The History of Music Videos
What is a
Music Video?
A music video is a short film that accompanies a song. Music video are used as forms of promotion and marketing for artists and producers. With the current proliferation of media technology (e.g. Smartphones and iPod) and the development of Web 2.0 (e.g. YouTube, Facebook, etc.), music videos have become extremely popular, common, and both easily accessible and creatable.
The
Beginning
Music videos have a long lifespan, reaching back to the late 19th Century, but coming into fruition in the 20th Century.
In 1894 on of the first ‘sound films’ was created by George Thomas, an electrician, Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern, sheet music publishers. Thomas used a magic lantern* to project a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. With the help of various music performers, they created what was called an illustrated song, with the song being one titled “The Little Lost Child”. The purpose of this creation was to promote sales of their song, and thus was the genesis of music videos.
*A magic lantern, or Laterna Magica, is an early type of image projector displaying pictures on sheets of glass. Developed in the 17th Century, magic lanterns were commonly used for educational and entertainment purposes.
However, what is believed to be the very first music video is the 1925 American short musical comedy film “Gus Visser and his Singing Duck”. Whether this can really be called a music video is up to question, but given that the film consists of noticeable aspects of music videos – synchronised sound and visuals – I see it difficult to argue with.
1926 introduced “Talkies”: films with a soundtrack, as opposed to “silent films”. With its arrival, many musical short films were produced, such as Vitaphone Shorts and Screen Songs.
Vitaphone Shorts were produced by Warner Bros and consisted of bands, vocalists, and dancers.
Screen Songs were sing-along cartoons introduced by animation artist Max Fleischer. These cartoons invited audiences to sing along to popular songs, similar to karaoke.
More cartoons came to play in the early 1930s, featuring popular musicians performing hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. Animated films by Walt Disney – Silly Symphonies, Fantasia, etc. – were created based mainly on music.
Additionally, “Soundies” were musical films that included the occasional short dance sequence. They were created from 1940-1947.
 Warner Bros |  Vitaphone Shorts |  Screen Song |
|---|---|---|
 Screen Songs Title Screen |  Max Fleischer |
 Walt Disney Castle |  Silly Symphonies |  Fantasia |
|---|---|---|
 Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse |
 Soundie 1 |  Soundie 2 |  Soundie 3 |
|---|
1974 - 1981:
Countdown and Sounds:
Premiering in 1974, Australian TV shows “Countdown” and “Sounds” were significant in the development and popularization of the music video genre and in establishing the importance of music videos as a form of promoting both the artists and their new music.
“Sounds” began as a weekly teen-oriented TV music show launched by former radio DJ Graham Webb. It was renamed “Sounds Unlimited” in 1975 and later shortened to “Sounds”.
“Countdown” was created by Executive Producer Michael Shrimpton on 8th November 1974, alongside Producer/Director Robbie Weekes and Record Producer and Music Journalist Ian Meldrum. The popular weekly Australian music television show lasted until 19th July 1987.
Top of the Pops:
Top of the Pops was a long-running British TV music show which began playing music in the late 1970s. Made by BBC, the programme broadcasted a series of performances from some of the week’s best-selling popular music artists. A good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week.
In 1975, Bruce Gowers directed a promo video for Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, which was shown in Top of the Pops. It was entirely shot and edited on videotape.
In 1980 David Bowie scored his first UK number one in nearly a decade, with his eye-catching promo for “Ashes to Ashes”, directed by David Mallet.
 Queen |  Bohemian Rhapsody (Click for video) |  David Bowie |
|---|---|---|
 Ashes to Ashes (Click for video) |
MTV:
1981, the launch of MTV: the first official music video television channel. This opened the door for music videos to become the primary method of marketing and promotion for artists. The first music video aired on the channel was The Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star” (1979); ironically, this music video pulled the trigger on radio.
1983: Thriller
In 1983, Michael Jackson called up John Landis to ask if he was interested in making a music video for ‘Thriller’. Landis said he would make the video if it could be a short film, and Jackson embraced the idea. The 13-minute film that resulted changed the music video for ever, becoming less a promo clip than a cultural phenomenon.
MTV's first world premiere video and voted as the most influential music video of all time, ‘Thriller’ proved to have a profound effect on pop culture and was named "a watershed moment for the music industry" for its unprecedented merging of filmmaking and music.
Following this pinnacle of music videos soon came a generation of story-based music videos.
2005 - 2009: YouTube and Vevo
YouTube was created in 2005. It is a social video website that allows users to watch, share, and upload content (UGC – User Generated Content), enabling consumers to become producers. A few big artists today were discovered on YouTube, such as Justin Bieber, Cody Simpson, and many others.
It is the most used site these days, with around 1 billion daily users. It gained much success shortly after creation that Google bought it a year later.
YouTube has encouraged creativity throughout the years; users, including many artists, have used YouTube to broadcast their music to the public and gain popularity.
There has also been a series of copyright issues due to people stealing music content from record labels. This led to those same record labels posting their own music on YouTube and, eventually, Vevo was introduced.
Vevo was introduced in 2009 and is a video hosting service on YouTube, created by Google, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Abu Dhabi Media. A lot of music by popular artists are represented by Vevo on YouTube, shown by a watermark at the bottom of many music videos.