History 6/9/12

"A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes."

What are music videos?
Music videos are a type of imagery, sometimes a short film/documentaries/live action/abstract films, that, even though they originated many years ago, first came into the world through MTV in the 1980's. Before this time, the words 'music video' wasn't widely used, and instead titles such as an 'illustrated song' or 'promotional film' was used to describe them.



Before this, in the 1970's, the TV programme 'Top of the Pops' first aired which sparked the initial competition between record labels and artists to promote themselves. Another great influence in the history of music videos is the video produced by Queen of 'Bohemium Rhapsody' because of the promotion and success they achieved from it.

MTV, standing for Music Television, is an American television channel that first was created with the soul purpose of playing music videos.The first music video that was ever shown to the world through MTV is 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by The Buggles in 1981. The record charts started to soar with Number 1's, noticing that artists usually reached this top spot after releasing a promotional music video. 'Ashes to Ashes' by David Bowie was among these, with Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean' and 'Beat It' doing exactly the same. However, Michael Jackson changed it all around in 1984 when he released his promo video for 'Thriller' which showed a short-film - showing the video format in a completely new light and easily inspiring others. 

In today's society, music videos are exceedingly popular, due to the increase in internet usage and technology understanding. Videos of this current age are more known for their aesthetic value and visual qualities, rather than keeping the audience interested in the audio of the track. Music videos are on the increase, with internet sites like Youtube dominating the world with their storm of them, and almost every mainstream artist releases a music video not long after their song release to ensure their promotion. 

The Evolution of Music

To the left is an 11 minute video I found on www.youtube.com that really expresses the evolution of music, dating back to the 900's and ending in the year of 2010. I found this quite interesting and whilst listening to all of the different music pieces, I could see patterns, similarities and also differences between genres, lyrics, instruments, videos, live performances, etc, throughout the history. 

Why have I done this?

I researched the internet about the history of music videos because if I am planning to make a new video, then it is always important to take out your own personal market research or background search. Even though I only found out some brief history of music videos, I will look further into all of these aspects - the genre, the music labels, the styles, analysing old and contemporary music videos, etc. I also briefly looked at a Youtube video that summarises the change in music over the generations to give me a brief introduction and visual look and hear into what music used to be like.

SOURCES

1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video 

2.http://www.slideshare.net/crosswaysfederation/music-video-a-brief-history
3. www.youtube.com