The History Of

Music Videos

What is a Music Video?

• A music video is a videotaped performance of a recorded song. Usually accompanied by dancing and visual images; interpreting the lyrics.

The First Ever Music Video!

Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is considered the first music video. When the song was released in the UK in 1975 the band were on tour abroad and couldn't make it to Top Of The Pops each week when it reached no.1. No-one imagined the record would be so successful (at nearly 9 minutes long it was considered un-radio-friendly and the record company assumed no radio station would play it), and that is when they recorded the video to be played in their absence. Although it looks ‘bad’ today, at the time it was revolutionary and people couldn't get enough of it.

The first video played on MTV was Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles. But, it was not until Michael Jackson's Billie Jean video, was MTV taken seriously, and seen as an alternative to radio. Until then, music videos consisted mainly of bands looking at the camera from exotic locations or performing in a 'captured-on-film' moment. Of course, when Michael Jackson released Thriller and it's accompanying video/mini-movie (the most requested video of all time) did MTV become the most popular way of discovering the new music and artist.

Just Between You and Me" was the first music video by a Canadian musical artist ever played on MTV.

1950

1st Jan 1950

The 1950s was the birth of Rock 'n' Roll.

The first ever scoptione was also made in France and artists such as Serge Gainsbourg used the scopitone. It was a type of jukebox- it had a small screen on it playing live or animated videos that were synced to the music playing.

1960

1st Jan 1960

The 1960s was when the 'musical revolution' occurred- it was all about freedom. Popular artists at this time included The Beatles and The Supremes.

The song, Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles, was very popular at this time.

1970

1 Jan 1970

During the 70's the main genre's were Pop,

Disco, Rock, Punk and R&B. Even though they had the technology, artists were not filmed for promotional purposes.

Artists performed live on television show such as Top Of The Pops and Countdown.

1980

1st June 1980

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

This style started a whole new era for the music video and the introduction of "Top of the pops" which would promote the music and then created a competition between artists for the first time.

198226th August 1982Michael Jackson - ThrillerThis video was the pioneer of the 'Storyline' video which has a plot, almost like a 'mini' movie. It contains sophisticated visuals and it took the music industry to another level. Now music videos were really being seen as promotion and it made into high-budget productions.

1990

1st Jan 1990

The 1990's were a very diverse decade in the music industry. Genres of music included R&B, teen pop and hip hop.

2000

1st Jan 2000

Nowadays music videos are ten times popular than they were. Technology is now much easier to get hold of as it is cheap and has become mainstream.

The Most Expensive Music Video

Janet Jackson leads with six videos on the list of budgets over $500,000, while Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and Ayumi Hamasaki have five each. Madonna has made four appearances in the top 5 making her the artist with the most expensive videos of all time put together. Kanye West, Busta Rhymes, Mylène Farmer, Guns N' Roses, and MC Hammer appear on the list twice. Joseph Kahn has directed four videos on this list while Hype Williams and Wataru Takeishi have directed three videos on the list. Nigel Dick, Mark Romanek and John Landis appear twice on this list, the latter with videos both directed for Michael Jackson.Mark Romanek, the director of the, as known, most expensive music video, Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream", has refuted the claim saying that there were two other music videos from the same era which cost "millions more" than the video for "Scream".