History of the music video

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music/song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium, and later with the launch of VH1. The term "music video" first came into popular usage in the early 1980s. Prior to that time, these works were described by various terms including "filmed insert", "promotional (promo) film", "promotional (promo) clip" or "film clip". In Chinese entertainment, music videos are simply known as MTV’S because the network was responsible for bringing music videos to its popularity.

Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques, including animation, live action filming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation and live action.

The long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s, although the BBC placed strict limits on the number of 'outsourced' videos TOTP could use. Therefore a good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week. In 1980, David Bowie scored his first UK number one in nearly a decade thanks to director David Mallet's eye catching promo for "Ashes to Ashes".

This video directed by David Mallet and David Bowie himself, it's described as one of the most iconic music video's of the 1980's, it was also the most expensive music video made at its release with the overall cost of £250,000.


Earlier in 1975, the band Queen ordered Bruce Gowers to make a promo video for their new single "Bohemian Rhapsody" to show it in Top Of The Pops; this is also notable for being entirely shot and edited on videotape.

1981-1991 music videos go mainstream
In 1981, the U.S. video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed the Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period, most notably Adam and the Ants, Madonna and Mylène Farmer, owed a great deal of their success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos. Some academics have compared music video to silent film, and it is suggested that stars like Madonna have (often quite deliberately) constructed an image that in many ways echoes the image of the great stars of the silent era such as Greta Garbo.



This video was directed by David Fincher and filmed in 1989, it was based on the Fritz Lang classic film Metropolis. On later tours she based choreography from the 1989 musical adaptation of Lang's 1927 silent movie Metropolis.

Two key innovations in the development of the modern music video were the development of relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use video recording and editing equipment, and the development of a number of related effects such as chroma-key. The advent of high-quality color videotape recorders and portable video cameras coincided with the DIY ethos of the New Wave era, enabling many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply, in comparison to the relatively high costs of using film. However, as the genre developed, music video directors increasingly turned to 35 mm film as the preferred medium, while others mixed film and video.

Directors and the acts they worked with began to explore and expand the form and style of the genre, using more sophisticated effects in their videos, mixing film and video, and adding a storyline or plot to the music video. Occasionally videos were made in a non-representational form, in which the musical artist was not shown. Because music videos are mainly intended to promote the artist, such videos are comparatively rare; two early 1980s examples are Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City, directed by Arnold Levine, and David Mallet's video for David Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure". Other notable later examples of the non-representational style include Bill Konersman's innovative 1987 video for Prince's "Sign of the Times" influenced by Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" clip, it featured only the text of the song's lyrics.


Also the video for George Michael's "Freedom 90" (1990), in which Michael himself refused to appear, forcing director David Fincher to substitute top fashion models in his place;

In 1983, the most successful and influential music video of all time was released—the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller." The video set new standards for production, having cost US $500,000 to film. That video, along with earlier videos by Jackson for his songs "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", also was instrumental in getting music videos by African American artists played on MTV; earlier, such videos were rare because MTV initially conceived itself as a rock-music-oriented channel.

The Canadian music channel Much Music was launched in 1984.In 1985, MTV launched the channel VH1 (then known as "VH-1: Video Hits One"), featuring softer music, and meant to cater to an older demographic than MTV. MTV Europe was launched in 1987, and MTV Asia in 1991.Another important development in music videos was the launch of The Chart Show on the UK's Channel 4 in 1986. This was a program which consisted entirely of music videos (the only outlet many videos had on British TV at the time, without presenters. Instead, the videos were linked by then state of the art computer graphics. The show moved to ITV in 1989.In 1986, Peter Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer" used special effects and animation techniques developed by British studio Aardman Animation. The video for "Sledgehammer" would go on to be a phenomenal success and win nine MTV Video Music Awards. In 1988, the MTV show You! MTV Raps debuted; the show helped to bring hip hop music to a mass audience for the first time.

2005- Internet becomes video friendly.

2005 saw the release of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier; MySpace's video functionality, which uses similar technology, launched in 2007. Such websites 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 band OK Go may exemplify this trend, having achieved fame through the videos for two of their songs, "

A Million Ways

" in 2005 and "Here It Goes Again" in 2006, both of which first became well-known online. Artists like Soulja Boy Tell 'Em and Marié Digby also achieved some level of fame initially through videos released only online.
The 2008 video for Weezer's "Pork and Beans" also captured this trend, by including at least 20 YouTube celebrities; the single became the most successful of Weezer's career, in chart performance.
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. This was complicated by the fact that not all labels share the same policy toward music videos: some welcome the development and upload music videos to various online outlets themselves, viewing music videos as free advertising for their artists, while other labels view music videos not as an advertisement, but as the product itself.
MTV itself now provides streams of artists' music videos, while AOL's recently launched AOL Music features a vast collection of advertising supported streaming videos. The internet has become the primary growth income market for Record Company produced music videos. At its launch, Apple's 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.