History of the Music Video
Music videos are now an essential part of promoting and marketing a song as well as often enhancing the song. However, they are a relatively recent phenomenon and only been used as a marketing tool in the last 30 years or so.
In 1940, Disney released an animated film called Fantasia. This is considered to be the first film set to music however it would soon be joined by something called Soundies. Soundies were released in the early 40s in America. They lasted just three minutes and were essentially the first form of music videos. The problem was that they could only be viewed on Panorams in places like bars and restaurants. This meant that by 1946 they met a downfall as it was not a sustainable project.
The 1950s is when musical videos really started to become popular. In America short musical clips were used as TV fillers between shows. These clips usually consisted of a recording of a band or solo artists live performance. These were shortly followed music films that were made famous by the likes of Elvis.
In the 1960s music videos and music on TV became mainstream in Britain as well as America. In 1964 the BBC introduced Top of the Pops to British television. The show was originally on every Thursday and would show the best music videos of the week as well as live performances and a run down of the charts. It completely changed the way people watched music videos as they were now available in every household in the country. At the same time American broadcaster NBC, introduced Hullabaloo. It was a very similar format to Top of the Pops but also featured a different, chart topping host each week. As well as live performances from other artists, the host would also perform several of their songs.
MTV would then change the world of music once again in 1981. Originally in America, MTV was a TV channel entirely dedicated to music videos. This revolution meant that people didn't have to wait a week to see a music video or rely on just listening on the radio. The first video played on the channel was for the song 'Video Killed the Radio Star' which is a nod to the revolution that they expected to take place. The channel would go on to make a number of musicians, such as Duran Duran's careers. However, with the birth YouTube, MTV would have to change its approach as people no longer watched music on TV. Therefore they started to focus on making their own programs and went away from music videos. Nowadays the majority of music videos are watched on YouTube as people are able to watch what hey want whenever they like.