1. The History of Music Videos

2. Soundies – ‘3-on-1 Reel’
A Film jukebox, used between 1940
and 1946 in cafés, bars and clubs.
Each soundie would have up to 6
videos on it, and have music form all
genres as well as some comedy skits
or musical skits.
Artists that popularised soundies
include, Nat King Cole, Doris Day,
Spike Jones, Anita O’Day, Alan Ladd
and Merle Travis.
As the only way to distribute music
promotion videos at the time,
soundies stars became very popular
as if gave them a face and a
performance style.

3. Music Video in Film
Film was the only way for an artist to distribute
a promotional video, this meant they had to
portray a character, examples include Elvis
Presley in Jailhouse Rock (1957) and Viva Las
Vegas (1964), and Cliff Richard in Summer
Holiday (1963).
Only well established stars could afford to be in
films and therefore publish a music video.
In 1964, The Beatles became the first act to star
in a film as themselves and feature music
videos in that format. The bands songs where
the soundtrack for A Hard Day’s Night, as a
giant promotional video. The feature was a
documentary styles, meaning there was a better
association with the artist as apposed to a
character of a Hollywood film.

4. The First Music Video
In 1967, Bob Dylan released a Beatles ‘Hard
Days Night style’ documentary film of his 1965
tour of Britain. The opening sequence is
considered the first music video in the style we
know today, and although part of the film, it
stands alone as a segment. The Subterranean
Homesick Blues video features just one static
camera shot and one setting, in black and white
Dylan holds cards with the lyrics of the song on
and drops them to the floor.

5. ABBA
In 1974, just after Eurovision, Swedish pop
megastars ABBA released the video for Waterloo,
which, quite similarly to Bob Dylan, had only one
setting and not much movement, only ABBA had
camera zooms and panning.
4 years later, Take a Chance on me was released was
in a similar setting, only this time because of
technological developments the video featured split
screens and cutting in a much more updated fashion
than their previous videos. A very similar colour
scheme for the outfits was used, showing the
association the video helped the band create and
how the music promotion video allowed a physical
identity to be created.
The 70’s was the beginning of the stand alone video,
with shows like Top of the Pops (1964) taking off
and allowing around 30 minutes a week for music
promotional videos and live acts.

6. The Legacy of a Music Video
Queen released Bohemian Rhapsody in 1975, and
were told it was too long to be a success as it
couldn’t be played on radio at 5 minutes 55 seconds.
It debuted in the high 20’s on the UK charts, and
once the video was released it went straight to
number 1 and stayed there for 9 weeks, becoming
the Christmas number 1 that year. This was the first
time that evidence of a music videos importance was
really shown.
The video experimented with special effects and a
combination of live and static elements as well as
unusual lighting and staging. It’s now famous for it’s
iconic scene and has been recreated and parodied
many times since (including a version by the
muppets).

7. Michael Jackson
Thriller (1983) At 13 minutes 47 seconds the
promotional music video was more of a movie than
the music video we know to day. It cost $1’000’000 to
produce and is full of intertextual references to
cinema and the ‘thriller’ genre. The video includes
different diegesis levels and is packed with lyrical
sound and visual clues, all of which have become
prominent as current music video conventions.
Bad (1987) became iconic and was parodied by the
likes of Weird Al Yankovic and thousands of others,
the version on Jacksons Vevo YouTube channel has
165.5 million views and was uploaded only 6 years
ago, after his death.
These videos have gone on to become iconic of the
music and the artist, an example of this is in a Glee
episode dedicated to the star, where each of the songs
performed have direct relations and reflections of the
original music video.

8. Breaking Conventions
In 2012, Bob Dylan released Duquesne Whistle
with a video that broke most of the standard
music video conventions. The leading boy didn’t
get the girl, there was no real live aspect despite
Bob Dylan being in the video, and the two
diegesis are actually the same one, coming
together at the end. Dylan essentially created a
short film as opposed to a music video, he does
this again with song Beyond Here Lies Nothin’.

9. Modern Video Distribution
MTV (8 diffferent Channels), Viva, Box, Kiss,
Magic , Chartshow.tv , The vault, Scuzz,
Kerrange, Vintage, Now, Clubland, Heart,
Capital, KeepItCountry, these are a few
examples of the available channels to
consumer music videos, as well as on
youtube, artists websites or tv
advertisements. Most bigger artist such as
Rihanna, Adele, One Direction, and Ariana
Grande, (generally in pop music) tend to
reach over 5 million views in the first 24
hours of their music video being live, the
current records for the highest view count
within 24 hours is Adele with Hello at the
end of October 2014, who reached 27.7
views in 24 hours.