The history of music videos

In modern time music videos represent a crucial part of the music industry. They act to open up the viewers eyes to what the band/artist intend them to see, and allows viewers to enjoy music in a whole new way. Music videos not only showcase an artist's singing talent, but also how they perform. Many musical artists made their careers a success by using music videos.

One could say that the very first music video was created in the late 19th century when a series of still pictures were projected onto a screen with live music playing simultaneously, this become a very popular form of entertainment but it took just
over 60 years to really hit off.

The history of the modern music video has its roots in the early 1960s with The Beatles first major motion picture, 'A Hard Day's Night'. This 1964 Beatles movie included musical segments that resemble today's music videos. That same year, the band began filming short promotional films for their songs which were then aired on television on variety of shows. The band used these promotional videos to boost tour sales and record sales. This idea soon developed further and several other bands from that generation followed cue such as The Beach Boys and The Animals who interpreted their music into promotional videos too.

By 1974 making music videos were a popular concept for many band/artists and it were these videos that aided the Australian programme Countdown to be aired on television. Countdown aired these promotional videos to viewers in a bid to increase record sales and develop music videos further.

On August 1st 1981 music videos were broadcasted on MTV for the very first time with the hit “video killed the radio star” by The Buggles which is a bit ironic as it was from here when music videos really started to make an impression on the music industry.

Singers like Madonna not only used music videos to promote their albums, but to create their images. In 1983, the almost 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller," was released. It became the world's most successful and influential video in music video history.
Nowadays, the music video is nearly as important as the song itself, sometimes even deciding the success of a song or artist. Collections of music videos are being sold on DVDs. Music video's greatest fans are apparently watching them muted just to enjoy their artistic value, as they consider it to be a new form of art. They consider that a music video should be assessed based on its visual qualities and not on the song quality. Female sex-appeal in music videos have become very popular as of late therefore this feature is being used excessively it music genres such as rap and hip-hop.

In conclusion, although music videos have been widely used to entertain viewers and influence the music the industry, it still relates with its originally purpose, to promote and make money.