History of the music video

The Late 1970's

The late 1970's was the era for the famous British music show "Top of the Pops" where artists would go onto television, perform their singles alongside a countdown of the most popular tracks that week. Broadly, this could be argued as one of the first modern ways for music videos to be known as slightly relevant and something of fashion to watch on the BBC. Up until this period, music videos had mainly and still were to some extent performance based videos of the artist with footage of them performing at one their concerts or gigs but even then still used the familiar frames such as long shots, mid shots and close-ups. Examples of videos like this that were used and streamed on to Top of the Pops were "The Kinks" with their song 'Apeman'.



While performance based videos were the main type of thing to be seen in the 1970's period there still was some exceptions of artists who began to advance their videos slightly making them more eye-catching and intriguing to their audience since they'd only been seeing concert/gig videos up until this point. One of the first videos that were mainly performance with possibly a hint of concept  is Queens "Bohemian Rhapsody" and even so, the whole thing was shot and edited on videotape making it no where as near as technically advanced as the videos that're streamed onto channels such as MTV and Kiss today.

However, videos such as this one had an effect on the history of music videos as it began to show signs of how artists, their record labels and the rest of their team had started to realize that there was more than one way of drawing an audience and catching attention other than just the music alone, being different and new was clearly a way to encourage artists audiences to buy into their music, hence making more profit for the company. This is a technique that is still used by audiences today as I've recognized from my research into more modern music videos.

1981 - 1991
After Top of the Pops and the music video slowly being brought to fashion, the whole idea of visuals to aid a song went mainstream and the British public weren't just tuning in to watching music on Top of the Pops. In 1981 MTV (a US Network) aired the likes of "Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Buggles and "Holiday" by Madonna which caused a rise in the want from the music industries audience to see various music videos from their favourite stars. This quickly made music videos an extremely important part of music marketing and was relied on heavily by big stars to create that extra buzz for their material. This doesn't go to say that the videos of this period were still not half as technical or advanced as they are now. Using Madonna as a prime example, music videos began to help artists establish their image. Madonna was very much like a sex symbol in the 80's as oppose to her industry equal Kylie Minogue who portrayed that much sweeter and more family friendly look - quite like the comparisions made between ex-Disney stars Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez in their music videos today, showing that image has always played an impact on the audiences impression of the star.
(Modern day music industry "sweet heart" Selena Gomez (right) and 'good girl gone bad' ex-Disney Star Miley Cyrus (left) proving that image still sparks different assumptions from similar target audiences in the modern day) 

In the 1981-1991 era, recording studios and sets had access to high quality colour video cameras which the majority of music videos from this generation were shot on, these pieces of equipment were fairly inexpensive and pretty easy to use for video directors and camera men. 

However, the following music video is the reason why this era was probably one of the most revolutionary for the history of the music video and that is 'Thriller' by Michael Jackson released in 1983. It $500,000 to film and was was almost 14 minutes long bringing it up to the equivalent of a shot film. Not only was this US stars music video considered to be on such a high budget compared to the standard music video of this time but it was also the first of its kind to have a clear and obvious narrative that Michael's audience could follow. Of course this opened up ideologies that I've researched earlier in the blog such as visuals matching lyrics and music and the image of the star overall. "Thriller" saw the rise of narrative based music videos and set the standards for new and innovative ideas from other artists to come and really draw in the attention from fans of music everywhere.

1992 - 2004 
Despite the 80's opening the window for the image of artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna and Kylie to develop, the 90's and early 2000's were the years where directors began to get more recognition for their work and so forth were listed onto the credits of music videos which hinted the early signs of a merge happening between the music industry fans and the music industry itself.

 Before technology and the growth of music it was virtually impossible for any aspiring singers to record themselves a demo because it was too expensive to hire a studio for the period of time needed to get a track of standard to hand to a company. This was the same with directing a video. It wasn't until technological convergence and people being able to access affordable and usable cameras and software that people began to have a shot at recording their own music videos as aspiring directors staring out by filming music videos for amateurs at a not too expensive price to allow them to bring it to a record label in order to be signed.

An example of a director who got his break this way during this time is Hype Williams who now at the height of his fame has directed music videos like 2Pacs "California Love", Ke$ha's "We R Who We Are", TLC "No Scrubz", LL Cool J's "Control Myself". Some would say that the growth in video directors during this time period contributed to the original concepts and ideas that we see in music videos today.

2005-Present 
In the most recent years, music videos are almost compulsory whenever an artist releases a single whether they're Marilyn Mason, Robbie Williams or One Direction. With influences from the internet with the earliest video streaming site such as IRC groups who recorded videos off of the television and then uploaded them all the way to certified businesses such as VEVO on YouTube who hold some of the most viewed music videos of the modern century including "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga, "Baby" by Justin Bieber - a singer who was discovered on the site and viral internet sensations Psy with "Gangname Style",  music videos are now highly anticipated by target audiences and often act out as the best promotional methods for singles when they release trailers via internet.

Examples of teasers from modern day artists include:
                                                  Katy Perry and her teaser for "Wide Awake"

Beyonce and her teaser for "Run the World (Girls)" 

One Direction and their teaser for "What Makes You Beautiful" 

In this post I have learned to respect where music videos have come from and what it's taken to reach the products that we see today streamed on to our televisions and on the internet. This will help me with my own music video because it'll encourage me to look at the bigger picture and consider the type of director that the genre of my video would want (established or amateur) depending on the stars genre and it also helps me bare in mind how concepts change and develop overtime and how something that's "in" and tasteful now might not be considered as on trend in anywhere as long as 50 years to come or as short as 2 years to come. The process of the music video is ever changing.