History of Music Videos - Miss Georgiou

Over the years people have consumed music several different ways. Today music can be accessed through several different mediums such as the internet, television, radio or downloaded onto mobile phones. However, at the start when music first became popular, it was only viewed through live performances and then later shown on television and played on radio. Artist began selling their music and image as a product on CDs or mix tapes as well as videos of their concerts being sold on DVDs or Video. Chart shows began to air on television, playing all of the most popular and recent music to an audience so they could enjoy and be entertained by the music as well as being informed as to what music is the most popular and selling the most copies. More recently the internet has played a vital part in todays music being consumed. Music videos can be viewed on websites such as Youtube, artists can create websites to promote themselves and their music as well as selling tour tickets etc. and music can be downloaded and saved onto your computer. Mobile phones have also become popular in terms of consuming and listening to music. Songs can be downloaded directly to your smart phone or saved in playlists on apps such as Spotify and Soundcloud.

1950s
Tony Bennet is an American jazz and standard pop singer who claims that he had created the first ever music video. In 1956, he was filmed walking through Hyde Park, London and the final clip was set to his song 'Stranger in Paradise'. The clip was aired on UK and Us television stations. This music video was aired on television and is not easily accessible on the internet today which proves that this genre of music may have decreased in popularity as well as the fact that standard music videos are a lot different now to how they was then. In the 1950s music videos would have been primarily if not completely, performance based. This means they were very simplistic and unexciting as they entailed the artist just performing to the camera through singing, dancing or playing instruments etc. The reason this music video may have been a success though is due to the performance factor. An artist performing directly to the camera will help the audience to build a relationship with them.  This is because it catches their attention as it appears that the artist is performing directly to them due to camera angles, (I.e they sing into the camera). This style of music video is still successful and popular to date yet todays videos are more complex and feature several different music video styles to keep the audience entertained.

Album art for Tony Bennett

In 1957, Elvis Presley starred in a music video for his song 'Jailhouse Rock'. The song was a US number one hit for seven weeks and a UK number one hit for three weeks.  The main reason this music video was so successful may have been due to the narrative aspect of it. It was irregular for music videos to tell a story around this time which is evident in Tony Bennet's video as most artists videos just involved live performances of them singing on stage or to a camera. However, 'Jailhouse Rock' is prison themed and although it does not tell a detailed story, it is clear it is about a group if prisoners in prison who are trying to have fun before being told of by the police or prison guards. Introducing a narrative to this music video would have intrigued and engaged the audience as they would want to follow the story line, especially as this was not often done in this time period. The music video is also carefully choreographed as it features one major dance routine throughout the entire video.               
Another uncommon factor about this music video in the era it was released is the fact that the appearance elf the artist and dancers is taken into consideration. Unlike today where artists are seen wearing expensive and fashionable clothes in their music videos, the most important factor of music videos in the 1950s was purely the talent of the artist and therefore their appearance was not made such a big deal. Therefore, the fact that Presley and his dancers all have immaculately attaching costumes was unusual and probably intriguing for the audience. It also helps with the narrative which already had the audience engaged. 
This music video is performance based with singing, dancing and instrument playing evident throughout. This shows the talent of the artist and other performers and also creates a lively and exciting effect as there are loads of dancers present all the time and there is a lot going on.  I think an interesting aspect of this music video that made it successful was that it involved humour. This was probably not seen regularly before in this era due to other music videos not including narratives. However, Elvis Presley introduces humour by having the background dancers who are dressed as police men to hit one of the prisoners on the head and for the prisoner to react as if he has been knocked out but this is all done as part of the dance routine. The audience would have found this amusing and clever.

1960s
In 1964 The Beatles starred in their first music video for 'A Hard Days Night'. It was a black and white mock documentary that stayed in the US charts for 13 weeks.  This music video showed the band members running away from a swarm of girls who were screaming and chasing them. This portrayed them as popular to the opposite sex and fun as they are running around and laughing. The Beatles were very popular and danceable in real life so they were showing that through this mock documentary and making fun of it. This created humour which would engage the audience much like when the artists are seen hiding from the girls in telephone boxes and a photo booth. The aspects of the video that would make the audience laugh helped to make it as successful as it was. The music video is entirely narrative based as The Beatles are not seen performing. The video tells a story of the band retrying to escape from a large group of girls. This portrays them as desirable, popular and very famous. In turn making them more appealing to the audience.

Contrastingly, The Beatles second feature 'Help!' was filmed in colour and featured the band visiting places all over the world. This is still a generic connection of a pop music video in present day as many artists film their music videos in different exotic places. Such as, 'Spaceship' by Nicki Minaj and 'What Makes you Beautiful' by One Direction. This song is similar in that it portrays the band as fun and highlights the opportunities they have been given due to being as talented and famous as they are. They are shown as fun loving through shots of them laughing or messing around by play fighting each other etc. The opportunities highlighted include the different locations they have been able to visit and the fact that a movie was made about them and this song in particular. 

1970s

Top of the Pops, a British BBC television show began broadcasting music videos in the late 70s.  The television show was broadcasted once weekly and included live performances and a countdown of the best selling songs in the charts. The show was hugely popular and was at one point versions of the show were broadcasted in nearly 100 countries. I believe that Top of The Pops was this successful because it was different to all the other ways music had been consumed before. Prior to this show music was mostly just heard on the radio. Top of The Pops allowed the audience to see more of the artist for the first time, through interviews, behind the scenes clips and live performances. This allowed the audience to see more of their favourite artists lifestyles and build more of a relationship with them. 
However, the television show was cancelled in 2006. This may have been due to music being consumed differently. A lot of other music shows had aired meaning more competition, Internet became a large part of music being consumed and social media allows the audience to see into their favourite artists lifestyle by the click of a button. Regardless, old editions of the programme from the 1970s and 1980s are still aired on TV every now and then so the show is still somewhat popular just to a smaller audience.

1980s
In the 1980s music videos became mainstream and more common. In 1981 MTV launched, a US music video channel, and aired 'Video Killed the Radio Star' before going on to broadcast music 24 hours a day. The aim of airing MTV was to allow artists to promote themselves and their songs. through their music videos and the reason they became so popular was because audiences were able to build relationships with artists that they may like so that they can buy into their lifestyle and watch representations of artists they enjoy listening to. MTV also played a big part in the development of how music is consumed. They made songs and music videos available for a wider audience because if they were not shown on a popular music channel then they may not receive as many views and could only have a niche audience.
In the 1980s music videos were often just referred to as 'rock videos'. J.P 'The Big Bopper' Richardson was apparently the first to coin the phrase. 

1990s
Prior to the 1990s, music videos were relatively low budget but during this time period, artists began taking them more seriously - spending much more time and money on them. For example, Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson dueted on Michael Jacksons ninth studio album in 1995, creating the space-themed 'Scream'. The 4:46 minute music video is the most expensive video to date with production costing $7,000,000.  It was directed by high-end director - Mark Romanek and featured a large amount of good quality special effects and lighting. Furthermore, the set of the video was onboard a computer generated white spaceship. Both Michael and Janet Jackson insisted the whole set actually built and 3-dimensional rather than being a simple set with 3D effects created with special effects. This would have made up a large amount of the budget. Compared against todays statistics and prices, the music video would be worth around $10.5million. Scream gained 11 MTV Video Award Nominations (more than any other music video) and they won 'Best Dance Video', 'Best Choreography' and 'Best Art Direction'. This highlights how the extensive time and money put into special effects and the overall presentation of the music video, e.g location, paid off and helped the song become very successful.

2000s-Present Day
In this era, music videos began to fall into generic categories with typical conventions for each genre. 'Stronger' by Kanye West is conventional to the rock genre as it features him wearing several different expensive outfits and in a popular location (Tokyo). This advertises the luxurious wealthy lifestyle you'd expect him to have due to being a famous artist. Another convention evident is the use of hand gestures and close ups to show his facial expressions and show how he is passionate about what he is iabout. This is conventional as rappers are known for often singing about personal topics about their real life experiences. The music video topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. I think this music video is successful because it has a futuristic theme and narrative and so uses several special effects. This interests and engages the audience similar to the way featuring attractive models does. Most recent music videos involve models so the audience will find them attractive and keep watching.

In 2005,YouTube launched and became very successful and popular due to its ability to post, share and post videos on other websites for free. Music videos make up over half of YouTubes content which suggest that the website has played a big part in the development of music videos being consumed and how they are consumed in present day. Music videos are made very easily accessible for the target audience as they can quickly and easily log on to the website and type in a music video for it to appear available to watch in seconds. This may threaten major music channels as it creates competition for them in terms of providing music videos for their consumers. 

The most viewed video on YouTube is a music video by Psy called "Gangnam Style". It overtook "Baby" by Justin Bieber in 2012, becoming the first music video to reach 1 billion views on 21st December 2012 and then the first video to reach 2 billion views by 30th May 2014. The majority of the top viewed videos on YouTube are music videos which portrays the large effectYouTube has has on music video consumption as it is clearly used to watch music videos a lot which may also be the reason for sales in CDs decreasing as music is accessible for free online.  Music videos first became popular in the 1980s when MTV launched. However, twenty years later in the 2000s , YouTube has, in a way become the new MTV and MTV screens a majority of reality televsions shows rather than actual music content.

I believe that the music video for 'Gangnam Style' is so popular as it is controversial and unique in that it is not stereotypical or similar to mainstream music videos or the majority of the other music videos on this website. The music for this video is simple and repetitive which makes it catchy for the audience. Also , most scenes in this video are strange and ambiguous which intrigue the audience and makes them want to keep watching and questioning some of the scenes.  In terms of YouTube, the website has helped make the video as popular as it is as it has made it easily accessible for the audience. It is easy to search for and watch as many times as wanted with YouTube. Furthermore, due to YouTube being a popular medium of video consumption, when a video (whether music related or not) becomes popular, it is widely spoken about. This means that a lot of people will hear about a video and are encouraged by others to watch it as there are no excuses to miss the video everyone is talking about due to it being so easily accessible. 

YouTube has changed a lot over the ten years since it was created. It was founded n 2005 and self-owned with "Me at the zoo" being the first video posted. At the early stages of the websites development a lot of videos with small audiences were posted and not watched by many as they were personal videos and not posted for large entertainment values. However, the website developed massively in 2006 when it was brought by Google for $1.65billion and one year later it was launched in nine different countries. In 2009 the website began to receive 1billion daily views and two years later that figure was tripled. 

Writing this post will help me when planning and creating my own music video as I can now understand how aspects of music videos have developed over the years and how this has affected how music videos are viewed. This will allow me to know what will and will not work well as I have seen what has and has not been successful previously. It will also help me to know how to develop my music video further. For example, I will use special effects in editing and several locations as this has been seen in most recent music videos and proven to be very successful. Overall, I believe that researching the history of music videos has helped me consider how my music video will have to be relevant to the current time period if it wants to be perceived best. In 2012 Gangnam style hit 1 billion views and the website attained 4billion views a say (46,296 per second).