1. A music Video is a short film or video that is narrated by a song, with different element of
film that may or may not relate to the song itself. However nowadays music videos are
solely used to promote and advertise songs on a alternative platform.
Early Examples of music videos.
The earliest music videos or music promos were filmed in the mid 1950’s, however, before
then, as early as the 1920’s, films by animators such as Oskar Fischinger
• St Louis Blues – Bessie Smith. This video was produced in 1929 and was on a two-reel
short film, that was a dramatised performance of the hit song and was in theatres til
1932.
• Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues. This Top 40 hit is well known for being a
significant influence on music videos due to its ironic and simple video and being one of
the first successful music videos.
However it wasn’t just artists who decided to create these ‘Promos’ as Walt Disney built a
film animation around famous classical pieces, yet again giving a visual to a song thus
making it much more interesting.

2. 1950’s and 60’s
The defining work in the development of the modern music video was The Beatles first
major motion picture, A Hard Day & Night in 1964 , directed by Richard Lester . The musical
segments in this film arguably set out the basic visual vocabulary of today music
videos, influencing a vast number of contemporary musicians, and countless subsequent
pop and rock group music videos.
Modern Day
Modern Era of Music Video 1970’s. 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 producers placed strict limits on the number of videos it would use -
therefore a good video would increase a song sales as viewers hoped to see the video again
the following week.
1980’s 1981- MTV is launched, The first video to be aired is Buggles ‘Video killed the Radio
Star’.

3. Today
Music Video today 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.
Source: Wikipedia

4. Music Video Timeline.