Music videos are a very popular thing within the music industry and near enough every song from every artist will have one. The music video serves one main purpose, which is to promote the artist. A music video will either be the artist performing or it will tell a story through a narrative, or even a mixture of the two. Music videos have evolved a great deal throughout the years.
The first music video was Bill Hickey – Rock around the clock, which was a film including him performing his music. This was released in the cinema in 1956 and at the time was the only way to see popular music.
After this, Elvis Presley started making films including his music which he could send around the world as he couldn’t tour. This promoted his music on world wide scale.
The Beatles are also said to of had the first music videos when they started making films including them performing their songs, these were used to send around the world in order for everybody to be able to see them, and to promote them. There first film was ‘A hard days night’ directed by Rick Lester in 1964. This film alone made millions and made a great image for the band.
A year after this in 1965 Bob Dylan released his film ‘Dont look back’ directed by D.A Pennabaker. At the beginning of this was a video of Bob Dylan’s song Subnaterean homesick blues. This was regarded the first music video as it wasn’t a film, it was an actual video made for the song. This song challenges authority and values the previous generation, this is shown by the cards with lyrics on that Bob is holding in the video.
In 1965 The Beatles released their second film ‘Help’ and then 2 years later in 1967 released their third film ‘The magical mystery tour’. Both were massive hits and again sent all over the world for people to see. The song lyrics were interpreted through the use of video and really helped to create an image for them.
In 1972 David Bowie released a video for his song ‘Space oddity’. This song was seen as quite futuristic as the song was about space, it had a lot of colour and zooms and whip pans, but the video was solely performance based and, to be honest, quite boring.
3 years later in 1975, Queen were unable to appear on top of the pops, so they spent £5000 on making a music video so their fans could see them perform the song ‘Bohemian rhapsody’. The video was filmed on the newly invented 2 inch tape and was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. The video used a lot of low angle shots in order to make the band look dominant. They also used a lot of close ups and group shots to show the band performing, which is a popular convention of music videos. The band were wearing eccentric outfits and had a lot of dry ice floating around which created an image for the band. Due the popularity of the video the song stayed number 1 for 9 weeks.
In the early 1980’s Peter Gabriel created a video for the song Sledgehammer. This was released at the time of home VHS, so it was the first time people could view music videos in their home. The video was a whole animation and was something really different but he still portrayed his lyrics through the video.
And then, in the late 1980s’, early 1990’s, The Beautiful South released a video for the song A song for whoever. This video had both performance and a narrative. The video was also self reflecting and was humorous.
A lot of videos then started to no have no particular meaning, Radiohead’s street spirit and no surprises are great examples of this. But although they had no particular meaning, we enjoyed them as they don’t need to have a meaning. These videos were based around performance but also had very arty/abstract styles to them.
On the other hand, they were videos that had a lot of meaning in them. R.E.M’s losing my religion is a great example of a video with a lot of meaning in it. It is a heavily based around religion and how the belief system has been shattered. The mis-en-scene shows the religion and how it is represented. For example, at the beginning of the video there is an object stood on a plinth, it then falls off and shatters, therefore representing religion. The video was an interpretation of lyrics in video form.
A lot of videos started to be very intertextual. Intertextual means it includes references to other songs, movies and celebrities. This came around in the 80’s and 90’s. Madonna’s video for ‘Vouge’ was very intertextual and in black and white, giving it an artsitc based feel, although it was also performance. Another example of an intertextaul video would be Weezers ‘Buddy Holly’. This video was made in the 90’s by a 90’s band staring in a 70’s sitcom, Happy Days, which was based in the 50’s. This video was very performance based and used a lot of close ups and group shots of the band.
In 1984 Michael Jackson released a video to thriller. This is still seen as one of the best music videos of all time. Even though it is a music video, it is very similar to a short movie and is very much based on performance. The video is clearly of the horror genre, we know this from all of the horror codes and conventions we see and recognise in the video. The voiceover in the video is the voice of Vincent Price who is a very iconic figure within the horror genre.
Then along came British social realism and Oasis’s video for ‘The importance of being idle’. This video has a very particular set of codes and conventions and we can tell that from the mis-en-scene it is based on British social realism. This video was largely influence by the film ‘Saturday night and Sunday morning’; this was one of the very first British social realist films and it reflects different values of all generations.
Blink 182 then released a video for ‘All the small things’ which was just a big parody video and mimicked all forms and conventions of music videos. This video was performance based.
In conclusion, music videos have always been a really important aspect of the music industry and have always been important for bands in order to be able to promote themselves and their songs. Music videos have changed and improved such a great deal over the past 80 or so years and will continue to change and improve along with the technology which allows them to do so.
