AOB-1 - History Of Music Videos

History of Music Videos/ Media
One of the basis for music videos was when artists such as Elvis Presley starred in Jailhouse Rock around the 1950s. It then lead onto the beatles making musical based films such as A Hards Day Night and Help.

The first basis for the music video was in 1923 when Lee De Forest made the first musical short film, but depending on your own personal response it is classed as the first of music video or not. The beatles are known to have the first music video and colour music video with Strawberry Fields. What is most commonly known as the basis for the modern music video today is Queens 1975 song Bohemian Rhapsody, which had a budget of £3,500 and was made in 3 days. the reason for their music video is because they couldn't turn up to one of their shows and it was too complex to perform on stage.

When the music videos started to become big with artists, a new romantic movement utilised music videos to further create image for artists. Also music artists started to hire directors for films to direct their music videos, however the music videos had received so much criticism as people thought that they would take away from the music, and they also thought that it was just a phase and they believed that it would just die out and go back to being just about the music.
When music videos started to become more a part of music they started to take on aspects of films and became inspired by them to make a music video for artists, such as 2PAC and Dr.Dre became inspired by Mad Max, Robbie inspired by James Bond and Radio GaGa by queen inspired by Metropolis.

MTV came along and was invented by the monkeys, and the monkeys were brought together to be put up against the beatles. Michael Nesbit collected other peoples music videos because he had a dream of a 24/7 music channel that would play music all the time. He had to create a test channel called Popclips, it became an instant hit with the audience and then he launched MTV on the 1st August 1981 and the first song played was ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. MTV in 1983 showed a black artist, Michael Jackson with Billie Jean. The great thing about MTV was that it didn't cost anything because all the artists wanted to give them their songs because of how big MTVs fan base is. MTV made money so more music videos could be made, they put all their profits back into themselves.

New technology such as cable and satellite influenced music videos because it provided them a place to be shown.
Another big leap for music was in 1985 when CDs became available in shops, this showed that music videos hadn't taken over the music on its own.
After a while the music did get lost as you had to look good before you could sound good, your image was everything and even if your music wasn’t good, the directors wanted to make something shit and turn it into diamonds and a lot of artists followed suit to them, duran duran made a music video before the song was made, thi shows how much the look was important to them.

Now music videos are everywhere and every artist are making music videos for their songs, so you have to get noticed and what better way by getting negative feedback and getting it banned. This got people to want to see your video to see why it got banned, Relax don’t do it was banned before it even got shown because it was more like a hardcore gay porn video than a music video, Madonna with justify my love was too sexual, Smack my bitch up was too anti social and radio heads song, rabbit in the headlights was too disturbing.

Rock Stars were hostile towards music videos, they felt like their music had to be shown live but when they did come around to music videos they did it in their own style and then rockstars became visually famous as well as lyrically famous because of MTV.

1985 was the year of new technology with CGI graphics, this was a milestone for the graphics and started of animated videos which turned a record into a massive hit. also in 1985 band aid came about with save the world.

Music artists are where they are today because of the music videos, michael jackson became the king of pop mainly because of his music videos, his biggest hit was beat it which was influenced by west side story, to convey an anti violence message, also the music video has show stopping choreography, everyone was just dancing in sync. Michael Jackson's next hit was thriller which turned into a short plot and gave the hit record ratings because of the music video, this also started a monster theme which became very very popular.
By the end of the 1980s music video had saved the world and taken over.