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A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a pop or rock music song with lyrics. 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.
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Encyclopedia
A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a pop or rock music song with lyrics. 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 MTVs because the network was responsible for bringing music videos to its popularity.
Music videos use a wide range of styles of filmmaking 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 and the use of stock footage.
History
Antecedents: 1910s–1950s
Musical short films were made by Lee De Forest in 1923–24, followed by thousands of Vitaphone shorts (1926–30), many featuring bands, vocalists and dancers. In the 1920s, the animated films of Oskar Fischinger (aptly labelled "visual music") were supplied with orchestral scores. Fischinger also made short animated films to advertise Electrola Records' new releases. In 1929, the Russian Dziga Vertov made the 40-minute Man with the Movie Camera, an experiment on filming real, actual events.
Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 film Alexander Nevsky, used extended scenes of battles choreographed to a score by Sergei Prokofiev, a score that had already been composed before shooting began, so that the scene could be edited in accordance with the music.
Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by "following the bouncing ball". Early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons.
The early animated films by Walt Disney, his Silly Symphonies, were built around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films. Live action musical shorts, featuring such popular performers as Cab Calloway, were also distributed to theatres.
Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. It was shown in theatres until 1932. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period. Later, in the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film Lookout Sister; these films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the ancestors of music videos.
Another early form of music video were one-song films called "Promotional Clips" made in the 1940s for the Panoram visual jukebox. These were short films of musical selections, usually just a band on a movie-set bandstand, made for playing. Thousands of soundies were made, mostly of jazz musicians, but also of "torch singers," comedians, and dancers. Before the Soundie, even dramatic movies typically had a musical interval, but the Soundie made the music the star and virtually all the name jazz performers appeared in Soundie shorts. The Panoram jukebox with eight three-minute Soundies were popular in taverns and night spots, but the fad faded during World War II.
Musical films were another important precursor to music video, and several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of the best-known examples is Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl" (directed by Mary Lambert) which was closely modelled on Jack Cole's staging of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Several of Michael Jackson's videos show the unmistakable influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark John Landis clip for "Thriller" (at the time, the most expensive music video ever made) and the Martin Scorsese-directed "Bad" which was influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story
In 1956, Petrushka, directed by John David Wilson for Fine Arts Films aired as a segment of the Sol Hurok Music Hour on NBC. Igor Stravinsky conducted a live orchestra for the recording of the event. In 1957, Tony Bennett was filmed walking along The Serpentine in Hyde Park, London as his recording of "Stranger in Paradise" played; this film was distributed to and played by UK and US television stations. According to the Internet Accuracy Project, disk jockey-singer J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson was the first to coin the phrase "music video", in 1959. It is no coincidence that the rise of popular music was tied with the rise of television, as the format allowed for many new stars to be exposed that previously would have been passed over by Hollywood, which normally required proven acts in order to attract an audience to the box office.
1960–1967: Visual innovation
In the late 1950s the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists, such as Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc to accompany their songs. Its use spread to other countries and similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Color-Sonic in the USA were patented. In 1961 Ozzie Nelson directed and edited the video of "Travelin' Man" by his son Ricky Nelson. It featured images of various parts of the world mentioned in the Jerry Fuller song along with Nelson's vocals. In 1964, Kenneth Anger's underground experimental short film Scorpio Rising used popular songs.
In Canada, for Singalong Jubilee, Manny Pittson began pre-recording the music audio, went on location and taped various visuals with the musicians lip-syncing, then edited the audio and video together later. Most music numbers were taped in studio on stage, and the location shoot "videos" were to add variety.
One of the earliest performance clips in 1960s pop was the promo film made by The Animals for their breakthrough 1964 hit "House Of The Rising Sun. This high-quality colour clip was filmed in a studio on a specially-built set; it features the group in a lip-synched performance, depicted through an edited sequence of tracking shots, closeups and longshots, as singer Eric Burdon, guitarist Hilton Valentine and bassist Chas Chandler walked around the set in a series of choreographed moves.
The Beatles
In 1964 The Beatles cemented their newfound international fame by starring in their first feature film A Hard Day's Night, directed by Richard Lester. Shot in black and white and presented as a mock documentary, it was a loosely structured musical fantasia interspersing comedic and dialogue sequences with exciting and innovative musical sequences. The musical sequences furnished the basic templates on which countless subsequent promo clips and music videos were modelled and it has exerted a huge influence on the style and visual vocabulary of the genre. It was the direct model for the successful US TV series The Monkees (1966-1968) which similarly consisted of film segments that were created to accompany various Monkees songs.
Film critic Roger Ebert credits Lester with constructing "a new grammar":
- " ... he influenced many other films. Today when we watch TV and see quick cutting, hand-held cameras, interviews conducted on the run with moving targets, quickly intercut snatches of dialogue, music under documentary action and all the other trademarks of the modern style, we are looking at the children of A Hard Day's Night".
The Beatles' second feature Help! (1965) was a much more lavish affair, filmed in colour in London and on international locations. It fitted the all-important musical sequences into a contrived fantasy adventure in which the group is pursued through a series of locales (including Switzerland and The Bahamas) by a band of Indian thuggee assassins bent on recovering a sacred ring which has come into Ringo's possession. The title track sequence, filmed in black-and-white, is arguably one of the prime archetypes of the modern performance-style music video, employing rhythmic cross-cutting, contrasting long shots and close-ups, and unusual shots and camera angles, such as the shot near the end of the song, in which George Harrison's left hand and the neck of his guitar are seen in sharp focus in the foreground while the completely out-of-focus figure of John Lennon sings in the background.
In 1965 The Beatles began making promotional clips (then known as "filmed inserts") for distribution and broadcast in other countries -- primarily the USA -- so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances. At the same time, The Byrds began using the same strategy to promote their singles in the United Kingdom, starting with the 1965 single "Set You Free This Time".
By the time The Beatles stopped touring in late 1966 their promotional films, like their recordings, had become highly sophisticated. In May 1966 they filmed two sets of colour promotional clips for their current single "Rain" / Paperback Writer" all directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who went on to direct The Rolling Stones' Rock'n'Roll Circus and The Beatles final film Let It Be. The studio clips were straightforward performance films shot at Abbey Road Studios on 19 May, especially for broadcast on The Ed Sullivan Show and prefaced by a spoken introduction from Ringo.
The location clips are considerably more elaborate and use vibrant colour footage shot on location in the grounds of Chiswick House, London. Both clips are notable for their use of hand-held camera work, rhythmic editing, slow motion shots and reversed film. The "Paperback Writer" clip is more conventional, with Lennon, McCartney and Harrison lip-synching and miming playing their instruments (although Ringo is notably not 'playing'). The "Rain" clip marked a major advance in stylistic terms; it uses some colour shots common to both clips but is also intercut with monochrome reductions of the Abbey Road studio footage, making it one of the first examples of this device in music video. Most notably, apart from a few brief shots (a close-up of Lennon lip-synching and a shot of the group under a tree miming playing their instruments) the "Rain" clip virtually abandons any pretense of performance and has no obvious narrative structure.
The colour promotional clips for "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane", made in early 1967 and directed by Peter Goldman took the promotional film format to a new level. They used techniques borrowed from underground and avant garde film, including reversed film and slow motion, dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles and color filtering added in post-production. Reflecting the fact that these studio masterpieces were impossible for the group to perform live, their psychedelic mini-films illustrated the songs in an artful, impressionistic manner rather than trying to simulate an idealised performance or depict a narrative or plot.
At the end of 1967 the group released their third film, the one hour, made-for-television project Magical Mystery Tour; it was written and directed by the group and first broadcast on the BBC on Boxing Day 1967. Although poorly received at the time, it showed the group to be accomplished music video makers in their own right. It included elaborate edited sequences for the new songs featured in the film and the clips for "I Am The Walrus" and "Hello Goodbye" have been screened many times on music TV shows in later years.
1967–1973: Promotional clips grow in importance
The monochrome 1966 clip for Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" filmed by D. A. Pennebaker, which opened Pennebaker's Dylan film documentary Dont Look Back. Deliberately eschewing any attempt to simulate performance or present a narrative, the clip shows Dylan standing in a city back alley, silently shuffling a series of large cue cards (bearing key words from the song's lyrics) in time to the music, while his friends Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth converse in the background. The cue-card device has been imitated in numerous other music videos.
Many "song films"—often referred to as "filmed inserts" at that time—were produced by UK artists so they could be screened on TV when the bands were not available to appear live. Pink Floyd were pioneers in producing promotional films for their songs including "Scarecrow", "Arnold Layne" and "Interstellar Overdrive", the latter directed by Peter Whitehead, who also made several pioneering clips for The Rolling Stones between 1966 and 1968.
In the UK The Kinks made one of the first real "plot" promo clips for a song. For their single "Dead End Street" (1966) a miniature comic movie was made, where members of Kinks acted like undertakers in old London streets. The clip also shows photo stills from Great Depression, uprising dead man and Ray Davies playing an old woman. Unusually for the time, there was no lip-sync, but the clip was edited according to the phases of song. The BBC reportedly refused to air the clip because it was considered to be in "poor taste".
The Who featured in several promotional clips in this period, beginning with their 1965 clip for "I Can't Explain". Their plot clip for "Happy Jack" in shows the band is acting like a gang of idiotic thieves robbing an apartment. They can't resist eating a cake and this leads to a cream-pie battle with a cop. There is no lip-sync in this clip either.
Procol Harum made two promos for their 1967 hit "A Whiter Shade of Pale". One version shows band members walking among ruins, footage of them performing the song onstage and documentary footage of the Vietnam war. The second version, filmed in colour, shows the band running towards camera (a device pioneered in A Hard Day's Night), followed by close-up of Gary Brooker lip-syncing the song and several surrealistic sequences of the band gambolling in a churchyard. Other frames show band in crowded London streets, and Brooker standing in Piccadilly Circus. The copy of the clip currently available on is taken from an original 16mm Scopitone print.
The Small Faces made several promotional clips in 1966–67. The B&W promo for their 1966 single " shows the band performing and clowning around aboard a tram with a group of female fans. A colour clip for their 1967 single ", filmed at various locations around London, with Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones dressed as police, pursuing Steve Marriott and then acting out a mock beating. The promo for the single "Talk To You" (also from their 1967 self-titled LP) was a straightforward performance clip filmed in a large house, showing the band miming to the song.
The Troggs feature in a monochrome promo clip for their 1967/68 hit "Love Is All Around", showing singer Reg Presley's love affair with a girl in the train on which the band is travelling. Through the clip, which includes some concert footage, the compartment in which they are seated is gradually transformed with flowers, floral patterned wallpaper, silver foil and other psychedelic elements.
The Doors had a background in film-making and both lead singer Jim Morrison and keyboard player Ray Manzarek were studying film at UCLA when they met. The self-directed clip for their debut single "Break On Through" is a filmed performance that uses atmospheric lighting, camera work and editing. Their 1968 anti-war single "The Unknown Soldier", combines specially filmed footage of the group—including depicts a mock execution by firing squad—with extensive intercutting of stock footage, including graphic footage of the carnage of the Vietnam War.
Although it made little impression internationally, there was a thriving local pop scene in Australia and New Zealand in the 1960s and bands there were quick to pick up on British and American trends. By 1967 a number of bands were creating early music videos for their songs. One of the first was the pioneering clip made by The Masters Apprentices for their 1967 single , which used actuality stage and studio footage of the band combined with specially filmed fantasy sequences. Another notable Australian clip from this period is the promotional clip for "The Loved One" by The Loved Ones, directed by Peter L. Lamb as part of his 1967 short film Approximately Panther.
The Rolling Stones appeared in many promotional clips for their songs in the 1960s. One of the earliest, dating from 1964, showed the band on a beach, miming to their single "Not Fade Away", but this has apparently since been lost. In 1966 Peter Whitehead directed two promo clips for their single "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?". The so-called contains a mixture of footage including snippets of concert footage, street scenes in New York, shots of Jagger walking along a street while being filmed from a car, and shots of the band preparing for and being photographed for the famous "drag" cover photo used on the picture sleeve of the single. The longer ["concert" version] opens with a minute-long introduction in which Jagger and Richards clown around on a piano (including a short scene of Jagger wordlessly singing The Beatles "I Feel Fine"). This leads into the song, which begins with speeded-up shots of the group backstage, followed by footage of a riotous Sept. 1966 performance at the Royal Albert Hall, inc which girls repeatedly storm the stage and are thrown back into the audience by security.
In 1967 Whitehead directed a plot clip for the Stones single "We Love You", which first aired in August 1967. This clip featured speeded-up footage of the group recording in the studio (including several shots of an extremely stoned-looking Brian Jones), intercut with a mock trial that clearly alludes to the drug prosecutions of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards underway at that time). Jagger's girlfriend Marianne Faithfull appears in the trial scenes and presents the "judge" (Richards) with what may be the infamous fur rug that had featured so prominently in the press reports of the drug bust at Richards' house in early 1967. When it is pulled back, it reveals an apparently naked Jagger with chains around his ankles. The clip concludes with scenes of the Stones in the studio intercut with footage that had previously been used in the "concert version" promo clip for "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby". The group also filmed a colour promo clip for the song "2000 Light Years From Home" (from their album Their Satanic Majesties Request) directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.
In 1968, Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed three clips for their single "Jumping Jack Flash" / "Child Of The Moon"—a colour clip for "Child Of The Moon" and two different clips for "Jumpin' Jack Flash". One was a [monochrome clip] with what appears to be a live performance of the song; the other is the better-known colour clip, featuring the band in heavy makeup, miming to the same live recording used in the B&W clip.
In 1968, they collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on the film Sympathy for the Devil, which mixed Godard's political tracts with documentary footage of the song's evolution during the recording sessions at Olympic Studios in London. At the end of the year Lindsay-Hogg again collaborated with the Stones on their most ambitious project to date, the feature-length performance film Rock'n'Roll Circus, which also featured John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton and rising UK band Jethro Tull, but unfortunately the film was shelved before its release because the group at the time felt that their own performances had been below par.
Leonard Nimoy's notorious The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins (1968) is also an example of an early music video. So are two videos of Lou Christie for "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" in 1969.
The Carpenters made a promo clip of their cover of the Beatles hit Ticket to Ride.
After 1969, the independent music movie clips came out of fashion with psychedelic music and style. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, bands preferred performing in TV shows which themselves became visually more attractive. Some artists were featured in straightforward documentaries such as The Beatles in "Let It Be" and the Rolling Stones in "Gimme Shelter".
On the The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, which ran from 1971 to 1974, director Chris Bearde enlisted animator John David Wilson to direct animated segments of current hits of the day reinterpreted by the duo. Songs included Coven's "One Tin Soldier", Three Dog Night's "Black and White" and Melanie's "Brand New Key". Wilson later went on to self-produce many more animated videos for artists such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Jim Croce.
The promotional clip continued to grow in importance, with television programs such as The Midnight Special and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert mixing concert footage with clips incorporating camera tricks, special effects, and dramatizations of song lyrics. The film of the Woodstock Festival, and the various concert films that were made during the early 1970s, such as Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen and Pink Floyd's Live at Pompeii concert film used rhythmic cross-cutting.
In 1971, avant-garde group The Residents began filming what was supposed to be the first feature length music video "Vileness Fats". Due to time constrains and technical problems, the group abandoned the project in 1976. The group would, however, create videos for "The Third Reich 'n Roll" (which used props from Vileness Fats), "One Minute Movies", "Hello Skinny", and their cover of "It's A Man's Man's Man's World".
Nicolas Roeg's 1970 cult film Performance contains a sequence in which star of the film Mick Jagger did a rendition of "Memo From Turner" combined with a psychedelic collage.
Many countries with local pop music industries soon copied the trend towards promo film clips. In Australia promotional films by Australian pop performers were being made on a regular basis by 1966; in 1968 singer Lynne Randell featured in one of the first promotional clips for an Australian act that was filmed in colour, but most Australian clips from this period were in black and white, due to the fact that Australia did not convert to colour TV until early 1975.
In 1970–71 Australian musician and filmmaker Chris Lofven made (monochrome) promotional films for two of the biggest Australian hits of the period—Daddy Cool's and Spectrum's . These were widely screened on Australian TV at the time and played a significant role in the success of the songs, which both became national #1 hits.
The genre-defining surf films of Bruce Brown, George Greenough and Alby Falzon and others are also notable for their innovative combinations of image and music featuring sequences of specially-filmed surfing footage, carefully edited against long music tracks, with no accompanying dialogue. Greenough's landmark 1972 film Crystal Voyager concluded with an extended sequence (filmed and edited by Greenough) that was constructed around the 23-minute Pink Floyd track "Echoes". The band was impressed with Greenough's effort and agreed to allow Greenough to use their music in his film in exchange for the right to use his film footage when performing "Echoes" at their concerts.
During late 1972–73 David Bowie featured in a series of promotional films directed by pop photographer Mick Rock, who worked extensively with Bowie in this period. These clips are important landmarks in the development of the music video genre in the 1970s, and they are also notable because they were made by a professional photographer rather than an established film or TV director, and because Rock was given total creative control over the clips.
Mick Rock directed and edited four clips, all originally shot on 16mm colour film, to promote four consecutive David Bowie singles—"John, I'm Only Dancing" (May 1972), "The Jean Genie" (Nov. 1972), the December 1972 US re-release of "Space Oddity" and the 1973 release of the single "Life On Mars" (lifted from Bowie's earlier album Hunky Dory. Mick Rock cites the "Life On Mars" clip as his favorite of the four.
- " 'Life On Mars' was the final in a quartet of 16mm promo films I produced and directed for Bowie. 'John I'm Only Dancing', 'The Jean Genie' and 'Space Oddity' were the other titles. In all cases I waived any fee for their promotional usage. Nobody had any idea at the time that people would one day pay money for such things. Twenty years later these four promo films are featured in a retrospective video package of tracks from Bowie's RCA years. In truth, if I had solicited compensation, these films would not have been made. Promos were not part of any regular budget and only David and I were enthusiastic. DeFries agreed to spring for the expenses to keep David happy and I got to further my interest in film. The key for me was that, within the confines of tiny budgets, I had total creative control. David was happy to let me make all the shooting and editing decisions. What was important to him was that they got made. As in all aspects of his career, at this point, David exhibited uncannily prescient instincts. It's important to note two special ingredients which made Life On Mars such a memorable promo. The dazzling turquoise suit made by longtime Bowie confidant and clothes designer Freddie Burretti (David never wore the suit again), and the exquisite make up rendered by glammeister Pierre Laroche, the man who applied the lighting bolt motif on Aladdin Sane."
The clip for " was made with a budget of just US$200 and filmed at the afternoon rehearsal for Bowie's Rainbow Theatre concert on 19 August 1972. It shows Bowie and band miming to the record (played over the Rainbow PA system) intercut with footage of Bowie's dancers The Astronettes dancing on stage and behind a back-lit screen. The clip was turned down by the BBC, who reportedly found the homosexual overtones of the film distasteful, although Top of the Pops replaced it with footage of bikers and a dancer. The , produced for just US$350, was shot in one day and edited in less than two days. It intercuts footage of Bowie and band in concert with contrasting footage of the group in a photographic studio, wearing black stage outfits and standing against a white background. It also includes location footage with Bowie and Cyrinda Foxe (a MainMan employee and a friend of David and Angie Bowie) shot in San Francisco outside the famous Mars Hotel, with Fox posing provocatively in the street while Bowie lounges against the wall, smoking .
The Swedish music group, ABBA also used promotional films (most directed by Lasse Hallström) throughout the 1970s to promote their music internationally.
1974–1980 – Beginnings of music television
Australia
The Australian TV shows Countdown and Sounds, both of which premiered in 1974, were significant in developing and popularizing the music video genre in Australia and other countries, and in establishing the importance of music video clips as a means of promoting both emerging acts and new releases by established acts.
In early 1974, former radio DJ Graham Webb launched a weekly teen-oriented TV music show which screened on Sydney's ATN-7 on Saturday mornings; this was renamed Sounds Unlimited in 1975 and later shortened simply to Sounds. In need of material for the show, Webb approached Seven newsroom staffer Russell Mulcahy and asked him to shoot film footage to accompany popular songs for which there were no purpose-made clips (e.g. Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talking"). Using this method, Webb and Mulcahy assembled a collection of about 25 clips for the show. The success of his early efforts encouraged Mulcahy to quit his TV job and become a full-time director, and he made clips for several popular Australian acts including Stylus, Marcia Hines, Hush and AC/DC.
After relocating to the UK in the mid-1970s, Mulcahy made successful music videos for several noted British pop acts—his early UK credits included XTC's "Making Plans For Nigel" (1979) and his landmark video for The Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star" (1979) which became the first music video played on MTV in 1981.
Countdown was partly based on the 1960s Australian pop show Kommotion and on the BBC's Top of the Pops but unlike its British counterpart, Countdown was not restricted in its use of music videos. The program was launched in late 1974, a few months after Sounds, and initially screened in a late Saturday afternoon timeslot, but in January 1975, only a few weeks before color TV was officially launched in Australia, it moved to the prime 6 pm Sunday timeslot; thanks to the ABC's nationwide reach, it rapidly became one of the highest-rating shows on Australian TV.
As it gained popularity, Countdown talent coordinator Ian "Molly" Meldrum and producer Michael Shrimpton quickly realized that "film clips" were becoming an important new commodity in music marketing. Despite the show's minuscule budget, Countdowns original director Paul Drane was able to create several memorable music videos especially for the show, including the classic film-clips for the AC/DC hits "It's A Long Way To The Top" and "Jailbreak".
Countdown became enormously successful in Australia and other countries quickly picked up on the format. At its highpoint during most of the 1980s it was to be aired in 22 countries including TV Europe. In 1978, the Dutch TV-broadcasting company Veronica started its own version of Countdown, which during the 1980s featured Adam Curry as its best known presenter.
Although the ABC's facilities and expertise enabled Countdown to present regular studio 'performances' by local and visiting acts, rival shows like Sounds lacked the resources to present such segments, so they at first used music videos almost exclusively.
United Kingdom
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". Another act to succeed with this tactic was Madness, who shot on 16mm and 35mm, constructing their clips as "micro-comedic" short films.
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.
The Alan Parker film adaptation of Pink Floyd The Wall transformed the group's 1979 concept double-LP of the same title into a confrontational and apocalyptic audio-visual labyrinth of stylized, expressionistic images, sounds, melodies and lyrics.
United States
American alternative rock group DEVO created many self-produced music videos, which were included in the pioneering compilation "The Truth About Devolution", directed by Chuck Statler and DEVO's video cassette releases were arguably among the first true long-form video productions.
Video Concert Hall, created by Jerry Crowe and Charles Henderson, was the first nationwide video music programming on American television, predating MTV by almost three years. The USA Cable Network program Night Flight was one of the first American programs to showcase these videos as an art form. Premiering in June 1981, Night Flight predated MTV's launch by two months.
Two feature-length films released on the cusp of MTV's first appearance on the dial contributed enormously to the development of the form. The first was 1981's Shock Treatment, a pseudo-sequel/spinoff of The Rocky Horror Picture Show principally written and scored by RHPS creator Richard O'Brien. Although it was a commercial flop, the film broke stylistic ground by being more focused and less visually ambitious – and thus easier to emulate on a tight budget – than either RHPS or Ken Russel's 1975 adaptation of The Who's music and storyline from the album Tommy, or even a lower-budget affair like The Ramones' Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979).
In 1980, New Zealand group Split Enz had major success with the single "I Got You" and the album True Colours, and later that year they joined Blondie in becoming one of the first bands in the world to produce a complete set of promo clips for each song on the album (directed by their percussionist, Noel Crombie) and to market these on video cassette. This was followed a year later by the first American video album, The Completion Backward Principle by The Tubes, directed by the group's keyboard player Michael Cotten, which included two videos directed by Russell Mulcahy ("Talk To Ya Later" and "Don't Want To Wait Anymore").
Among the first music videos were clips produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith who started making short musical films for Saturday Night Live. In 1981, he released Elephant Parts, the first video album and first winner of a Grammy for music video, directed by William Dear. A further experiment on NBC television called Television Parts was not successful, due to network meddling (notably an intrusive laugh track and corny gags).
Billboard credits the independently-produced Video Concert Hall as being the first with nationwide video music programming on American television.
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 & 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.
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.
During the 1980s music videos had become de rigueur for most recording artists. The phenomenon that was famously parodied by UK BBC television comedy program Not The Nine O'Clock News who produced a spoof music video "Nice Video, Shame About The Song". The genre was also parodied by Frank Zappa in his satirical 1984 song "Be In My Video", and its increasing dominance was critiqued by Joe Jackson in his 1980 song "Pretty Boys.
In this period 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 O' The Times" -- influenced by Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" clip, it featured only the text of the song's lyrics -- and 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, arguably 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 MuchMusic was launched in 1984 as a competitor to MTV.
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 Yo! MTV Raps debuted; the show helped to bring hip hop music to a mass audience for the first time.
1992–2004: Rise of the directors
In December 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek and Hype Williams all got their start around this time; all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed. Some of these directors, including, Gondry, Jonze and F. Gary Gray, went on to direct feature films. This continued a trend that had begun earlier with directors such as Lasse Hallstrom and David Fincher.
During this period, MTV launched channels around the world to show music videos produced in each local market: MTV Latin America in 1993, MTV India in 1996, and MTV Mandarin in 1997, among others. MTV2, originally called "M2" and meant to show more alternative and older music videos, debuted in 1996.
2005–present: The internet becomes video-friendly
The earliest purveyors of music videos on the internet were members of IRC-based groups, who recorded them as they appeared on television, then digitised them, exchanging the .mpg files via IRC channels. The website iFilm, which hosted short videos, including music videos, launched in 1997. Napster, a file sharing service which ran between 1999 and 2001, enabled users to share video files, including those for music videos.
By the mid-2000s, MTV and many of its sister channels had largely abandoned showing music videos in favor of reality television shows, which were more popular with its audiences, and which MTV had itself helped to pioneer with the show The Real World, which premiered in 1992.
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.
Official Lo-fi Internet music clips
Following the shift toward internet broadcasting and the rising popularity of user-generated video sites such as YouTube around 2006, some independent filmmakers began recording live sessions to present on the Web. Examples of this new way of creating and presenting a music video include Vincent Moon's work with The Take-Away Shows; In the Van sessions, a similar platform; and the Dutch VPRO 3VOOR12, which puts out music videos recorded in elevators and other small, guerrilla filmmaking type locations in a similar tradition called (Behind) closed doors. All of these swiftly recorded clips are made with minimal budgets and share similar aesthetics with the lo-fi music movement of the early nineties. Offering freedom from the increasingly burdensome financial requirements of high-production movie-like clips, it began as the only method for little-known indie music artists to present themselves to a wider audience, but increasingly this approach has been taken up by such major mainstream artists as R.E.M and Tom Jones.
Censorship
As the concept and medium of a music video is a form of artistic expression, artists have been on many occasions censored if their content is deemed offensive. What may be considered offensive will differ in countries due to censorship laws and local customs and ethics. In most cases, the record label will provide and distribute videos edited or provide both censored and uncensored videos for an artist. In some cases, it has been known for music videos to be banned in their entirety as they have been deemed far too offensive to be broadcast.
The first video to be rejected by Music Television was "Girls on Film" by Duran Duran in 1981 because it contained full frontal nudity. It was also rejected by the BBC. In 1989, Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time" video (where the singer performs the song in an extremely revealing body suit surrounded by a ship full of cheering sailors) was restricted to late-night broadcasts on MTV. Another notable incident was in 1982, when Captain Beefheart's sole music video, "Ice Cream For Crow" was rejected by MTV for being "too weird".
In 1983, Entertainment Tonight ran a segment on censorship and "Rock Video Violence." The episode explored the impact of MTV rock video violence on the youth of the early 1980s. Excerpts from the music videos of Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Kiss, Kansas, Billy Idol, Def Leppard, Pat Benatar and The Rolling Stones were shown. Dr. Thomas Radecki of the National Coalition on TV Violence was interviewed accusing the fledgling rock video business of excessive violence. Night Tracks producer Tom Lynch weighed in on the effects of the video violence controversy. Recording artists John Cougar Mellencamp, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of Kiss, along with directors Dominic Orlando and Julien Temple, provided a defense of their work. The episode's conclusion was that the controversy will continue to grow.
Some artists have used censorship as a publicity tool. In the 1980s, the show Top of the Pops was censorious in its approach to video content, so some acts made videos that they knew would be censored, using the resulting public controversy to promote their release. Examples of this tactic were Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" and Frankie Goes to Hollywood with "Relax", directed by Bernard Rose.
In 1991, the dance segment of Michael Jackson's "Black or White" was cut because it showed Michael Jackson "inappropriately" touching himself in it. Michael Jackson's most controversial video, "They Don't Care About Us" was banned from MTV, VH1, and BBC because of the alleged anti-Semitic message in the song and the visuals in the background of the "Prison Version" of the video.
Madonna is the artist most associated with music video censorship. The controversy surrounding her marketing of sexuality began with the video for "Lucky Star", and amplified over time due to clips such as "Like a Virgin". Outcry occurred over the subject matter discussed in "Papa Don't Preach". "Like a Prayer" courted heavy criticism due to its religious, sexual, and racially-oriented imagery.
In 1990, Madonna's music video for the song "Justify My Love" was banned by MTV due to its depiction of sadomasochism, homosexuality, cross-dressing, and group sex which generated a media firestorm. The debate over the banning of "Justify My Love" by the Canadian music video network MuchMusic led to the launching in 1991 of Too Much 4 Much, a series of occasional, late-night specials (still being aired in the early 2000s) in which videos officially banned by MuchMusic were broadcast, followed by panel discussion regarding why they were removed.
Madonna's video for "Erotica" was aired only three times (each time after midnight) due to its sexual depictions of sadomasochism. More recently, Madonna's "What It Feels Like for a Girl" was banned in 2001 due to its graphic depiction of violence. She also pulled her "American Life" video because of its controversial military imagery that seemed inappropriate once the War in Iraq began; subsequently, a new video was made for the song.
Björk's 2001 song, "Pagan Poetry", was banned from MTV for depictions of sexual intercourse, fellatio, and body piercings. Her next single, "Cocoon", was also banned by MTV as it featured a nude Björk with red silk coming out of her nipples.
Prodigy's video for "Smack My Bitch Up" was banned in some countries due to depictions of drug use and nudity. The Prodigy's video for "Firestarter" was banned by the BBC because of its references to arson. Thursday's video for "War All the Time" was banned by MTV because of its supposedly controversial nature.
In 2002, the video for "All The Things She Said" by Russian duo t.A.T.u. caused controversy as it featured the young girls, Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova, embracing and eventually kissing. UK TV presenters Richard and Judy campaigned to have the video banned claiming it pandered to pedophiles with the use of school uniforms and young girls kissing, although the campaign failed. Capitalizing on the controversy, the kiss was choreographed into their live performances. Top of the Pops aired the girls' performance with the kiss replaced by audience footage. NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno cut away from the girls' kiss to shots of the band. Throughout their promotional tour, t.A.T.u. protested by appearing in shirts reading "censored".
As of 2005, the Egyptian state censorship committee has banned at least 20 music videos which featured sexual connotations due to Muslim moral viewpoints. The Sex Pistols' video for "God Save the Queen" was banned by the BBC for calling the United Kingdom a fascist regime. In 2004, many family groups and politicians lobbied for the banning of the Eric Prydz video "Call on Me" for containing women dancing in an sexually suggestive way, however, the video was not banned. At some point in the past, the video for "(s)AINT" by Marilyn Manson was banned by that artist's label due to its violence and sexual content. In 2008, Justice's video for their song Stress was boycotted by several major music television channels due to allegations of racism and violence; the video depicts several youths committing various crimes throughout the streets of Paris, with the youths mainly being of North African and Algerian descent.
Unofficial music videos
Unofficial, fan-made music videos ("bootleg" tapes) are typically made by synchronizing existing footage from other sources, such as television series or movies, with the song. The first known fan video, or songvid, was created by Kandy Fong in 1975 using still images from Star Trek loaded into a slide carousel and played in conjunction with a song. Fan videos made using videocassette recorders soon followed. With the advent of easy distribution over the internet and cheap video-editing software, fan-created videos began to gain wider notice in the late 1990s.
Such videos are sometimes known as OPV, Original Promotional Videos (or sometimes Other People's Videos). In the case of anime music videos, the source material is drawn from Japanese anime or from American animation series. Since neither the music nor the film footage is typically licensed, distributing these videos is usually copyright infringement on both counts. A well-known example of an unofficial video include one made for Danger Mouse's illegal mash-up of the Jay-Z track "Encore" with music sampled from The Beatles' White Album, in which concert footage of The Beatles is remixed with footage of Jay-Z and rap dancers.
In 2007, a new form of lip sync-based music video called lip dub became popular in which a group of people are filmed lip singing in a seemingly random spot then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song. These videos have the feeling of being spontaneous and authentic and are spread virally through mass participatory video sites like YouTube.
Timeline
- 1941: A new invention hits clubs and bars in the USA: The Panoram Soundie is a jukebox that plays short videoclips along with the music.
- 1956: Hollywood discovers the genre of music-centered films. A wave of rock 'n' roll films begins (Rock Around the Clock, Don't Knock the Rock, Shake, Rattle and Rock, Rock Pretty Baby, The Girl Can't Help It, and the famous Elvis Presley movies). Some of these films integrate musical performances into a story, others are simply revues.
- 1960: In France a re-invention of the Soundie, the Scopitone, gains limited success.
- 1961: Ricky Nelson's Travelin' Man video is shown on television.
- 1962: British Television invents a new form of music television. Shows like Top Of The Pops, Ready! Steady! Go! and Oh, Boy start as band vehicles and become huge hits.
- 1964: The US-Television market adapts the format. Hullabaloo is one of the first US shows of this kind, followed by Shindig! (NBC) and American Bandstand; The Beatles star in A Hard Day's Night
- 1965: Bob Dylan films Subterranean Homesick Blues as a segment for D. A. Pennebaker's film, Dont Look Back, with two alternate takes.
- 1966: The first conceptual promos are aired, for the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" and "Rain".
- 1967: The Beatles ground-breaking promotional films for "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" are released.
- 1968: The Rolling Stones collaborate with Jean-Luc Godard on Sympathy for the Devil
- 1969: Easy Rider features one of the first uses of rock music to accompany sequences in a dramatic film
- 1970: The record industry discovers these TV-Shows as a great opportunity to promote their artists. They focus on producing short "Promos", early music videos which started to replace the live performance of the artist on the TV-stage. Also, the Atlanta-produced Now Explosion starts a 26-week run in syndication.
- 1973: The first of forty-six different Schoolhouse Rock music videos begin airing during Saturday morning cartoons on ABC.
- 1974: the pop shows Sounds and Countdown premiere on Australian television; Russell Mulcahy makes his first music videos for Sounds.
- Swedish group ABBA pioneer the use of "Promos" with their clips, directed by Lasse Hallström. These contain innovative effects, camera angles, and a less static look than is the norm at the time. The band continue using such videos throughout the 1970s.
- 1975: "Bohemian Rhapsody", a groundbreaking video released by Queen, marks the beginning of the video era and sets the language for the modern music video. The video is considered one of the first to use advanced video effects.
- 1979: Devo releases "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise", which is the first music video to include computer animation, as well as traditional animation.
- 1980: "Ashes to Ashes", considered a groundbreaking video, is released by David Bowie.
- 1980: "Coming Up" All instruments on the video are played by either Paul McCartney or Linda McCartney.
- 1981: MTV, the first 24-hour satellite music channel, launches in August. Initially few cable TV operators carry it, but it rapidly becomes a major hit and cultural icon.
- "Shock Treatment" is released in theatres.
- 1981: Michael Nesmith wins the first ever music video Grammy, for Elephant Parts.
- 1982: Pink Floyd The Wall is released in theatres.
- 1983: Night Tracks debuts on Superstation WTBS (later known as TBS) with up to 14 hours of music videos each weekend by 1985. This allows nearly all U.S. households with Cable TV to view music videos regularly, as MTV still isn't widely available at this point in time compared to WTBS.
- 1983: Friday Night Videos debuts on the NBC television network, allowing nearly all U.S. households to view music videos regularly. Michael Jackson's Billie Jean video is released on TV, and for the first time a black artist's video is featured in heavy rotation on MTV with the video for his Beat It hit single.
- 1984: Laura Branigan's video for her hit song "Self Control" is refused airplay by MTV, who demand certain cuts be made to remove content they find objectionable.
- 1984: Prince releases the movie Purple Rain, and its soundtrack is nominated for an Oscar. The soundtrack album sells 15 million copies.
- 1984: Michael Jackson's short film Thriller is released, changing the concept of music videos forever. The Making of Thriller home video is also released in 1984. It is the first ever video about the making of a music video and it becomes the best selling VHS to date.
- 1984: Van Halen's 1984 album comes out with famous video hit like "Hot For Teacher", "Jump", and "Panama".
- MTV presents its first Video Music Awards, hosted by Dan Aykroyd and Bette Midler.
- The Grammys award Best Short Form Music Video, as well as Best Long Form Music Video.
- 1985: a-ha find instant stardom with their hit song "Take On Me", significantly due to heavy rotation play of the song's video, which features a combination of live action and rotoscoping animation. The groundbreaking video wins several awards and is consistently rated as one of the best for decades to come.
- 1985: Madonna's video for her hit single "Material Girl" is released. It is largely based on Marilyn Monroe's performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes A huge storm of interest explodes for the video. The video is considered one of the most memorable and always comes up in "The Best Videos" lists.
- 1986: "Sledgehammer", the groundbreaking video from Peter Gabriel, furthers the revival of animation in music video, utilizing stop-motion photography and winning several awards.
- 1989: MTV renames its "Video Vanguard Award" the "Michael Jackson Vanguard Award" in honor of the pop star's contributions to the art of music video.
- 1989: Madonna's controversial video for "Like a Prayer" is released.
- 1990: MTV bans Madonna's "Justify My Love" video. It is released as a video single, the first of its kind.
- 1991: Nirvana release the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video, catapulting Kurt Cobain - and the grunge genre - into the American and Worldwide mainstream.
- First use of the now-familiar morphing special effect in a music video, with Michael Jackson's "Black or White" (directed by John Landis), from his album Dangerous.
- 1992: MTV begins to credit music video directors.
- 1995: Release of the most expensive music video ever "Scream", from Michael Jackson's HIStory album, a duet with his sister Janet.
- 1995: TLC's video for their hit song Waterfalls becomes a groundbreaking video for Girl groups and received massive airplay on MTV.
- 1996: Pop-up Video is first aired on VH1.
- 1996: Smashing Pumpkins releases the video for their song "Tonight, Tonight", based upon Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon. This video was one of the first to be based upon an early film.
- 1996: M2 is launched as a 24-hour music video channel, as MTV has largely replaced videos with other content.
- 1999: M2 is renamed to MTV2.
- Making the Video, a series chronicling the production of a music video, premieres on MTV.
- 2001: Björk releases the video for Pagan Poetry which was controversial for its depictions of sexual acts and body piercings.
- 2002: MTV Hits is launched, as MTV2 is gradually showing fewer music videos (now virtually non-existent on MTV).
- 2005: Grandaddy fan Stewart Smith releases unofficial online along with the source code that created it. It is the first open source music video and is later sanctioned by Grandaddy's label, V2 Records.
- 2007: Musicbox (URL: musicbox.sonybmg.com) is launched by Sony BMG. This online portal signifies the first free streaming effort owned and operated by a major label.
- 2008: The first 3D video ever is made by Dave Meyers and Missy Elliott for her single Ching-a-Ling / Björk also makes one for Wanderlust.
Music video stations
Here are some of the most popular music video stations from around the world:
Music video shows
See also
Footnotes
External links
- A brief history of Music Videos
- Watch Music Videos
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