Musical short films first appeared in the 1920s and were known by various names like song videos or film clips. In the 1930s, cartoons began featuring live-action musical performances. In the 1960s-1980s, cheaper film technology allowed more experimental music videos that promoted artists. MTV launched in 1981 and solely featured music videos, promoting the medium. Michael Jackson's "Thriller" in 1982 had an expensive video that drove the album's success. Rap music struggled to get airtime on MTV initially. YouTube launched in 2005 and became a major platform for music videos.

1. 1920s- First appearance of a musical short film. They was often known as a illustrated song,
filmed insert, promotional (promo) film, promotional clip, promotional video, song video, song
clip or film clip.
In 1926, with the arrival of "talkies" many musical short films were produced. Animation
artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which
invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by "following the bouncing ball", which is
similar to a modern karaoke machine.

2. 30s-First Musical Shorts
 The Spooney Melody series were the first to introduce the concept of short-films
mixing live-action footage of the performer. It was shown at the movie theaters
before the main presentations.
 Cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-
action segments during the cartoons.

3. 1960’S-198O’S
 With film technology and 16mm getting a little bit cheaper and more
accessible, the growth of broadcast television and consequently the rise
of pop culture the late 60s and early 70s was a time of exploring all
these new phenomenon's as a way to promote the music artist
MTV,which began broadcasting on the Warner satellite feed in 1981, made
big claims: It will show state of the art video records of contemporary
artists, highly stylised visual interpretations of the music.

4.  Its considered that The Beatles- ‘We Can Work It Out’ was the first music video to
broadcast on television. The Beatles were eager to give their fans the fullest
audio-visual experience possible, recording promotional clips that could be shown
abroad.
In the USA, the creation of The Monkees, as an answer
to The Beatles, also used many devices which would
later find their way into music promos- surrealism,
jump cuts, wacky comedy and lots of action mixed in
with music performance by the band.

5. The growth of MTV in the USA was rapid. American artists soon realised the
potential of the medium and followed the British invasion with promo clips of their
own. Despite the success of the huge budgeted productions of Michael Jackson
‘Thriller’ (1982), it was almost the end of the decade before any other black artists
work broke through.
“You have to remember that Michael was the first black musician to appear on MTV,
and that was huge. Prior to that, it was all-white rock and they had to let him on MTV
because the album was getting so big, which then helped promote the album, so it
became a tidal wave.”

6.  It was also ludicrously expensive to make in comparison to the other videos of the
time — it cost over $500,000 to make at a time when most videos cost in the tens
of thousands to produce.
 The full 13-minute video debuted on MTV as part of an exclusive deal MTV struck
with MJ’s team and was played 3-5 times a day, something which increased MTV’s
audience tenfold. In 2009, the video was inducted into the National Film Registry
of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant.

7. RAP
The reluctance to play black videos merely ensured that rap videos were only able to acquire very small
budgets and tended to be distributed through alternative means, not finding a mass audience.
 Hype Williams led the way for black artists and black
directors through his extravagant productions for likes of
TLC R.Kelly and Missy Elliott, by the late 9’s
commanding budgets of $2million. These higher budget
videos in turn generated record sales and led to Hip Hop
effectively replacing rock as the dominant music for.

8.  By the mid 80’s, MTV, now owned by Viacom, a major media conglomerate. Viacom was responsible for the shift away from the
narrow rock video market towards a wider range of music genres, including rap and indie.
Also, bringing MTV to the major cities where it had previously not been
available and producing programmes other than video clips compilations,
giving a such greater sense of a ‘lifestyle’. The concert programme
‘Unplugged’ where artists performed stripped down versions of their hits,
usually with acoustic guitar, led to a series of successful CD releases.

9. In 2005, former PayPal co-workers created YouTube. In October 2006, YouTube was acquired by Google and in 2009, Vevo
was born. It was the product of debate between Universal Music Group (UMG) and Google over content licensing for
YouTube. Vevo meant record labels could actually make money on their videos being streamed
 YouTube remains at the top
of the pile in terms of visits,
it makes sense for record
companies to focus on videos
since it becomes one of the
most valuable promotional
tools an artist has at their
disposal.

10. Beyonce’s First Visual Album
(2013)
This album release was full of surprises: not only did Beyoncé
release it with no prior warning, but every song was
accompanied by its own video, all of which dropped on the
same day as the album.
According to the PR release accompanying it, “While not a
concept album, the record is designed to be consumed as a
comprehensive audio/visual piece from top to bottom.”

11.  Pharrell Williams Drops The World’s First 24-Hour Album
 Williams’ song for the film’s soundtrack, “Happy”, was accompanied by a Christian
Marclay-esque 24-hour-long video, which showed real people dancing along to the
hit for four minutes at a time.

12.  Band Aid 2014
 A huge popular music video with a message about battling the Ebola virus
epidemic in West Africa. Using many familiar faces to get the strong message to a
huge global audience.
Kanye West – “Famous”
Popular viral video

13. The huge rise of technology and the use of the
internet made watching new and existing music
videos easy and simple. Having a range of sites
to buy and watch the videos where ever you are,
makes it such a common global feature for the
artist. Having a global audience aware of your
video is a good publicity stunt to make people
aware of your song.