Music Video History

The History Of Music Video.


The first form of music video that came on the scene was "The Illustrated song". This was first started by George Thomas when he was hired by Joe Stern and Edward B. to help promote their song "The little lost child". Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneously to live performances. 




Not long after this the "talkies" were introduced, these were essentially short films with music over the top, which could perhaps be known as the narrative music video today.

Warner Brothers created in the 1930s the nearest thing to today's model of a music video, "The Spooney Melodies". They were about six minutes long and featured art deco style animations combined with film of the performer.


In 1964 "The Animals" with "House Of The Rising Sun" created one of the biggest steps in Music video form, It was a high-quality color clip was filmed in a studio on a specially-built set; with the group lip-synching.


The Beatles.


In the same year "The Beatles" starred in a film named after their album "A Hard Days Night". It was directed by Richard Lester. Robert Ebert praises Lester in creating a new format, the music video.

 "...he influenced many other films. Today when we watch TV and see quick cutting, hand-held cameras, interviews conducted on the run with moving targets, quickly intercut snatches of dialogue, music under documentary action and all the other trademarks of the modern style, we are looking at the children of A Hard Day's Night"




In 1965, The Beatles began making promotional clips (then known as "filmed inserts") for distribution and broadcast in other countries—primarily the USA—so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances.


The Beatles were the band who revolutionised the world of music videos and by the 1970's Britain started airing music videos on the BBC through Top Of The Pops. 


Music Video's Moving To The Present.

In 1981 MTV was released and aired "Video Killed The Radio Star" starting the new age of 24-hour muisc


In 1983 Michel Jackson went the extra mile and filmed his 14 minuet long music video to "Thriller" setting the standard of music videos for it day. Costing a impressive $500,000 to film.
Jackson later topped this by the video he filmed with his sister, Janet Jackson in 1995, Scream, which cost a MASSIVE $7 million to produce!!!


In 1992 MTV started to name the Director of the music video's alongside the artist reflecting the fact that the director is an Artist too.


2005-Present - The internet became Video friendly :)

2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier; MySpace's video functionality, which uses similar technology, launched in 2007. Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online. The band OKGO may exemplify this trend, having achieved fame through the videos for two of their songs, "A Million Ways" in 2005 and "Here It Goes Again" in 2006.