History of Music Videos

A Music Video is a short film that goes along with a song and it is aired on television and the Internet. They are mainly used for marketing and advertising songs to persuade viewers to buy it. Music Videos arrived in 1981 due to the emergence of MTV on 1.8.81. Now Music Videos are almost as important as the music itself as it gives artists the chance to get across a certain meaning.

Music Videos go back to the 1960’s when the Beatles filmed a short film for their song ‘A Hard Days Night’. After this, The Beatles produced more videos but these gradually evolved in 20 minute short films promoting a few songs each time. The band took these seriously and did some acting as well as playing the songs in the videos.

After this, more bands followed The Beatles example and artists such as The Who, The Doors and The Rolling Stones started to film promotional videos. Music Videos became more popular and Top of the Pops started to show them. The Beatles short films were unique, but other bands came up with stories in their music videos, and they gradually changed from seeing the band perform the song to the band acting out parts in the video of other characters. The Rolling Stones song ‘Jumpin Jack Flash’ is an example.

In 1981 MTV launched in America with the music video ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. This changed the consumption of music forever as fans had access 24 hours a day. This is when Music Videos started to play a major role in pop music. Artists such as Madonna and Duran Duran were very inventive with their videos, for example in Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ she portrays herself as a innocent and weak female and uses this to get messages across.. MTV also set-up their MTV Music Video Awards that are awarded annually.

Over the past few years, MTV has been crediting directors of Music Videos. Some of these people are now quite famous and ones such as Michel Gondry, who has worked on songs such ‘Gimme Shelter’ by the Stones and ‘Everlong’ by Foo Fighters, and Mark Romanek, who has worked on songs such as ‘Scream’ by Michael Jackson, are well known and sort after by many artists. MTV now has launches stations all over the world, meaning more and more people are exposed to Music Videos.

Today, a lot of air time is now advertising but MTV audiences are still strong as they now have about 7 channels dedicated to different music such as MTV Rocks and MTV Base. Topical shows such as Top 10 countdowns raise viewing figures, for example ‘Top 10 Bon Jovi’ as do Christmas Songs such as Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’, The Pogues ‘Fairytale of New York’ and Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’, when played in December.