MUSIC
VIDEOS:
A HISTORY
THE FIRST MUSIC VIDEO
1900-THE GRAMoPHONE
Invented by Edison in the USA; Music stops being solely performed live and becomes accessable at home. Music is able to be appreciated purely by sound rather than the performace going on during the song.
1920-ABSTRACT ART
In the 1920's Oskar Fischinger begins experimenting with the synchronisation of visuals and sound on film. Fischinger was an abstarct animator and film maker. He is notable for creating visually stimulating accompaniment to music before the moderm music video existed as a medium.
1927-THE JAZZ SINGER
The Jazz Singer was the first film with sound and it was after the release of this that we saw the downfall of silent movies. The Jazz Singer was produced by Warner and used the vitaphone sound on disc system. It is considered one of the best American films of all time (American Film Institute).
1957-JAILHOUSE ROCK
Elvis' Jailhouse Rock is a musical feature film from the 50's and is considered the prototype for modern music videos. In 2004 it was selected for 'preservation' due to its significance and its influence on modern media.
1962-SUMMER HOLIDAY
Summer Holiday starring Cliff Richard intergrated dance and music together rather than dance just serving as something to watch during a song. The choreographer for the film later became a director. It was voted the 99th greatest family film in a Channel 4 poll and is still regularly shown on british telelvision.
1964-A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
A Hard Day's Night was a comedy film starring the Beatles that was released in the height of beatlemania. It influenced further films in the 60's as well as being the first musical film to use the fast paced cuts seen in modern music videos.
1940-SOUNDIES & PANORAM
Soundies where three minute musical films shot on 16mm film, they were usually available for rent upon release and were able to be played on panoram. Panoram is a type of coin operated jukebox that shows these clips and was often found in bars, resturants and clubs.
1964-HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN//THE ANIMALS
The rendition of House of the Rising Sun by The Animals was the first song to be number one in both the UK and America that wasnt Beatles related. It is considered one of the first songs to combine rock and folk into one. It quickly became the groups signature song. It's also one of the first videos to use lipsynching.
1975-BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY//QUEEN
Bohemian Rhapsody was a critical success, it was number one for nine weeks and sold more than a million copies by January 1976. The music video is considered ground breaking as it was released seven years before the beginning of MTV. It was after the release of this promotional video that it became common for companies to put one out with every song released.
1979-VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR//THE BUGGLES
This music video had a budget of $50,000 and was filmed an editied over three days. It was originally released on Top of the Pops for promotion of the single but is widley considered to be the video that was the debut of MTV in 1981 and later in 2000 became the millionth video to be aired on MTV.
1980-ASHES TO ASHES//DAVID BOWIE
At the time of release this was the most expensive music video of all time costing $500,000. Due to its over all complexity, bringing together colour, black and white as well as multiple costumes and settings Ashes to Ashes remains one of the most influential videos in the evolution of music videos.
1982-THE WALL//PINK FLOYD
The Wall is a musical film directed by Alan Parker. It is fundamentally a feature length narritive music video for Pink Floyd's album of the same name. It features animated sections by artist Gerald Scarfe and therefore arguably has elements of a conceptual video too as there is a lot of symbolic imagery in the film. Visual representation of lyrics and music was still relatively knew.
1983-THRILLER//MICHAEL JACKSON
Michael Jackson's Thriller has a 13 minute long music video and it is voted the most influential pop video of all time. It is so influential due to the coming together of film making and music video directing that is seen in the video. It was selected for the National Film Registry and was the first music video to recieve such an accolade.
1988/1991-THE RISE OF THE MUSIC CHANNEL
With the development of music channels on TV such as MTV music was able to diversify due to the addition of genre specific channels and therefore it allowed more genres exposure as well as a wider spectrum of artists to experiment with music video as a way to showcase their music.
1995-THE MOST EXPENSIVE VIDEO
The most expensive music video of all time is Michael and Janet Jackson's Scream. The total budget for the video was $7,000,000. This is closely followed by Maddona's Die Another Day ($6,100,000) and Maddona's Express Yourself ($5,000,000).
1992/2004-DIRECTORS
MTV began crediting directors of music videos in 1992 and began the annual music video awards (we now know these as the VMAs). Thus, crediting the music video as an art form rather than simple means of promotion. Some of these music video directors even went on to create feature films, such as David Fincher who is now known for the film Se7en but also Maddona's Vogue and Bad Girl.
2005-THE MODERN AGE: THE INTERNET
With the launch of youtube in 2005 music videos where more acessible than ever. It was an easy way for not only signed musicians to promote their work but for newer up and coming artists to put themselves out there. The most viewed music video of all time is PSY's Gangnam Style(강남스타일). The video has been viewed so many times youtube had to update their view counter to show 32 bit and then 64. It has in total been viewed 2,585,209,040 times.