Music video

A music video (also video clip, promo) is a short film or video meant to present a visual representation of a popular music song. The American cable television channel MTV ("Music Television" launched in 1981), originated the format of end-to-end music video programming without any conventional programs, although the music video itself has a history dating back to the earliest days of sound film.

History of music videos

Early precedents

Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 film Alexander Nevsky, which features extended scenes of battles choreographed to a score by Sergei Prokofiev, set new standards for the use of music in film and has been described by some as the first music video.

Related Topics:
Sergei Eisenstein - 1938 - Alexander Nevsky - Sergei Prokofiev

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However, the roots of the music video can be found even earlier. In 1911 Alexander Scriabin wrote his symphony Prometheus -- Poem of Fire for orchestra and "light organ". And as far back as the 1920s, the animated films of Oskar Fischinger (aptly labelled "visual music") were supplied with orchestral scores.

Related Topics:
1911 - Alexander Scriabin - Symphony - Light organ - 1920s - Oskar Fischinger

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Animation pioneer Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by "following the bouncing ball". Early 1930s entries in the series featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons.

Related Topics:
Max Fleischer - Screen Songs - 1930s - Cartoons

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The early animated efforts of Walt Disney, his Silly Symphonies, were built around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films. Live action musical shorts, featuring such popular performers as Cab Calloway, were also distributed to theatres.

Related Topics:
Walt Disney - Silly Symphonies - Warner Brothers - Looney Tunes - Merrie Melodies - Musical film - Cab Calloway

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Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called Saint Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. It was shown in theatres until 1932. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period. Later, in the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a bizarre feature film Lookout; these films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the ancestors of music videos {{ref|LouisJordan}}.

Related Topics:
Blues - Bessie Smith - Saint Louis Blues - 1929 - Louis Jordan - Lookout

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Another early form of music video were one-song films called "Soundies" made in the 1940s for the Panoram visual jukebox. These were short films of musical selections, usually just a band on a movie-set bandstand, made for playing. Thousands of Soundies were made, mostly of jazz musicians, but also torch singers, comedians, and dancers.

Related Topics:
1940s - Panoram - Jukebox - Jazz

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Before the Soundie, even dramatic movies typically had a musical interval, but the Soundie made the music the star and virtually all the name jazz performers appeared in Soundie shorts, many still available on compilation video tapes or DVDs.

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The Panoram jukebox with eight three-minute Soundies were popular in taverns and night spots, but the fad faded during World War II.

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In 1940, Walt Disney released Fantasia, an animated film based around famous pieces of classical music.

Related Topics:
1940 - Walt Disney - Fantasia - Classical music

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Television era

The very first short musical films made specifically for television, however, were the Snader Telescriptions, more than 1000 short musical presentations filmed for use as television filler between 1950 and 1954. The Snader Telescriptions covered the entire musical landscape. Although most of them were of conventional pop performers, there were many rhythm and blues, jazz, and country music performers. Over the years, the Telescriptions have been re-released many times as compilations, such as Showtime at the Apollo.

Related Topics:
Snader Telescription - Rhythm and blues - Jazz - Country music

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Other important influences during this period were the youth-oriented films featuring the then-new rock and roll genre, many of which included performances by noted rock acts like Little Richard. Among the most influential music-oriented films of this period were The Blackboard Jungle and The Girl Can't Help It.

Related Topics:
Rock and roll - Little Richard - The Blackboard Jungle - The Girl Can't Help It

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In the 1960s, French technology developed for the aerial photography during the war was adapted to create the Scopitone, a modern visual jukebox. The Scopitone was a hit in France with fairly primitive scenes of bands playing, but when it was introduced into the US, the videos took on a vivid quality, with crooners wandering through crowds of girls in bikinis or "jungle" furs. The Scopitone also was a hit, but involvement of organized crime led to its demise, just as rock and roll was being revitalized, too late for Scopitone.

Related Topics:
1960s - Scopitone - France - Rock and roll

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Also in the '60s, the light show became popular for live performances, combining music with abstract visuals, hearkening back to Scriabin's efforts.

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Film and video promos

In 1956 Tony Bennett was filmed walking along The Serpentine in Hyde Park, London as his recording of "Stranger in Paradise" played; this film was distributed to and played by UK and US television stations, leading Bennett to later claim he made the first music video.

Related Topics:
1956 - Tony Bennett - The Serpentine - Hyde Park, London - Stranger in Paradise

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In (1961) Ozzie Nelson filmed and edited the video of TRAVELIN MAN by his son Ricky Nelson. It featured images of various parts of the world mentioned in the Jerry Fuller song and Ricky singing. The very first rock video.

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The pioneering full-colour music video for The Exciters' "Tell Him" from 1962 greatly influenced all that came afterwards.

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The defining work in the development of the modern music video was The Beatles' first major motion picture, A Hard Day's Night in 1964, directed by Richard Lester. The musical segments in this film arguably set out the basic visual vocabulary of today's music videos, influencing a vast number of contemporary musicians, and countless subsequent pop and rock group music videos.

Related Topics:
The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night - 1964 - Richard Lester

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That same year, The Beatles began filming short promotional films for their songs which were distributed for broadcast on television variety shows in other countries, primarily the U.S.A. By the time The Beatles stopped touring in late 1966 their promotional films, like their recordings, were becoming increasingly sophisticated, and they now used these films to, in effect, tour for them.

Related Topics:
U.S.A. - 1966

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Also in 1966 the clip of Bob Dylan performing Subterranean Homesick Blues filmed by D A Pennebaker was much used. The clip's ironic portrayal of a performance and the seemingly random inclusion of a celebrity (Allen Ginsberg) in a non-performing role also became mainstays of the form. The clip has been much imitated.

Related Topics:
1966 - Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues - D A Pennebaker - Allen Ginsberg

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Although unashamedly based on A Hard Day's Night, the hugely popular American TV series The Monkees was another important influence on the development of the music video genre, with each episode including a number of specially-made film segments that were created to accompany the various Monkees songs used in the series. The series ran from 1966 to 1968.

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The Beatles took the genre to new heights with their groundbreaking films for "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane", made in early 1967, which used techniques borrowed from underground and avant garde film, such as reversed film effects, dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles and rhythmic editing. Created at the height of the psychedelic music period, these two landmark films are among the very first purpose-made concept videos that attempt to "illustrate" the song in an artful manner, rather than just creating a film of an idealized performance.

Related Topics:
Strawberry Fields Forever - Penny Lane - 1967 - Psychedelic music

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Other pioneering music videos made during this time include the promotional films made by The Doors. The group had a strong interest in film, since both lead singer Jim Morrison and keyboard player Ray Manzarek had met while studying film at UCLA. The clip for their debut single "Break On Through" is essentially structured as a filmed performance, but it is notable for its accomplished and atmospheric lighting, camera work and editing. The Doors also directed a superb promotional clip for their controversial 1968 anti-war single "The Unknown Soldier", in which the group stage a mock execution by firing squad. One of the clip's most innovative features is its use of external visuals sources, with extensive intercutting of archival footage and shocking contemporary TV footage of the carnage of the Vietnam War.

Related Topics:
The Doors - Jim Morrison - Ray Manzarek - UCLA - Vietnam War

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When released in 1968, the animated film Yellow Submarine was an international sensation, although The Beatles themselves had only a tangential involvement with it. Soon it was commonplace for artists to make promotional films, and bands like The Byrds and The Beach Boys were also making promotional films. Although these "film clips" were often aired on pop music TV shows, they were still considered as secondary at that time, with live or mimed performances generally given precedence.

Related Topics:
1968 - Yellow Submarine - The Byrds - The Beach Boys

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The promotional clip continued to grow in importance, with television programs such as The Midnight Special and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert mixing concert footage with clips incorporating camera tricks, special effects, and dramatizations of song lyrics.

Related Topics:
The Midnight Special - Don Kirshner's Rock Concert

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Other important contributions to the development of the genre include the film of the Woodstock Festival, and the various concert films that were made during the early Seventies, most notably Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs And Englishmen and particularly Pink Floyd's groundbreaking Live At Pompeii concert film, which featured sophisticated rhythmic cross-cutting.

Related Topics:
Woodstock Festival - Joe Cocker - Mad Dogs And Englishmen - Pink Floyd

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Many countries with local pop music industries soon copied the trend towards music videos. In Australia promotional films by Australian pop performers were being made on a regular basis by 1966; among the earliest known are clips by Australian groups The Masters Apprentices and The Loved Ones.

Related Topics:
Australia - The Masters Apprentices - The Loved Ones

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Surf film makers such as Bruce Brown, George Greenough and Alby Falzon also made important contributions in their films, which featured innovative combinations of images and music, and they notably dispensed with all narration and dialogue for many extended surfing sequences in their films, presenting the surfing action accompanied by suitably atmospheric music tracks.

Related Topics:
Surf film - Bruce Brown - George Greenough - Alby Falzon

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Alby Falzon's 1972 film Morning Of The Earth included a spectacular sequence (filmed by Greenough) that was constructed around the extended Pink Floyd track "Echoes". The group reportedly agreed to allowed Falzon to use the music gratis, in exchange for a copy of Greenough's footage, which they used during their concerts for several years.

Related Topics:
Morning Of The Earth - Pink Floyd

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Other notable Australian developments in this field are the early 1970s monochrome promotional films made by Australian musician and filmmaker Chris Lofven, whose clips for the Spectrum song "I'll Be Gone" and the Daddy Cool song "Eagle Rock" were among the best of the early Australian music video productions. It is notable that Lofven's 1971 clip for "Eagle Rock" bears a strong stylistic resemblance to the video for the 1980 hit "Brass In Pocket" by The Pretenders, and it has been speculated that original bassist Pete Farndon may well have seen the Lofven clip when he was working in Australia in the mid-1970s as a member of The Bushwackers.

Related Topics:
Chris Lofven - Spectrum - Daddy Cool - Eagle Rock - Brass In Pocket - The Pretenders - Pete Farndon - The Bushwackers

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The first promo clip to combine all the elements of the modern music video is David Bowie's promotional clip for the song The Jean Genie, which was released as single in late 1972 at the height of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust period. Filmed and directed by renowned photographer Mick Rock, this genre-defining four-minute film was produced for less than $350, shot in one day in San Francisco on 28th October 1972, and edited in less than two days.

Related Topics:
David Bowie - The Jean Genie - 1972 - Ziggy Stardust - Mick Rock - San Francisco

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The Swedish music group, ABBA, used promotional films throughout the 1970's to promote themselves in other countries when travelling or touring abroad became difficult. Almost all of these videos were directed by Chocolat and My Life as a Dog director, Lasse Hallström.

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In 1975 Queen released a promo video for "Bohemian Rhapsody" directed by Bruce Gowers, when they were unable to make a personal appearance on Top of the Pops. Considered a landmark in music video, it featured the complete visual grammar of today's music promos. Videos also found distribution through the early laserdisc format. Other notable contributions came from avant-garde bands such as The Residents and Devo and cult performers such as original Monkees member Michael Nesmith.

Related Topics:
1975 - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody - Bruce Gowers - Top of the Pops - The Residents - Devo - Michael Nesmith

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Modern era

The key innovation in the development of the modern music video was of course video recording and editing processes, along with the development of a number of related effects such as chroma-key. The advent of high-quality colour videotape recorders and portable video cameras coincided with the DIY ethos of the New Wave era and this enabled many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply, in comparison to the relatively high costs of using film. However, as the genre developed music video directors increasingly turned to 35mm film as the preferred medium, while others mixed film and video. By the mid-1980s releasing a music video to accompany your new single had become standard, and acts like The Jacksons sought to gain a commercial edge by creating lavish music videos with multi-million dollar budgets.

Related Topics:
Video - Chroma-key - New Wave - The Jacksons

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Some of the first American music videos of the modern era were produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith who started making short musical films for Saturday Night Live in 1979. In 1981, he released Elephant Parts, the first video album and first winner of a Grammy for music video. A further experiment on NBC television called Television Parts was not successful, due to network meddling (notably an intrusive laugh track and corny gags). The early self-produced music videos by Devo, including the pioneering compilation "The Truth About Devolution" were also important (if somewhat subversive) developments in the evolution of the genre and these Devo video cassette releases were arguably among the first true long-form video productions.

Related Topics:
Ex-Monkee - Michael Nesmith - Saturday Night Live - Elephant Parts - Grammy - NBC - Television Parts - Laugh track - Devo

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In the UK the importance of Top of the Pops to promote a single created an environment of innovation and competition amongst bands and record labels as the show's producers placed strict limits on the number of videos it would use - therefore a good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see the video again the following week. David Bowie scored his first UK number one in nearly a decade thanks to the eye catching promo for "Ashes to Ashes". Another act to succeed from this tactic was "Madness" who shot on 16mm and 35mm short micro-comedic films.

Related Topics:
Top of the Pops - Ashes to Ashes - Madness

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"Top of the Pops" was censorus in its approach to video content so another approach was for an act to produce a promo that would be banned or edited and so use the resulting controversy and publicity to promote the release. Early examples of this tactic were Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" and Frankie Goes to Hollywood with "Relax".

Related Topics:
Top of the Pops - Duran Duran - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

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Although little acknowledged outside Australia, it is arguable that the 1970s-1980s Australian TV pop show Countdown -- and to a lesser extent its commercial competitors Sounds and Nightmoves -- were important precursors to MTV.

Related Topics:
Countdown - Sounds - Nightmoves

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Countdown, which was based on Top Of The Pops, hit of in Australia but other countries quickly followed the format. At its highpoint during most of the 1980s it was to be aired in 22 countries including TV Europe. In 1978 the Dutch TV-broadcasting company Veronica started a Dutch version of Countdown which during the 80s had Adam Curry as its best known presenter. Countdown is still aired in the UK up till today as CD:UK by ITV . The program gained international significance in the recording industry in the late 1970s and early 80s. Produced on a shoestring by the government-owned ABC national TV network, its low budget, and Australia's distance proved to be influential factors in the show's early preference for music video. The relative rarity of visits by international artists to Australia and the availability of high-quality, free promotional films meant that Countdown soon came to rely heavily on music videos in order to feature such performers.

Related Topics:
Top Of The Pops - ABC

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The show's talent coordinator Ian Meldrum and his producers quickly realised that these music videos were becoming an important new commodity in music marketing. For the first time, pre-produced music videos gave TV the opportunity to present pop music in a format that rivalled or even exceed the impact of radio airplay, and it was soon apparent that Countdown could single-handedly break new pop acts and new songs by established artists -- a role that up until then been the exclusive preserve of radio.

Related Topics:
Ian Meldrum - Radio

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Although Countdown continued to rely heavily on 'live' appearances by local and visiting acts, competing shows like Sounds lacked the resources to present regular studio performances, so they were soon using music videos almost exclusively. As the Eighties progressed, the ability to use music videos to give bands the best possible presentation saw record companies making more, and more lavish, promotional videos.

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In 1980 New Zealand group Split Enz had major success with the single "I Got You" and the album True Colours, and later that year they became one of the first bands in the world to produce a complete set of music videos for each song on the album and to market these on video cassette -- the so-called video album. This was followed a year later by the first American video album, The Completion Backwards principle by The Tubes.

Related Topics:
Split Enz - Video album - The Tubes

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Realising the potential of music video, Countdown negotiated a controversial deal with local record labels, giving them first refusal and a period of exclusive use for any new video that came into the country, and with its nationwide reach and huge audience, Countdown was able to use music videos to break a number of important new local and overseas acts, notably ABBA, Queen, Meat Loaf, Blondie, Devo, Cyndi Lauper and Madonna. This early success in Australia in turn enabled these acts to gain airplay and TV exposure and score breakthrough hits in their home countries.

Related Topics:
ABBA - Queen - Meat Loaf - Blondie - Devo - Cyndi Lauper - Madonna

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During the 1980s promotional videos became pretty much de rigueur for most recording artists, a rise which was famously parodied by UK BBC television comedy program Not The Nine O'Clock News who produced a spoof music video; "Nice Video, Shame About The Song". Frank Zappa also parodied the excesses of the genre in his satirical song "Be In My Video".

Related Topics:
UK - BBC - Not The Nine O'Clock News - Frank Zappa

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In the early to mid 1980's, artist started to use more sophisticated effects in their videos, and add a storyline or plot to the music video. Michael Jackson was the first artist to create the concept of the short film. A short film is a music video that has a beginning, middle and end. He did this in a small way with Billie Jean, but it wasn't until the 1984 release of the Thriller short film, that he took music videos to another level. Thriller was a 13 minute long music video that had a beginning, a middle and an ending. Along with the plot, it also had ahead-of-its-time special effects, and a memorable dance sequence which has been mimicked ever since this video was released. Jackson then went on to make more famous short films such as, Bad, Smooth Criminal, Black or White, and Ghosts.

Related Topics:
1980's - Michael Jackson

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A non-representational music video is one in which the musical artist is never shown. Because music videos are mainly intended to promote the artist, such videos are rare; two early 1980s examples however are Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City" and David Bowie/Queen's "Under Pressure".

Related Topics:
Bruce Springsteen - David Bowie - Queen

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MTV

In 1981, the U.S. video channel MTV launched, beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. (The first video broadcast was "Video Killed the Radio Star", by The Buggles.) With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period, most notably Madonna, owed a great deal of their success to the skilful construction and seductive appeal of their videos. Some academics have compared music video to silent film, and it is suggested that stars like Madonna have (often quite deliberately) constructed an image that in many ways echoes the image of the great stars of the silent era such as Greta Garbo. Although many see MTV as the start of a "golden era" of music videos and the unparalleled success of a new artform in popular culture, others see it as hastening the death of the true musical artist, because physical appeal is now critical to popularity to an unprecedented degree.

Related Topics:
1981 - U.S. - MTV - Video Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles - Madonna - Silent film - Greta Garbo

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In the information technology era, music videos now approach the popularity of the songs themselves, being sold in collections on video tape and DVD. Enthusiasts of music videos sometimes watch them muted purely for their aesthetic value. Instead of watching the video for the music, (the basis for the artform), the videos are appreciated for their visual qualities, while viewers remain uninterested in the audio portion of the performance. This is a normal sociological reaction, some say, to the increasing trend in the music business to focus on visual appeal of artists, rather than the quality of the music. Critics say that the corporate music managers, over the course of logical and calculated business decisions, have sought to capitalize on the sex appeal of females in music videos rather than in choosing less profitable musicianship-based music.

Related Topics:
Information technology - Video tape - DVD - Audio - Sociological - Music business - Corporate - Sex appeal

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Since December 1992, when MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, music videos have increasingly become an auteur's medium. However, few if any filmmakers train specifically to make music videos, and very few make them exclusively. Most split their time between videos and other film projects (usually commercials), and many readily admit to feature-film ambitions. As a result, music videos are typically seen as a necessary stepping-stone to greater glories, training ground for budding directors compiling clip reels and building name recognition. That so few people consider the form a destination only reinforces three crucial criticisms that have dogged music videos since the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" aired on cable 24 years ago: that these short clips are faddishly disposable, that their visuals remain necessarily secondary to the music even as they detract from the listening experience, and that music videos are works of commerce, not art.

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What makes music video direction a dubious profession, however, also makes the medium a potentially exciting art form defined by the cross-pollination of ideas and approaches from various disciplines. Because music video directors come from such different backgrounds, they don't share much in the way of common thinking or set-in-stone pedagogy, bringing to the field a diversity of experiences.

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Internet

The earliest purveyors of music videos on the internet were members of IRC-based groups who took the time to record music videos as they appeared on television, then digitising them and exchanging the .mpg files via IRC channels. As broadband Internet access has become available more widely, various initiatives have been made to capitalise on the continued interest in music videos. MTV itself now provides streams of artists' music videos, while AOL's recently launched AOL Music features a vast collection of downloadable videos. Apple's iTunes Music Store also provides a section of music videos in high quality compression, sometimes offering special videos as premium content. Another new phenomenon, deriving from the popularity of blogging, is the use of so-called music video "codes", lines of HTML code including links to music videos that the individual can simply copy and paste into their blog in order to feature a given video streaming on it.

Related Topics:
IRC - .mpg files - Broadband Internet access - AOL - Apple - ITunes Music Store - Blogging - HTML - Streaming

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Unofficial music videos

With the advent of easy distribution over the internet and cheap video-editing software, a number of fan-created videos began appearing as of the late 1990s. These are typically made by synchronizing existing footage from other sources, such as television series or movie, with the song. In the case of AMV's the source material is drawn from Japanese anime (see anime music video) or from American animation series. Since neither the music nor the film footage is typically licensed, distributing these videos is usually copyright infringement on both counts. Singular examples of unofficial videos include one made for DJ Danger Mouse's illegal mash-up of the Jay-Z track "Encore" with music sampled from The Beatles' White Album, in which concert footage of The Beatles is remixed with footage of Jay-Z and rap dancers, as well as a recent politically charged video cut from television footage of the Katrina aftermath, set to an unofficial remix of Kanye West's "Gold Digger", inspired by the rap-artist's comment "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Related Topics:
AMV - Anime - Anime music video - Copyright infringement - Mash-up

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