Music Video Research - History of Chosen Medium

Music videos are made as a marketing tool for an artist and their music, specifically the single that the music video is for. They can be shown as a narrative or performance or occasionally abstract structure for the more artistically experienced. A narrative for a music video is usually derived from the songs lyrics and provides a visual interpretation of the artist's words. Music video's have become an integral part of the music industry.

The first attempt at a music video was in 1894 for the song "The Little Lost Child" by Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern which consisted of still images shown in a continuous loop in time with the song. This was done for promotional purposes, something which still occurs today.
Musicals or films containing musical numbers also played an integral part in the development of the music videos we see today. In the 1940s and 50s, certain songs or segments of the film were used as a means of advertisement. These promotional shorts acted as a trailer for the film itself whilst promoting the specific song used in the clip. A very famous example of this would be The Sorcerer's Apprentice from the 1940 Walt Disney film 'Fantasia':
In the 1950s songs from musicals were made into 'shorts' which, at the time, would have been the only type of music video in existence. Some of these shorts are so iconic that stars of today often still pay homage to them in their own music videos.

In 1964 The Beatles released and starred in their own film 'A Hard Day's Night' (named after one of their songs), this was something that had never been seen before as it provided an up close and personal view of the band along with featuring their own songs and performances. This was a very wise decision to make with regard to their audience. Not only did it show the band in a whole new light and give the impression that they were nice, normal, everyday people but it acted as a promotional tool for their songs. The Beatles realised that they had stumbled onto a good thing and made yet another film titled 'Help!' in 1965.


In 1981 the channel MTV was developed, this was a ground breaking time for the music industry as it just showed nothing but music videos, this opened up a whole new medium of promotion for artists. The first video to be shown on MTV was the promotional clip for The Buggles' song 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. MTV proved to be very successful and still continues today with several channels, all specific to different genres of music. It shaped the way we see music today.





The rise in popularity of music videos in the mid to late 80s and early 90s led to the rise in cost of music video production. They were a marketing tool and therefore had to impress and draw in their specific demographic. This resulted in popular directors making music video at productions prices that bordered into the millions.
The most expensive music video ever produced was 'Scream' by Michael and Janet Jackson. Directed by Mark Romanek (well-known director of costly music videos), 'Scream' racked up a costly £7,000000 in production costs.


In 2005, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim developed the website 'YouTube'. 'YouTube', developed on Web 2.0, was a website dedicated solely to videos. The website enabled users to upload their own videos and share others. This opened up a whole new digital market for the promotion of music and its videos.