History Of The Music Video
1929
Bessie smiths 'st louis blues' could arguably be one of the earliest examples of a music video.
The short film, released in 1929, was a dramatisation of the original song, and was shown in a number of different theatres in America. The short film stayed in theatres for around 4 years.
1942
Like Bessie Smith, Singer Bing crosby also had one of his songs appear in a film. The film 'holiday inn' released in 1942, featured the song 'white christmas' which was performed by Bing Crosby and Martha Mears.
The song itself sold 50 million copies, making it one of the biggest selling single world wide of all time. The popularity of the film likely helped in achieving this goal, as at the time, it was the highest grossing film musical.
1965
Singer Frank Sinatra soon replaced Bing Crosby as one of the worlds biggest star. On June 20th 1965 thousands had tuned in to watch 'the rat pack' performance, a group of singers that frank sinatra was part of.
The Concert was fed live through movie theatres across America. frank Sinatra also had a number of TV specials and films that he was a part of.
Elvis Presely - The Birth Of Rock And Roll
At a time when classical singers like Frank Sinatra were the norm, Elvis Presley was releasing songs that nobody had heard before. This new type of music was called 'rock and roll' in regards to its upbeat and fast style. Much of the older generation frowned upon 'rock and roll' however it was very popular with teens, as it matched their 'rebellious' attitude at the time. Many people tuned in to see elvis's performances on TV, however he was sometimes criticised for his 'outrageous sexual style'.
The Beatles
The Beatles have also been influential in pop music video history. The Band has featured on shows like 'top of the pops'. 'Top of the pops' is important to music video history as it showed a competitive side to the music industry. thousands of people in the UK had watched 'top of the pops' every thursday to see their favourite band or singer performing, this meant that many singers/bands wanted to be on top of the pops, as it would bring a lot of attention to them, although the beatles were already a very well known when they appeared on the show.
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The beatles also introudced the first produced pop music video with thier song paperback writer.
MTV
MTV (music television) was a channel launched in 1981, was a channel aimed at showing music videos 24/7. The first music video it released was 'video killed the radiostar' by the buggles, this is ironic as the rise of music videos did kill the popularity of radio.
Present Day
in the present day, music videos are still very popular. The internet has made it extremely accesible to watch music videos, with sites like youtube offering ways to watch music videos that have released today and music videos that have been released in the past. It might be suggested that music videos are now watched for the aesthetic pleasure and not the musical quality, for example female singers like 'Rihanna' have been criticised for being 'overly sexualised' in her music videos. It might also be suggested that this is because the corporate managers want to capitalise on their sex appeal, rather than their musical quality. Although this is not the case for some artists, an example of this is ed sheeran's music video 'sing', the music video seems to focus on being fun/comedic instead of sexualising the artist.
