History of the Music Video (DONE)

History of the Music Video

A music video is an illustration behind the sound track of a song. The purpose of a music video can be viewed in two ways; the way that music videos can be shown on television rather than the now dying out platform of radio. This means that they can advertise or self promote on television as well as radio. It can also be seen as a way to tell the story behind a song without making it clearly obvious through sound.

1894 - The video ever made could be compared to a slideshow rather than a video, mainly because they had no way of filming so they had almost a flipbook initiative, this was aided by the invention of the zoetrope earlier in the 19th century, which made pictures spin in between frames making the eye believe they were moving, however this video was made using a 'magic lantern' which uses light to project a picture onto a screen, like the modern projector. The music was over the song 'The Little Lost Child' and consisted of a man playing violin whilst another man sang, it was created by Edward B Marks and John Stern. If you fast forward to 1929, the music video concept, created by Marks and Stern, was called a 'Talkie' short for 'talking picture'. In the same year Bessie Smith's song St. Louis Blues was recorded as a dramatised film even though it was released four years prior to the release of the original song. 1956 saw the production of the first 'music video' which was set to Tony Bennett's 'Stranger in Paradise' which aired on 'American Bandstand' an American TV show, a year later, Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock was released. In 1961 music videos were starting to be made in a more conventional manner, i.e. recording certain visuals paired with lip syncing eventually overlaid on a music track, on Canadian TV show 'Singalong Jubilee'. Three years later the Beatles took part in the mockumentary feature film 'A Hard Days Night' which was filmed in black and white. 1974 saw the birth of music television in Australia with 'Countdown' and 'Sounds Unlimited' or 'Sounds', where producers would show music videos or even make a backing video for a track that didn't previously have one. Countdown followed suit when they realised that their was money in this way of marketing music, and Ian Meldrum, the man who realised this would go on to have Paul Drane produce music videos for AC/DC, as well as producing The Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star' which was the first music video to be played on MTV in 1981.