1. The evolution and changing role of the music video from 1900, and its
likely development in the future
In recent years the concept of a music video has changed quite dramatically. From the
first music videos like Komposition in Blau by Oskar Fischinger in 1935 that were
artistic and original to, some commercial music videos like the first promotional video of
Frim Fram source by Nat king Cole. This essay will show the development of music
videos and what music videos will begin to look like in the future.
Frim Fram Sauce 1945 by Nat King Cole was the first promotional video that included
shots of the new jukebox that had small screen to view the video whilst listening to. This
idea of a music video seemed to be a success because not only did it advertise the new
product, it also advertised the musician as a modern and fresh artist.
However, in more recent times the way of promotion is not through using new products,
it is involving the fans of band, which the vaccines have included. They decided to create
a video purely through photos sent in through the social media of Instagram. This
involvement of fans promoted the band and stood out as a new way of creating a video.
The music video for the band ‘wetsuit’ in 2011 received over 3,000 videos over 15,000
likes on Instagram which involved of 99 countries. This way of creating a video shows
what future videos could look like, on a low budget and still making new opportunities
for bands to get new fans, and broaden their fan base with the involvement of fans. In
previous years Musicians like David Bowie spent $582,000 in the song ‘Ashes to Ashes’
in 1980 which now is an extortionate amount of money considering
the small income that music videos actually create now due to
websites like You Tube and Vimeo.
Music shows like Top of the pops in 1964 and MTV that started in
1981 showed great potential for the advertisement of bands and
musicians it was a new and exciting way of watching the most
recent music. MTV also set up shoes like MTV unplugged that
showed live performances for example Nirvana were recorded in
1994 and then was released as a CD and VHS which made Nirvana have outstanding
number 1 spot in the music charts all over
the world. The live performances of
musicians was great way of advertising. But
for band like The Beatles the idea of trying
to conquer the USA and still be in the UK
was a problem. So Videos like Strawberry
fields forever in 1967 where the band
seemed to have creative control over the video
which had no promotional idea throughout the video
worked well for top bands to simply give Top of the
pops the video for the viewing in the UK. This

2. seems to be the case for bands and musicians
at the moment and seems to be the ideas for
the future of music videos to. Instead of a
promotional video the musicians have a purely
artistic idea only for the videos. For example
recent band like The Neighbourhood, want a
vision of all black and white, so every video is
created in a black and white format, their song ‘Sweater Weather’ from 2012 is purely an
artistic view on videos because the introduction of sites like You Tube make MTV seem
a pointless way of viewing music. Also the idea of having a large budget for music
videos is not available so trying to promote products seems worthless now because
musicians now have ideas for the videos and want
to include their own visions for the future of
music videos.
The future of music videos seems to be going
down a more artistic route, due to the limited
budgets that record labels have for videos and the
time. Music Videos in the future have to be more
frequent to keep listeners interested. Visuals to a
song seem to be important for musicians and the
videos emphasise the idea and concept of the artist. With websites like You Tube and
Vimeo it is increasingly easier to get to wider audiences musicians instead of having
included commercial values for artists to be discovered. For music videos to develop new
artists need to take inspiration from previous successful artists like The Beatles who
made videos on a idea of purely artistic values so it gives the viewers and listeners a fresh
and vibrant new outlook on the way an artist represents themselves, through music
videos.