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Thursday 9th July
Music Video History
In today's lesson we went over the history of the music video, we looked at what they used to be, how they are now and how the two are different. We also looked at influential music videos that helped move the music video evolution onwards.
Andrew Goodwin (1992)
All music videos demonstrate five characteristics;
1. Demonstrate genre characteristics
2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals
3. The demands for the records label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist, doing this motifs may develop
4. Frequent reference to the notion of looking, particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body
5. Intertextual references to popular culture
A timeline of the music video
The 1900s
Edison invents the gramophone (US) This marks the first shift in music, now people can play recorded audio on various forms of disc, up until this point music was solely a live performance that could not be enjoyed in the home.
The original gramophone (left) and a modern gramophone (right)
The 1920s
Oskar Fischinger a german musician experiments with audio and visual sychronisation on film, this was a combination that had never been done before and is incredibly important concerning the history of the music video.
This video is some of Oskar Fischinger's earlier work.
Titled; An Optical Poem
Musical Feature Films
1927
The first sound film 'The Jazz Singer' is produced, this was the first feature-length motion picture to feature sychronised dialogue. The release of this film signalled the commercial popularity of the "talkies" (a film with a soundtrack) and began the decline in popularity of the silent film era.
A poster for 'The Jazz Singer' (left)
1940s
The 1940s was the peak period for MGM Hollywood musical films. Many musicals were released during this time whilst the fad of musicals was still relatively new.
Among the mass of musicals released were;
Easter Parade (1948), The Harvey Girls (1946), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Meet me in St Louis (1944) and Holiday Inn (1942).
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Above are film posters for the featured musical films of the 1940s.
Jailhouse Rock
Jailhouse rock was the name of an Elvis Presley film and also the name of the Elvis Presley song. The release of the music video and the film coincided making this the first time music video was used as a promotional item for an artist and film.
Jailhouse Rock is the first known music video in history, it's Elvis' most popular and recognised song/video and he choreographed the dance himself.
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Above are stills from the music video for 'Jailhouse Rock'.
These pictures feature references to Elvis Presley and the 'Jailhouse Rock' video and film. To the left is rap artist Eminem and above is pop band One Direction.
1962
'Summer Holiday' is a British film (poster left), it was the first feature length film to synchronise song, dance and sound together to fit together.
This was a milestone in audio (and cinematic) history because it had never been done before by a film production.
1964
A Hard Day's Night is a short mock documentry (mockumentry) made by the Beatles to promote the band and the release of their third album (A Hard Day's Night). The film was based around the Beatles and their lives, released at the height of 'Beatlemania' the fild was hugely successful and is one of the most influential musical flims of all time.
This is the original trailer for 'A Hard Day's Night' where you can see the themes of rebellion and sexual magnetism.
The film created seperate personas for each band member, another first for the Beatles (up until The Beatles the majority of bands were known as (name of lead singer) and the (generic object/name) the Beatles were rhe first to break this trend). Each band member was given a different 'type' or personality trait, (Ringo was the joker, John as the smart one etc). This helped to further their fame as people liked them having individual personalities. This film is based around rebellion and the sexual mmagnetism of the Beatles (Dyer's Star Theory: 7 Key Characteristics), since the film portrays them as 'breaking out' for the film.
Below is a remastered version of the original trailer.
1930s - 1960s
In the 1930s we witnessed creation of the 'soundie'.
A soundie is a three minute video for a song, if a song was longer than three minutes then the song was cut to fit a three minute video.
This would help artist create their image and promote themselves as an artist through the use of 'soundies'.
In 1939 the panoram was introduced to play the 'soundies' on, it was the trademark name of a visual jukebox used to view the music videos, it was about the size of a small fridge and used mirrors to project the music video onto it's screen.
In the 1960s a new version of a musical jukebox came out, this one was called a 'Scopitone' and had the same purpose of the panoram just with more advanced technology, however towards the end of the 60s their popularity died out.
1960s - 1970s
In the 1960s we began to see more musical based television shows, this included 'Top of the Pops' and 'The Monkees' television show.
1964: The Animals - House of the Rising Sun
House of the Rising Sun was the first music video to be longer than three minutes, because the video and song were longer than three minutes many predicted the song would be a failure however it became the first transatlantic hit.
The song became number one in several places including; the USA, Australia, Canada, Sweden and Finland.
The Animals (previously known as Eric Burdon and the Animals) were also among the first to display genre hybridism with their music. House of the Rising Sun begins as a blues/folk song and transitions into a rock song, this new change would've contributed to the success of the song.
1975 - Queen
Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the most influential music videos ever made, it was originally made because Queen was asked to perform it on 'Top of the Pops' however due to the complexity of the song it's difficult to sing live and because of this Queen made a video to play on the show instead. It was the longest music video ever seen at the time of its creation at six minutes and seven seconds, because of this song music production companies began to produce videos for songs at their full length, as opposed to cutting them down as done previously.
The music video was also one of the first to experiment with appropriate editing (editing matching the audio), since it uses fades for the slower parts of the song and straight cuts for the faster parts of the song.
1979
During the development of the music video, many people and artists became scared this would mean the end of the radio and radio stars. Juke boxes were going out of fashion and music channels had become more popular in culture.
The Buggles picked up on this scare and made a song about it; 'Video killed the Radio Star', ironically this song was the first ever song to be played on the newly invented 'MTV: Music Television' because of this it's one of the most popular music videos in music video history, this was reinforced by MTV's celebration of playing it's 2millionth video. Video killed the Radio Star was the 2 millionth video played and is the music video first played when MTV releases it's sub-channels.
1980s - 2000
During the 1980s-1990s there were assumptions made about demographics of those listening to music, the assumptions led to domination of the music industry and TV channels by white artists and male rock artists.
1980
David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes, the music video for this song was the most expensive music video made at this time, it cost £250,000 to make, the huge amount of money spent on the music video created huge amounts of hype for the video.
Now it's regarded as one of the most iconic music videos of the 1980s partly due to the fact it incorporated solarised images with black and white filming.
Due to copyright laws I cannot put the video on my website however below is a photo taken of the video to give an idea of what made the video so iconic.
1982
Pink Floyd - The Wall was the best selling album for an entire decade, this was due to the elborate theatrical effects used by creting a live version to be performed on sateg and the fact they created a short feature film and a music video to promote the album.
The music video displayed school children, the band told the school kids to shout instead of sing and then the kids voices were multi-tracked to give the effect of them being more children than were actually there.
Pink Floyd also played on the rock music scare, there was a rumour during this time that if you played rock music backwards it would contain messages from the devil that would poison the mind of those listening. Pink Floyd put a backwards message into there music that said 'Congratulations you found the secret message'. This was probably for comical effect since it was clearly an untrue rumour.
This is a clip from 'Little Nicky' in which they play on the backwards record myth.
1986
Due to the previously mentioned demographic assumptions, black artist were restricted in what music of theirs was allowed on TV, many people were worried about violent videos and worried about the negative impact on their children (a scare we sitll see now but now it's video games people worry about).
This was until a breakthrough in which a white artist and a black artist collaborated in one of the most successful records of hybridism through genre.
RUN DMC and Aerosmith are two seperate music acts, who came together in a song collaboration, a remix of Aerosmiths 'Walk this way' something that revolutionsed music and saved Aerosmiths music career. The video is below.
This lead to wider acceptance of black artist in various genres, as it not only combined black and white artists but also rap and rock as a genre. Giving it an humorous elements in the music video.
This humour in rap music was further reinforced by MC Hammer who used his infamous trousers and dance to make rap music less violent and 'dangerous' to the youth. By the end of the decade rap music was much more acceptable and was eligble for bigger budget music videos.
M T V
1981 - 2003 showed the rise of MTV. Through these years they made many developments including playing all genres of music.
MTV was so popular it had the power to make artists popstars, it was central to the music business and had huge emphasis on image/performance in music videos.
2003 Onwards
From 2003 onwards music videos became more varied in length and typology, many music videos through 2003-2008 focused on the narrative perspect of videos many artists telling complex stories through their music videos.
To cover 2004 onwards, I went on MTV's yearbook to find out which music video was most popular for each year, I will put the top music video for each year on my website and comment on each one.
2003
OutKast - Hey Ya! is the most popular music video of 2003, everybody knows the video (and song) for it's unforgettable 'Shake it like a polaroid picture' lyric.
The video is largely performance however contains some narrative in the form of a long beginning in which the lead singer is told not to mess around on stage.
Also note how Andre 3000 plays all the band in the music video, something unique of it's time, this displays the editing used to put the music video together.
2004
Britney Spears - Toxic is the most popular music video of 2004, it's a narrative video, about a female spy/assassin. Pop is still largely dominant of the charts during this time.
2005
Eminems 'Like Toy Soldiers' was the most popular music video of 2005, this could be down to the emotion invoking lyrics and video of the song or due to the policitcal issues the song brings up and the tale it tells. This is a rap song, presenting the decline of the domination of pop music in the charts (and on MTV).
2006
Sexyback by Justin Timberlake and Timbaland was most popular for 2006, the two artists often collaborated together in a fusion of pop and RnB one of the most successful hybrid genres.
2007
Plain White T's song 'Hey There Delilah' was the most popular music video of 2007, a ballad by a pop punk band hey there delilah was decreed 'a love song for everyone'.
It's very popular as a love song and the majority of people will recognise and know the main chorus.
2008 Onwards
From 2008 onwards there's a rise in postmodernism in music, staring with Lady Gaga who released her first single(s) in 2008 and went out to shock people with her taste in fashion (pun about the meat dress) and her music videos that displayed strange plots and unusual costume and make up choices.
Many artists began to follow Gaga and took on more complex costumes, popular RnB artist Beyonce who collaborated with the star. 2008 onwards also displayed less pop domination in the charts and a rise in mainstream popularity of alternative music.