History of the music video

Late 1920s- Talkies:

·         Talkies are short musical films.

·         Vitaphone shorts, produced by Warner Brothers, featured many bands and dancers.

·         During this time the earliest karaoke was introduced by Max Fleischer and was called Screen Songs.

·         Early animated films by Walt Disney (Fantasia) and Warner Brothers (Looney Toons) were initially fashioned around specific songs.

1940s- Soundies:

·         Soundies were musical films that often included short dance sequences.

·         Louis Jordan made short films for his songs which he put together to form the feature film Lookout Sister.

1950s- Early music clips:

·         Tony Bennett claims to have created the first music video when he was filmed walking in Hyde Park in 1956, with the clip being set to his recording of Stranger in Paradise. It was aired on UK and US TV.

·         Elvis Presley created a music video for Jailhouse Rock in 1957.

·         Dáme si do bytu (Let’s get to the apartment) by Ladislav Rychman (1958) is the oldest example of a promotional music video with similarities to more modern videos.

1960-73- Promotional clips:

·         The Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were made to accompany artist’s music.

·         In 1961 Manny Pittson recorded a music video where he taped various clips with the musicians lip-synching.

·         In 1964 The Beatles starred in their first feature film, A Hard Day’s Night. It was presented as a mock documentary.

·         The Monkees TV series consisted of film segments that were created to accompany various Monkees songs.

·         In 1965 The Beatles began making promotional clips (filmed inserts) to promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances.

·         Concert films were being released as early as 1964.

1974-80- Beginnings of music television:

·         The Australian TV shows Countdown and Sounds were significant in developing and popularising the music video genre in Australia as well as other countries.

·         Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s

1981-1991: Music videos go mainstream:

·         In 1981 the video channel MTV was launched, airing Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles as their first music video played.

·         In 1983 a nearly 14 minute long music video was released for Michael Jackson’s Thriller, costing $800,000 to film.

2005- The internet becomes video friendly:

·         2005 saw the launch of YouTube which made viewing videos online much faster and easier.

·         In 2009 Thirty Seconds to Mars uploaded Kings and Queens to YouTube on the same day as release.

·         Many popular artists today use Vevo to upload their music videos to the internet and YouTube.