The history of music videos

A music video is a short film that accompanies a song usually as a visual marketing device. An early example of this is St louis blues by Bessie Smith in 1929, the dramatised performance was shown in theatres till 1932. Although is is claimed that the earliest music videos where made in the 1950's that is not actually the case as walt disney developed the animated film fantasia based around a piece of classical music and labeled it as visual music. 

in 1956 Tony Bennet filmed a music video of him walking through Hyde pro london to accompany his song 'A stranger paradise', this was then distributed to the UK and the US television stations when Bennet later claimed he had created the first music video. In the 1960's a device known as the Scopitone was invented in France. A Scopitone is a visual jukebox and as a result short films where produced by french artists such as Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Dutronc to accompany there songs. Similar devices in other countries where developed such as the Cinebox in italy and the Colour- Sonic in the USA. This encouraged artists to create music videos and gave them a means of distributing them to there audience. 

One of the definitive if not the definitive development to music videos came from The Beatles in 1964 when they created there first motion picture 'A hard days night'. The musical segments of the motion picture arguably created the basis and the format of which most of todays musicians follow. 

In America from 1966 to 1968 a TV series called The Monkees (based on the Beatles 'A hard days night') was another significant development to the modern day music video. Each episode contained crafted segments that included The Monkees songs. 

The Beatles took The development of Music videos to knew highest of development once again when in 1967 they released the films "strawberry fields' and 'Penny Lane'. These videos featured a new style of avant guard filming such as reverse film effects, dramatic lighting and on the beat editing. This was done to show the music in a more artistic manner. 

Improvements in the video recording process and the Editing process, as well as effects in the modern era have been key to innovative development in music videos. The introduction of high quality portable cameras inspired a new ethos of DIY promotional videos. this means that Pop acts ect can create music videos quickly and cheaply. By the mid 80's releasing a music video to accompany an artists song had become standard. 

The 1970's is deemed the modern era of the music video, with the introduction of the UK's Top Of The Pop's creating a competition amongst artists, record labels and producers. With strict limits on the number of music videos that Top Of The Pop's was able to show this refined the number of videos so only the best where shown, the better the video the more sales the more advertisement. 

In 1981 MTV was launched, the first music video it played was The Buggels 'Video killed the radio star'. 

 

In the mid 1980's ARtists and products started to use better effects and made videos more sophisticated by adding story lines and plots. Michael jackson was one of the first artists to use the concept of the short film ( i.e. his music video had a beginning, middle and an end). We can see this  in the 1984 Music video Thriller .

Music video's today are appreciated as an art form in there own right, not just as an advertisement method to sell an artists music. Many people actually enjoy the visual aspect of certain videos more so then the music that accompanies it. A growing trend in the music industry is to focus purely on the artist rather then the quality of music, this is with the aim of creating the image of been cool in most males and sexualising females to create interest.