2. EARLY YEARS
In the 1926’s the rise of the Talkies brought to light a new type of short film.
Vitapone shorts produced by Warner Brothers features many bands, vocalists
and dancers. Musicals from the 1950’s became a leading platform for short- form
music videos. An early example of which can been seen in Gentlemen Prefer
Blonds (1953) starring Marylyn Monroe.

3. 1960’S
In 1964 The Beatles starred in their first feature film A Hard Days Night which
featured musical elements. Their following releases including Help!, Strawberry
Field Forever and Penny Lane would also utilise the short-form video as a
means of promotion.

4. 1970’S – EARLY 80’S
In the UK, the music chart television show Top Of The Pops began showing
small numbers of music videos alongside standard in studio performances.
David Bowie would achieve his first UK number one in nearly ten years due
to the promo video for the song Ashes To Ashes.

5. 1980’S
In 1981 the launch of the 24-hr music channel MTV became key to a songs
success. The first song to gain airplay and subsequent success on MTV was
Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles. During the channels early years
MTV was reluctant to play the music from African-American artists due to the
belief that the channel was exclusively a rock music channel. Some have
claimed that this was merely blatant racism. Whatever the reasoning, it all
was to change when Michael Jackson released his 14 minute long form
music video for the song Thriller. At its peak the song was aired in its
entirety twice every hour resulting in the highest viewing figures in the
channels history.

6. 1980’S
The success of Michael Jackson’s Thriller helped pave the way for other
African- American artists including: Whitney Houston, Prince and Janet
Jackson all of which would achieve huge success in the 1980’s-90’s.

7. 1990’S
During the early 1900’s music videos began to shift towards becoming an
auteurs medium with music video directors becoming more prominent due
to individual style and an advancement of new technology and special
effects. Hype Williams has created music videos for: TLC, The Notorious
BIG and Usher. Williams brought deliberate and overt surrealism into the
rap-video arena. He dressed Missy Elliott in inflated plastic bag and Busta
Rhyems in a black vinyl straitjacket making his videos and subsequently
his artists look striking and standout among other music videos.

8. 1995
In November 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song
credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an
auteur's medium.
A breed a new talent emerged during the early 1990’s including :Chris
Cunningham, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Floria Sigismondi, Stéphane
Sednaoui and Mark Romanek.
Director Mark Romanek directed two of the most expensive music videos of all
time: Michael and Janet Jackson’s Scream and Madonna’s Bedtime Story.
They videos cost a reported $7 million and $5 million respectively. Scream
remains the most expensive video of all time.

9. 2005 – PRESENT
In resent years the rise of the internet has meant that music videos can now
been seen more easier. Websites such as YouTube had a profound effect on
the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of
videos seen mostly or entirely online. The Internet has become the primary
growth income market for record company-produced music videos. The
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. In 2007, the RIAA issued cease-and-desist letters to
YouTube users to prevent single users from sharing videos, which are the
property of the music labels. After its merger with Google, YouTube assured
the RIAA that they would find a way to pay royalties through a bulk agreement
with the major record labels