Music Video History

Music Videos
A music video is defined as either a short film or video that is accompanied by a complete piece of music or song. Today's Modern music videos are made primarily and used to help market and promote the sale of music recordings.
Music video's came into their own in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium and later with the launch of VH1 in the United States.
The "music video" term first made popular in the early 1980s. Before that time, works of this kind were also known by various terms such as "promotional or promo clip", "filmed insert", or "film clip". In China, music videos were simply known as MTVs because the American network was responsible for making music videos popular there. Music videos are now known as MVs in Chinese entertainment.
Music videos use a vast range of different styles of film making techniques, including live footage filming, music documentaries animated clips and also non-narrative approaches e.g. abstract film. You will find that some music videos blend various styles, such as live and animated action. Music video's can show another example of creativity from the artist involved or they may not have any involvement in the music video making process at all. Some music video's that have been created may or may not have anything to do with the lyrics that are written. This can make music video's less literal than the listener may expect.
One of the earliest performance clips in 1960's pop was promotional film clip performed by English group The Animals, for their Worldwide hit "The House Of The Rising Sun". Filmed in a studio, this high-quality colour clip was filmed in a specially-built set. The performance by the group was lip-synched, as can be depicted through edited sequences of the close-ups, longshots and tracking shots.

Musicals were also a huge influence to the popularity of music videos, as several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals betwen the 1930s and the 1950s. Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl" (below) which was directed by Mary Lambert, is one of the best-known examples as it was closely modelling Jack Cole's staging of "Diamond's Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film "Gentleman Prefer Blondes". Quite a number of Michael Jackson's videos show the unmistakable influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark John Landis clip for "Thriller" (below) which was at the time the most expensive music video ever made, and the video clip for "Bad", directed by legendary filmaker Martin Scorsese, was influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of "West Side Story".

The monochrome 1966 clip for Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" filmed by D.A. Pennebaker was featured in his Dylan film documentary "Don't Look Back". The clip intentionally tries not to simulate performance or present a narrative. It simply shows Bob Dylanstanding in a city back alley, shuffling a series of large cue cards which bear key words from the song's lyrics. The cards are showed in time with when the words are mentioned in the track that last for over two minutes.
The video below is the original video clip for "Subterranean Homesick Blues" but the soundtrack featured is covered by Californian band, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
MUSIC TELEVISION
UK
The long-running British TV show "Top Of The Pops" began playing music videos in the late 1970s. The BBC however placed strict limits on the number of 'outsourced' videos that they could use. So therefore, a good video would increase a song's sales, as viewers hoped to see it again on the show the following week.
In 1980, David Bowie achieved his first UK number one in nearly a decade thanks to the eye catching promo for "Ashes To Ashes"(below), which was directed by David Mallet. Another act to succeed by using the same process was Madness. For their film clips, they shot them on 16 mm and 35 mm, which constructed their clips as "micro-comedic" short films.
In 1975, the band Queen ordered award winning television director and producer, Bruce Gowers, to make a promo video for their new single"Bohemian Rhapsody", simply so they could have it shown on "Top Of The Pops". This clip is also most notable for being entirely shot and edited on videotape.

AUSTRAILIA
The first Music TV programmes shown in Australia were "Countdown" and "Sounds", both of which premiered in 1974. They were significant in developing and popularizing the music video genre in Australia and other countries. They also establised the importance of music video clips as a means of promoting both emerging acts and new releases by established acts.
In need of material for the "Sounds" show, Music DJ, Graham Webb approached newsroom staffer Russell Mulcahy and asked him to shoot film footage to accompany popular songs for which there were no purpose-made clips. By applying this method, Webb and Mulcahy assembled approximately clips for their show. Due to the success of his early efforts, Webb encouraged Mulcahy to quit his TV job and direct music video's full-time. From there, Mulcahy made clips for several popular Australian acts including Stylus, Marcia Hines, Hush and rock band, AC/DC.
Mulcahy relocated to the UK in the mid-1970's, and made successful music videos for several noted British pop acts. His landmark video for The Buggles "Video Killed The Radio Star" (below) which was released in 1979, became the first music video played on MTV in 1981.
"Countdown" was partly based on the 1960's Australian pop music show "Kommotion". It was also based on the BBC's "Top of the Pops"but unlike its British counterpart, "Countdown" was not restricted in its use of music videos. The program was launched in late 1974, a few months after Sounds. In January 1975, only a few weeks before color TV was officially launched in Australia, it rapidly became one of the highest-rating shows on Australian TV, thanks in large part to their 6pm Sunday timeslot and also the ABC channel's nationwide reach,

US
American alternative rock group Devo created many self-produced music videos, which were included in the pioneering compilation "The Truth About Devolution", directed by Chuck Statler and Devo's video cassette releases were arguably among the first true long-form video productions.
Video Concert Hall was created by Jerry Crowe and Charles Henderson, was the first nationwide video music programming on American television, predating MTV by almost three years.
In 1980, New Zealand group Split Enz had major success with the single "I Got You" from their album "True Colours" and later that year they joined Blondie in becoming one of the first bands in the world to produce a complete set of promo clips for each song on the album (directed by their percussionist, Noel Crombie). They also marketed these on video cassette.
Among the first music videos were clips produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith who started making short musical films for U.S. late-night television sketch comedy and variety show , "Saturday Night Live". In 1981, he released Elephant Parts, the first winner of a Grammy Award for music video, directed by William Dear.
In 1981, the U.S. video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed The Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. 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 Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran and Madonna, owed a great deal of their success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos.

In 1983, the most successful and influential music video of all time was released — the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller". The video set new standards for production, having cost US$500,000 to film.That video, along with earlier videos by Jackson for his songs "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", was also instrumental in getting music videos by African American artists played on MTV.
However, such videos released prior to "Thriller" had been rare. According to MTV, this was because it initially conceived itself as a rock-music-oriented channel, although musician Rick James was outspoken in his criticism of the cable channel. He claimed in 1983 that MTV's refusal to air the music video for his song "Super Freak" and clips by other African-American performers was "blatant racism".

The video for the 1985 Dire Straits song "Money For Nothing" (video below) made pioneering use of computer animation.It also helped make the song an hit Internationally. Ironically, the song itself was a wry comment on the music-video phenomenon, sung from the point of view of an appliance deliveryman both drawn to and repelled by the outlandish images and personalities that appeared on MTV.
In 1986, Peter Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer" used special effects and animation techniques developed by British studio Aardman Animation. The video for "Sledgehammer" would go on to be a phenomenal success and win nine MTV Video Music Awards.
THE MOST EXPENSIVE VIDEO CLIPS OF ALL TIME

Two of the videos directed by Mark Romanek in 1995 are notable for being two of the three most expensive movies ever made. Michael and Janet Jackson's collaboration on "Scream" heads the list and cost $7 million to produce, and Madonna's "Bedtime Story", which cost $5 million. Madonna has had three out of the top four most expensive music video clips ever made.
Nowadays, music video's are much more faster and easily accessible, thanks to video streaming sites such as YouTube.
Such websites had a profound affect on the viewing of music videos. Some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online. Artists like American band Weezer, have found great success by including up to twenty YouTube celebrities in their music video clip for "Pork and Beans". This has resulted in them having their biggest single to date, in terms of chart success.

SOURCE: http://www.festivalrecords.info/videos.html