The History Of The Music Video

The History Of The Music Video

One of the first examples of a music video was 'St Louis Blues - Bessie Smith' In 1920. But this is a early example of a music video and it is not like a modern music video. That first music video was used in a short film. Modern music videos are used as a promotion for a new album of the bands. Another early music video was created in 1940 by Walt Disney called Fantasia. This was a animated film based around a pieces of classical music.

But the main developments were in the 1950's and 1960's. The main development of the modern music video was from The Beatles. The created 'Strawberry Fields Forever' in 1967, they used different techniques such as reverse film effects, dramatic lighting, rhythmic editing and different camera angles. This music video showed many people that it can be illustrated through a artistic way rather that creating a film for the performance.

The music video is considered to be brought up by BBC's Top Of The Pops in November 1975. This is where Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was aired. Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was one of the first music videos which was viewed from a artist point of view. This viewpoint was important to the change in music videos.

In the 1980's many artists started to use more complicated effects to there music video and started adding narratives. Michael Jackson was one of the first to add a narrative to his music video. His most popular music video was 'Thriller' this video has changed the way many music videos have been created by the way the narrative works in the video. The thriller video was the start of including a narrative into the music videos.

The time line of music videos(Taken from TimeRime.com)