History of Music Videos

1. Music Video History
Bradley Morris

2. 1920s-1950s
• Some important moments in the 1920s where music videos started out
was through songs such as “St Louis Blues” by Bessie Smith and also Merry
Melodies.
• Musical films were starting to become developed as a genre from the
1930s to the 1950s, the song “Diamonds are a girls best friend” is an
example.
• In 1956, people in Hollywood discovered the genre of music-centered
films. Many Rock and Roll films begin to be created, the most famous
being the Elvis Pressley movies.
• Near the end of the 1950s, a guy called The Big Bopper became the first
person to use the term “Music Video”.

3. 1960s-1980s
• The 1960s became a time where music videos were becoming a more
visual innovation. Artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and David
Bowie were creating short promo films which kind of helped grow their
popularity.
• British Television invented a new form of music television. Top Of The Pops
was one of the first made and later became very popular. With those kind
of shows helped promote new artists and later early music videos started
to replace the old format of an artist performing live on the TV-stage.
• Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” was seen as a groundbreaking video in
1975 as it set the language for the modern music video. In the 1980s, it
was videos such as “Ashes to Ashes” by David Bowie, “Thriller” by Michael
Jackson and “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel.
• MTV was launched as the first 24-hour music channel and rapidly became
a major hit and a cultural icon.

4. 1990s-2000s
• Music Videos were a lot more mainstream at the start of the 1990s, MTV
was beginning to credit music video directors and more channels were
launched with the MTV name. (MTV2, MTV Hits)
• More music videos helped to promote new dance crazes; songs such as
“Macarena” and the “Cha Cha Slide” had videos where the dance moves
were clearly shown and people would do them.

5. Present Day
• Nowadays we don’t watch music channels as much, as we have the
internet and sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
• The most viewed YouTube video is actually the music video for PSY’s
“Gangnam Style”, it’s been viewed over two billion times.
• Many Music Videos nowadays have been perceived to be quite
controversial; videos such as “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus is
controversial because she does appear naked in it.
• YouTube is an easier way for fans to hear their favourite song because if
you watch a music channel then you might be waiting a while for your top
song to come on, whereas with YouTube you just type in what song you
want.