The History of the Music Video

the history of the music video


1920 
'animators such as Oskar Fishchinger accompanied his animations with musical scores calling them 'visual music `.

 1929
a very early example of a music video was actually a short film. the blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St.louis Blue's (1929) featuring a dramatized version of the hit song it was shown in theaters until 1932. 

 1940

Walt Disney released fantasia, a film based entirely around pieces of classical music. this was still a film but showed the narrative side of music in a creative and new way. 

1950s-60s

in 1956 Tony Bennett was filmed walking in Hyde park as his recording of 'strangers in paradise' played. it was played by UK ans US TV stations. Bennett latter claimed he had the first music video

a defining moment in music video history was the Beatles first major motion picture, of their song 'a hard days night' released in 1964 directed by Richard Lester. 

the US film series the Monkees specially made film segments that were created to accompany the Monkees songs featured in the show. the series ran from 1966-1968.

again the Beatles added to the history of the music video with their films 'strawberry fields forever' and 'penny lane' made in early 1967. these were the first attempts to address the concept of the music in an creative way.  

1966 Bob Dylan performing 'subterranean homesick blues' was also a monumental step in music video history and has been imitated. 

1970
 shows like top of the pops came about and people started to see that video promotion was the way forward Queens 'bohemian rhapsody' is a brilliant example of this.

1980s

1981- MTV was launched the first video to be aired was ‘video killed the radio star’ buggles.

The 1980s is where music videos really started to develop a strong narrative sense. Michael jackson was the first artist to have a ‘concept’ video. His music video for his song Billie Jean where the video had a structure but it wasn’t until 1984 that thriller took the music video format to an exciting new place.

Today  

Today music videos have changed dramatically in the sense technology has progressed so much giving us the ability to use special effects and edit things together and produce a high quality music videos.