History of Music Videos

1925-1959: The history of music videos commences in 1926, and with the invention of “talkies” many short musical films were created. Warner Bros. produced Vitaphone Shorts which were short sing-along cartoons called Screen Songs. They encouraged the audience to sing along to the song by “following the bouncing ball”. An example of this is Fresh Yeggs which was actually created in 1950 by Paramount and is based on a prison for animals.

1950s: The oldest example of a (non-animated) music video is for the Czechian song "Dáme si do bytu") ("let's go to the apartment"), which was created in 1958. The video follows a couple dressing their house with ornaments and then a band appearing to which they dance.

In the late 1950s the Scopitone (a visual jukebox) was invented in France and so many french artists used this to pioneer short films. It's usage and production spread to other countries; Italy made the cinebox and America made the color-sonic.

1960s: 1964 saw the creation of The Moody Blues' promotional video for "Go Now". The video resembles modern videos in duration with three minutes and ten seconds. The video influenced Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", although it is a decade earlier.

In the same year, the Beatles created the first feature film called A Hard Day's Night. The film is a mock documentary and shot in black-and-white, it's basically their music featuring comedic dialogue sequences. It was similar to the American TV series "The Monkees" (1966-1968) which also consisted of a dialogue sequences to accompany various Monkees songs.

Starting from 1965, the Beatles released promotional videos which at the time were known as "film inserts". They were used as promotion for their work in other countries, mainly the united states, so that the group would not have to travel abroad to perform live. The clips were simple mimed-in-studio videos and were meant to be included in television shows like Top of the Pops and Hullabaloo.
1970s: Music videos were being pioneered much more regularly from 1965 with artists like the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan creating some of the most legendary. During 1972 David Bowie starred in a series of short films including "John, I'm Only Dancing", "The Jean Genie", "Space Oddity" and "Life on Mars?". In 1974, Australia created both the music television shows, Countdown and Sounds. These shows played significant roles in shaping the music video genre in Australia and neighbouring countries. Graham Webb, the creator of Sounds needed more clips for the show, because although music videos were popular, they weren't mainstream. He approached a newsroom staffer and asked him to shoot footage to accompany popular songs which had no videos.

Mean whilst the original director of Countdown, Paul Drane figured that video clips were becoming a popular new commodity within the music industry. Thus Drane made several music videos including AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)".
1980s: In 1980, the music video to David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" became the most expensive video ever made with a production cost of $582,000. The video was shot in solarised colour and was the most iconic of the time. It's complex structure has been significant in the formation of music videos.

In the same year, the new Zealand Group Split Enz released a complete set of promo clips for each song from their album True Colours after doing well.  These video clips were released to fans via video cassette.

In 1981, America launched Music Television, better known today as MTV, airing "videos killed the radio star". MTV aired music clips all day everyday, allowing the music video to develop to a centre space within the music industry. Many important artists of this period, such as Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran, and Madonna, gained a massive amount of their fame from this platform.

The 80s saw two key innovations for the evolution of modern music videos. These were firstly the creation of less expensive and easy-to-use video recording and editing equipment, and secondly the production of visual effects. After video-tape recorders were invented, these cameras weavled into DIY ethos of the new wave era, which allowed a diverse array of pop artists to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply, distinguishable to the pricey predecessor, film.

In this decade, creators began to play around with the form and style of this commodity. For example they would explore camera effects, use a combination of 35mm film and video, and add a storyline or plot to the video. Sometimes non-representational videos were even made, meaning that the artist wasn't shown. This was a rarity though, because at the core of them music videos are intended to promote the artist. An example of this kind of video was David Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure".

The 80s also saw music videos exploring political and socio-political themes. For example, David Bowie's "China Girl" explored race issues by presenting an interracial relationship. In the Rolling Stone, Bowie explained his reason motivating the video, saying "Let's try to use the video format as a platform for some kind of social observation, and not just waste it on trotting out and trying to enhance the public image of the singer involved".

In 1983, Michael Jackson released his music video for "Thriller". The video has been deemed as the most successful, influential, and iconic of all time by a wide array of sources. The video for "Thriller" as well as Jackson's videos for "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", were a influence towards getting music videos by African-American artists played on MTV.
1990: During the 90s MTV release several channels worldwide to present local music. MTV Latin America was launched in 1993, MTV India in 1996, MTV Mandarin in 1997. MTV2 also debuted in 1996 to show music videos for an alternative audience.
2000-2010: By 2005, MTV had disregarded music videos in favour for reality TV, which were more popular. 2005 brought the creation of YouTube which meant that viewing music videos online was a lot easier and quicker.

Some artists began to correlate a link between success and video making, and an example of this is the band OK Go which achieved fame after videos for two of their songs: "A Million Ways" and "Here It Goes Again".
In the late 00s MTV began to release streams of artists' music videos and AOL also initiated AOL Music which showcased an extensive supply of advertising support streaming videos. Apple's iTunes Store provided a bunch of free music videos viewable with the iTunes application. iTunes evolved to have purchasable music videos which could be played back on the iPod. In the 00s, the internet evolved to being the primary arena to attain music videos.
The primary music video streaming site is vevo on youtube, are vevo was launched in December 2009 by several major music publishers.
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