This document outlines the timeline and evolution of music videos from the 1920s to the 2000s. It discusses early musical films from the 1920s, the introduction of Soundies short films in the 1940s featuring musicians, the development of visual jukeboxes in France in the late 1950s, the launch of the first music video channel MTV in 1981, the rise of music video directors in the 1990s, and how the internet became video-friendly in the late 1990s and 2000s with sites like YouTube launching in 2005.

1. Timeline of music videos

2. Talkies
This was introduced in
1926 with many short
musical films being
produced. Vitaphone
featured many bands,
vocalists and dancers.
Animation artist
introduced a series of
sing a long cartoons,
called Screen songs. The Jazz Singer
(Click the above video)

3. Soundies
These are based on
one song films and
were introduced in
1940’s.In the mid
1940’s, a musician
Louis Jordan made
short films for his
songs.
Beyond the Blue
Horizon
(Click the above video)

4. Jukebox
In the late 1950’s , a
visual jukebox was
introduced in France and
short films were
produced by many
French artists such as
Serge Gainsbourg,
Francoise Hardy, Jacques
Brel and Jacques
Dutronic, to accompany
their songs.

5. Music Television
It is a featured video
channel launched my
MTV in 1981. This
channel features videos
24 hours a day. It aired
a video called, ‘’Video
killed the Radio Star’’.

6. Rise of the
directors
In November 1992, MTV
started listing directors
with the artist and song
credits. Directors such
as, Chris Cunningham,
Michel Gondry, Spike
Jonze, Floria
Sigismondi and Hype
Williams, all brought a
unique vision and stye to
the videos they directors.

7. Internet becomes
video friendly
The website Ifilm hosted
short videos, including music
videos,, launched its services
in 1997. Napster, a peer to
peer file sharing service ran
between 1999 and 2001,
which enabled users to share
video files.
A website, Youtube launched
in 2005, which made the
viewing of online videos much
faster and quicker. Such as,
Google Videos, Yahoo Videos,
Facebook and Myspace.