be used, narrative sequence closely
relating to lyrics was sublimated, and from The Monkees particularly, an
exploration in abstract and surrealism cinematography (with which they also
explored live performances and comedy). For the next 20 years, music videos
followed this fashion of narrative styled videos, following along to the song
lyrics and style of music, by the 1970’s it quickly became established that
different genres of music had very different conventions more so to the appeal
of ‘image’ for the female artists. By 1980, there began a shift again when companies
realised a music video could relatively ‘sell’ a single, and therefore began to
input more budget, by 1985, special effects were beginning to be explored and
have been improved to such a date. Whilst post 2010 follows narrative music
videos, combined with live shots of the artist or band, or even mined singing,
editing has become more complex in terms of sequences and special effects;
however image is just as important as ever.
Just as the newly introduced ideal of narrative, videos
still operate as ‘fantasies’ structured around the music, yet fewer limitations
have been found on the extents of particular music artists or genre’s, making
individualism and trends two different things; however, from the 1960’s, the
ideal of marketing and ‘promo’ have remained nearly the same.
Pre-1950
Although the realisation of the power behind the music video
appeared in the 1930’s, there were notably earlier stages of cinematography
that toyed with the idea of visual video and music combining as one. In the
1920’s and 1930’s, Oscar Fischinger was one of these few individuals to begin
to explore synchronisations and visual interpretations, creating abstract
videos until his work later developed into the Disney film, Fantasia
(1939). The earliest example of an open screen of experimental cinematography
or very early music videos is ‘The Panarom’, which played pre-set, looping videos
in a disturbing sense of colour; whilst thousands of the screen projection was
sold with different ranges of pre-set music videos through 1939 until 1946,
until it was challenged by the television.
Post 1950’s
The major music video break through truly began on the
arrival of television and broadcasting channels in the 1950’s. Television
coverage of pop music from the 50’s is the main conception of where and when
music videos came into appeal, yet as the teenage audience in America and
slowly worldwide began to change towards the 1960’s to new genre styles, the
importance of airing pre-recorded live performances known as ‘promos’ became
increasingly popular; this was more so cortical for chart based shows (several
famous bands were known to do this, such as The Beetles and The Who). It wasn’t
until towards the end of the 60’s that other artists and directors began to
experiment with the style of music videos – at this point, all music videos had
been live recordings or ‘promos’ – and slowly, narrative had been the new
innovation to music video. The Monkees (USA) for example, experimented with
narrative, conventions, comedy, performance and most of all, surrealism; with
new artists looking at different methods of music videos, and re-exploring cinematography,
videos slowly began to take on an artist’s form. Within a brief few years,
abstract had also been introduced.
From the success of ‘promos’ and television chart shows,
programming became more influential and by the 70’s and 80’s, cable and new shows
were being introduced worldwide however it wasn’t until the idea was run to
create a channel which ran constant music, aimed to attract young audiences; up
until then, showing ‘promos’ or music videos, had not yet found the success to
make its money back, however with having one network constantly running music
videos for popular programming, all that became an issue was paying back
royalties. New networks that set up after that point often made a profit within
the first month. Thus, MTV became a large hit, broadcasted from Warner
satellite feed in 1981 was a huge success in America and eventually made it to
Europe by the late 80’s.
From the 80’s, image began to dominate what music videos
were funded and aired on music networks. Shortly however, it quickly became
clear that a white dominance act had established itself on most networks and
whilst Michael Jackson’s Thriller and
Bad was the only work aired by a black
artist until the very end of the 80’s. This had been occurrence of target
audience, convention and genre style as most works produced by black artists
was generally rap music which had caused demographics in viewing. Eventually
they were called out for ‘’blatant racism’’. This was the influence of image;
however it was also shown for female artists and for Madonna particularly,
allowed her to find great success in single sales of her songs through a medium
of close-ups and suggestive shots.
Hitting the midpoint of the 1980’s, special effects were
beginning to be used in music videos. Produced from the British studio ‘Aardman
Animation’ Peter Gabriel’s song ‘Sedgehammer’ was one of the very first music
videos to explore the new avenue of image, conventional appearance as well as
the new possibilities of narrative. From this point on, a gradual increase of
special effects was being used in music videos and post 2005, found a steady
up-climb to including special effects into pop music video conventions.
In 1995 came the largest budgeted music video to date: Michael
Jackson’s Scream. Costing $7 million
to produce, this the largest amount spent on a music video and has a notable lengthy
run time, however other artists have come close in terms of budget, the ‘image’
idol Madonna, had produced to her song Bedtime
Story, which cost $5 million in production. The 90’s brought in music video’s
using larger budgets, but also brought about the expansion of its influence as
MTV spread to India and Mandarin over the decade.
Post 2000
Whilst the methods of media was slowly being introduced to
the rapid growth of new technologies in 2000, there was relatively nothing that
shifted the art of the music video until 2005, when YouTube was launched which
suddenly opened up the ability for everything with an internet capable device
and internet, to watch any and all music videos available – immediately,
sharing sparked, jumping through other vide and social networking websites.
Immediately, artists could see the immediate success they could find with a
wider base of viewers that extended worldwide. 2008 was the real flourish to
this success however as Weezer’s video Pork
and Beans slammed attention from online viewers through the likes of pop
culture celebrities selected from the website itself – immediately the success
put Weezer at the top of their career and into charts. From this point on
however, and since Google’s merger with YouTube, a debate has sparked between
the concepts of music videos on YouTube to be a product or advertisement – in recent
years however, the ideal of advertisement and marketing has appealed further.
30 Seconds to Mars’ music video Kings and Queens proved the marketing appeal of the power of social
websites in 2009; upon the releasing day of the song, the video was uploaded to
YouTube where it received over one hundred million views – ultimately resulting
it to maintain a featured spot in the iTunes Store and charts for a week.
Returning back to artistic style however, the video differs little more than
earlier established music videos, the form adopted by Rock artists changes
between staged performance and a narrative sequence, altering between shot
types and more so image representation in the video, there was nothing sceptically
new about the video, rather it was its sheer success that created an increasing
tangent of music videos forming a basis for marketing singles or albums. By
2010, Lady Gaga’s music video Bad Romance
made headlines after becoming the most viewed video on YouTube, massively
rocketing the video, single, album and artist popularity; later in 2011, this
record was broken by Justin Bieber’s song Baby
which received 660 million views. Whilst it is obvious that social sharing
and viral marketing aids the reception for the artist themselves, not much is
changing relatively speaking of the actual music videos themselves but the technological,
easier and generally better presented methods that is now widely accessible;
what is obvious however, is the return of pop music as a favoured style as in
the 1950’s.
There may be a clear evolution of ‘the music video’ and the
artistic advancements it has taken over the past 9 decades has influenced
culture as a whole, however in recent years the styles or advancements of such
have not really changed – instead of being ‘promos’ or an addition to a rock
bands album, music videos have become a marketing technique which explores
narrative, content, image, representation and conventions to better promote the
artists and sales, or as the 30 Seconds to Mars music video This Is War suggests, publicize a mass
message to a worldwide audience. Whilst there is deeper meaning, there is also
another dimensional exploration to the artist’s fantasies and ultimately a
stronger recognition of cinematography.
