History of the Music Video

Bands such as The Beatles started to make mini feature films including their songs during the 60's. You could say this was the start of music videos. Their promotional videos became a hit and each time they shot another more and more effects were used. Over time technology improved meaning it was a lot cheaper to own televisions  which meant people had access to watching music videos. 

The Beatles - Help:

Above is one of The Beatles promotional videos. As you can see it was filmed in black and white, it also pretty static however due to technology this was the best they good produce at the time. As the years went on the quality of these promotional videos improved, the later ones were shot in colour.

Today music videos are completely different, back in the day it only really mattered that the music was  good. Nowadays the music videos need to be at the same standard or even higher. Music videos alone have a big influence on the record sales of a song. For example the reason Gangnam Style became viral was due to the video and the dance moves featured in it.

Top of the Pops was a massive show when it was aired, before individual music channels, Top of the Pops would be the place you'd see your favourite artists/bands. This programme was very influential in the way we watch music videos, now there's loads of channels across the world that just broadcast music videos. Music videos are now accessible on different media platforms such as the internet. YouTube features music videos from artists/bands and often puts age restrictions if deemed unsuitable. Some artists/bands want their videos to get banned for publicly because if your not meant to watch it, it makes people want to see it. This generates a lot of interest around the song and video.

During the 80's music videos started to change, artists/bands began to include story-lines to give it a more sophisticated feel. 'Thiller' by Michael Jackson was a big turning point and took the concept of a storyline to a new level. The music video was classed as a short film at 14 minutes long. Everybody associates this song to its iconic video.

Like Top of the Pops, MTV was a big influence to music videos. Some say this period of time is the 'golden age' of music videos however others argue that MTV has hurt the music industry by promoting the physical appearance of the song rather than the content.

Most expensive Music Video to date:  

Michael and Janet Jacksons music video for 'Scream' is the most expensive video to date. It cost a staggering $7,000,000 to produce. The video was made in 1995 and no one has spent nowhere near the amount they did on this music video. Computer animation was used throughout and as this music video was made in 1995 it was quite costly as it was cutting edge technology.