History of Music Videos

1. Luke Chillingsworth

2.  A music video is a short film or video that
accompanies a piece of music, most
commonly a song.
 Modern music videos are primarily used as a
marketing tool for the song in order to
promote sales of the single. They can be
referred to as Promotional Videos.

3.  Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a short
film called Saint Louis Blues released in 1929.
The film featured a dramatized performance
of the song and was shown in theatres until
1932.
 It was also classed as a landmark movie due
to it being one of the first ever “talkies”.

5.  In 1956 Tony Bennett was filmed walking along
The Serpentine in Hyde Park as his song
Stranger in Paradise was played. When the clip
was distributed and played at UK and US TV
Stations. Bennett later claimed he made the
music video.
 The defining moment in music video production
came with The Beatles, A Hard Days Night
motion picture. The musical segments set out
the basics of todays music videos.

6.  Top of the Pops was important in promoting
the use of competition between bands. The
show would limit the number of videos it
would use so a good video would increase
sales.
 Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody were one of the
big names to use a video on Top of the Pops.
They could not perform Live so recorded a
video to play on the show.

8.  MTV is launched in 1981. Music Videos are
introduced on a bigger market.
 Michael Jackson was the first artist to create a
short film or a narrative in the music video from
beginning to end. His 1984 release of Thriller
took the music video format to another level.
 Bands attempted to produce a promo that
would be banned or edited to use the
controversy and publicity to promote the
release. Early examples of this were Duran
Duran’s Girls on Film.