2. First known music video
• Al Jolson 1927 the jazz singer,
• One of the first examples
• First feature length film motion picture with synced dialogue
sequences and one of the first musicals as it featured the movie star
Al Jolson performing six of his songs. It began the “talkies” and a
decline in silent films
3. Panoram soundies
• Coin operated dukebox that showed 3 minute music videos with
popular songs, it played a closed loop 16mm film reel projected onto
a screen. Sexualised women a lot
4. Disney fantasia
• 1940 fantasia an animated musical film containing 8 pieces of classical
music conducted by leopold Stokowski with an animated plotline
• Inspiration from silly symphonies original sorcerers apprentice.
Elaborated to create fantasia.
• First commercial film shown in stereophonic sound because of the
creation of fantasound- a revolution in sound reproduction systems.
5. Rock videos
• 60s and 70s a large rock movement happened
Due to Beatles, monkeys, rolling stones, Animals etc.
All had a large influence on music videos, especially the Beatles. In
1964 produced a feature film- a hard days night which contained
Beatles music based around a vague story line.
After this they continued to create short videos to accompany their
songs, like strawberry fields forever and penny lane. Expensive and
heavily used editing techniques.
6. 80s and 90s
• With tv come channels like MTV Launched on August 1, 1981
• The original purpose of MTV was to be "music television", playing music videos 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, guided by on-air personalities known as VJs, or video jockeys. The original taglines of the
channel were "You'll never look at music the same way again," and "On cable. In stereo
• More videos were being made
• Rock bands and performers of the 1980s who had airplay on MTV ranged from new wave to hard rock
and heavy metal bands such as Adam Ant, Bryan Adams, Blondie, Eurhythmics, Culture Club, Motley
Crue, Split Enz, Prince, Ultravox, Duran Duran, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Def Leopard,The Police, and
the Cars.
• The long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s,
although the BBC placed strict limits on the number of 'outsourced' videos TOTP could use. Therefore,
a good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week.
7. Pop up video
• This was a TV show that aired on VH1 which lasted for around 200
episodes. It was a way to look at a music video by deconstructing
them using pop up text whilst the music video was playing. It would
tell the viewer about previously unknown trivia and general
information about the music video.
8. Modern day music video
• 2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing
of online video much faster and easier. Websites similar to this have
had a massive impact on music videos, some artists saw success as a
result of videos seen mostly or entirely online. The band OK Go is an
example having achieved fame through the videos for two of their
songs, “A million ways to die" in 2005 and “Here it goes again" in
2006, both of which first became well-known online.
9. The internet
• MTV itself now provides streams of artists' music videos. The Internet
has become the primary growth income market for record company-
produced music videos. At its launch, Apple’s iTunes store provided a
section of free music videos in high quality compression to be
watched via the iTunes application. More recently the iTunes Store
has begun selling music videos for use on Apple's iPod with video
playback capability.
• Vevo is a music video website launched by several major music
publishers in December 2009.
10. Controversy around modern music videos
Some modern music videos are seen as hugely controversial. This is
down to an incredibly wide range of reasons. The most common reason
that has been dating back to the soundies on the panorams is the
objectification of women. However, in modern day music it is most
common in hip hop and rap. Women are objectified in a variety of ways
from sexy dressing, speaking in seductive tones to acting and dancing
in a sexual manner.
However, it is also visible that women objectify themselves aswell in
order to gain larger revenue from the song. A prime example of a
female artist that would do this is Madonna and Rihanna.
