The History of Music Videos

First of all, need to apologise to Mr. Earl for not telling him about my internet connection problem over this past summer holiday, this very unpredictable connection has meant that it has been very hard for me to post blogs throughout this entire summer, however luckily I have still had connection to Microsoft Word where all my data has been stored so I shall continue to post blogs from now on, apologies to any frustration I may have caused Mr. Earl within these past few weeks. So anyway, the history of music videos. Music videos have a very influential and substantial history in terms of the media and the impact on society, however interestingly enough the first ever music video cannot be dated back to a specific date or specific video; this is due to the question of what actually is a music video. Certainly technology has vastly influenced the evolution of music videos and their stature in the media world, beforehand and during the 1950s music videos were little more than simple live recordings and performances often with the band or artist simply standing beside a microphone with their accompanied instruments and they’d play the song, the Beatles music video for the song “Let it Be” is a prime example of this, there is no real indication of a narrative or story and is just the musicians playing the music they’re selling to the public, the video scans through with little editing shots of Paul McCartney and John Lennon singing and playing the guitar and piano, there is very little in regards to technology such as transitions of shots or anything like the matter. Even throughout the 1960s this was still a prominent form of music videos, however with the rise of technology and sub-genres within music (particularly rock music) a new wave of fashion and style began to emerge within videos, editing in the videos became slicker and more ‘in time’ with the music than before, The Beatles song “Help!” still utilized the same style with just the band performing the song, however the editing is noticeably much more ‘in time’ with the music with much faster editing and cuts adding a new style towards the previously style of just a band performance and nothing else. The whole idea of a music video being a vastly important concept in relation to the music being sold was not considered in great proportion until the rise of MTV in 1981, trivially the first music video featured being The Buggles “Video Killed The Radio Star”, since then music videos have arguably become more important (or perhaps more famous) than the song. Narration and story was suddenly evoked and music videos became effectively like short stories telling an all around beginning, middle and end. There were now different styles and conventions different music genres adopted in their music and there were many different styles utilized in the structure of them, some videos were still a simple performance by the band but this time there was more style, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is all a performance by the band however it emphasized styles and conventions of grunge music such as very dreary, brown walls and a very bland and very miserable scenery to add to the message of the song. Before MTV there were still some music videos which were not just a single performance by a band or artist, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody in 1975 was neither a single performance nor a narrative, although it still had a performance in it the most infamous part of the song features just the heads of the band members all singing a verse of the song with a black background, a very stylish and artistic convention which was not typical by any means at the time. However music videos were evolving many claim that Michael Jackson’s short film and title track “Thriller” helped pave the way for narration in music videos, the video was overall around 30 minutes long whilst the song itself is only around 3-4mins long, the story includes Michael and a girl visiting a film at a cinema and later on in the night Michael turns into a zombie and begins to dance and sing the title track, subsequently the song and video became synonymous with all music videos and has been voted the greatest music video of all time in a number of surveys such as “rockonthenet” survey counting down the 100 greatest music videos. This influence has meant that music videos now often have a narrative structure, some recent infamous examples include Ed Sheeran’s “The A Team” which has amassed over 20million views on the website YouTube, this video does not feature any live performance of the song by the singer and instead tells the story of a young girl who happens to be a drug addict and the song follows her throughout a couple of days in her life. Other videos in recent years have decided to mix the live performance and narration in order to provide a story but also highlight the band or artist performing the song, this is particular popular in rock music and alternative rock and indie music, 30 Seconds to Mars frequently utilize this in music videos such as “The Kill” and “Kings and Queens” by crossing over a narration of a story with the singer singing the song and sometimes featuring the band playing the music with their instruments. As of 2012 music videos are one of the most important aspects of the ‘marketing ploy’ developed by musicians, since the arise of YouTube many music videos have since become very controversial and are no longer at limits to a particular audience, many recent controversial videos often enhance themes linked to sex, drugs and violence, Rihanna’s video for the song “S&M” utilized many sexual elements which caused it to be banned in many countries around the world. Music videos are becoming increasingly popular on the website; many music videos in recent years have vastly surpassed 100 million views, a feat enormous by any standards in the music industry, songs like “Bad Romance” have more than 500 million views and even songs considered less serious and more humorous such as “Sexy and I know it” have surpassed over 200million views. Overall the YouTube and internet culture has allowed music videos to span across a vast variety of different areas and meant that music videos have become increasingly more important, award shows such as the VMA’s being made specifically for music videos of artistic or story driven value indicates clearly the level of significance music videos have now, clearly the evolution from them being a simple live performance has vastly altered at a humongous rate, not only is there now much more use of style and artistic license such as utilizing mise-en-scene to match with many aspects of the genre of music, the editing as well has evolved to become much more slicker and often keeps in time with the music thus making the video more significant to the song instead of having it be an effectively useless package to be added along with the song.