Origins of the music video

We expect singles that artists have produced to include a music video, if it doesn't then some people aren't interested. The music video compliments the song and promotes the artist/artists involved, the videos are either of artist/artists performing or in the form of a narrative. Through time the music video has become more futuristic and features animation and a narrative. In 2011 every big artist has a music video that promotes them and there song and also gives the audience a chance to interpret the song visually. We can watch music videos pretty much any where we want, theres a range of television channels dedicated to music videos and there genre, for example Nme which covers indie/rock music, Kerrang which covers rock/Metal music and Viva which is a mainstream music channel. As the audience we are surrounded by music videos, if its not on our television it's on the Internet on You Tube or the artists website and because of digitilasation we can even watch music videos on our mobile phones. 

Through the art of the music video, the audiences have been hugely influenced by their own imaginations as music videos provides us with private fantasies and pleasure. The music video has created a large audience that has learnt how to dance,dress and dream. These videos have helped the audience articulate their own feelings. Throughout the history of the music video there has been many different forms that music videos have produced. There's a narrative, which tells the story to a song and interprets the lyrics visually, theres also performance form in which we see the artists/artist perform their song and also quiet recently we have seen the up rising in surreal art videos which have no inner meaning but still have the power to make the audience consume the video as it interests us, a good example of the surreal art form would be Radio Head's songs "Street Spirit" and "No Surprises".

In the 2000's a lot of inter textual references were being introduced in music videos referring to other media texts. For example Weezer a pop/rock group made a video named "Buddy Holly" and this video was influenced by the 1970's show Happy Days which was based in the 1950's. Oasis used interexual references in their song "Importance of being idle", this was heavily influenced by the British social realism which was in 1966/67, which is also the reason it was in black and white (A music video code). The pop/punk band Blink 182 parodied the codes and conventions of boy bands in their music video "All the small things" this video was very popular because of the humour. The 2000's changed the music video quiet significantly, artists started playing around the usual codes and conventions of the music video and used more inter textual references to provide more meaning in the music video. We also see hundreds of different camera angles and editing skills used in the modern music video, almost anything is possible with the technology we have in this day and age.

In the 1990's artists such as The Beautiful South used humour in their videos in a bid to get a message through the video, there video "Song For Whoever" was self reflexive and had a storyline, the ideology behind their video was that you can be talentless and and ugly to become a pop star and that something needed to be done about that. On the other hand bands like Radio head didn't use the codes and conventions of the music video and created an artistic approach to it, the video had no meaning and was meant to just enjoy.

In the 1980's music videos had just started to become popular with the audience and the audience got a range of different forms of video, for example their was Peter Gabriel's- Sledgehammer video which broke the boundaries of the conventional music video at the time and still to this day has influenced many directors. The video was a surreal animation that had images that interpret the visionary. Videos such as Whams- Club Tropicana which gave the impression that they were living the life in a tropical location, this was the ideological view behind the video. The most inspirational and inspiring videos of the 1980's has to be Michael Jackson's- Thriller, this video didn't just brake the boundaries of conventional music video but set a new level. The video cost $1.000000 and was basically a short film with the music video included. The video had iconic dance routines that have inspired many generations and has become a convention in pop videos. The genre of the video was horror and included mise en scene for the genre, including zombies, a dark night and dry ice. More animation and cinematography were used in the 80's, they started experimenting with cinematography and editing and created a different sense of music video.

The first music video is considered to have been born on the BBC'smise en scene with dry ice floating around the stage to give the band that glamour rock image, the lighting kept changing with the songs mood and special effects in the chorus to get away from the performance form. This single stayed at number 1 in the charts for 9 weeks as it was immensely popular mainly because of the music video.

It could also be argued that The Beatles are the real creators of the music video as in 1964 the film A Hard Days Night, directed by Dick Lester was released in a documentary style film. The film included all four Beatles and was hugely popular, the films had a sense of humour about them as well as the group performing giving an image to the band which is consistent. The Beatles went on to make many more promotional films in years to come including Help!, which was in colour film and again hugely popular as well as The Magical Mystery Tour which was shown on the BBC on Boxing day, it was a surrealist film where the group criticised the police and society through their own lyrics but this was heavily criticised. These films gave the  fans that couldn't see the Beatles in person a chance to see them perform in a different way and it gave the chance for The Beatles to promote themselves even more.

 

Bob Dylan's film "Don't look back" directed by D.A Pennabaker filmed in 1965 has also been regarded as the first music video. At the beginning of the film their is a short clip of him performing one of his songs, the clip has only one camera angle and we only see Bob Dylan using imagery that interepts his lyrics. Bob Dylan was one of the first artists that wrote his own lyrics and his lyrics challenged society's values, he was popular at the time with young people his age as they could relate to the lyrics he wrote, as they were going through exactly what he was.

Before the music video or promotional films where about, artists had to promote their selves in different ways. The most popular way to do this was film and this is how the hugely popular Elvis Presley promoted himself globally. His manager didn't want to go abroad in case he'd be deported from America so Elvis Presley did not tour the world, instead he was involved in films and during the films he would sing one of his songs, promoting his image and his music.