What is a music video?
Music Videos are a short film that accompanies a piece of music. Music videos offer another dimension to the music industry, and allow marketing and promotion of the song and certain products, hence them often being called Promotional Videos (or promos)
One example of an early music video could arguably be Walt Disney's third animated feature film Fantasia, 1940 - a piece featuring Mickey Mouse, with the backing music by Stokowski, played by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Another example of one of the first music videos could be Bessie Smith's video for St Louis Blue's (1929), which was a short film shown in cinemas from 1929 - 1932. The short film is 15 minutes long, and the 'music video' part of it starts around 7 minutes in.
Tony Bennet claims to have made the first music video for his recording of 'Strangers in Paradise' which was a short film of him walking through Hyde Park in London. It was created for the visual juke boxes, but also played by TV stations in the UK and US. After WW2, the popularity of visual jukeboxes faded as personal televisions became popular.
The conventions used by music videos today arguably came about from TV and Films such as The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" (1964), "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" (1967) and TV show The Monkees (1966-68). These films and TV shows were specially made to fit with the songs sung by the artists, and developed filming and editing techniques that are still used in music videos today, an example is the use of editing to the beat, and lip syncing. Below is a clip from A Hard Days Night, where The Beatles perform She Loves You.
Concert Films, which were videos of liver performances because popular in the 1960, with the first documented in 1960, "Jazz on a Summer's Day", which was recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival. These films were more documentaries than music videos.
The introduction to Jazz on a Summers Day features water reflecting on a river to the song 'The Train and the River' by the Jimmy Giuffre Trio. This is an exert that could be used as an example of an early artistic music video. The shots are related to the music, as the water 'dances' to the music, and all the shots are of a river, and the song is about a river.
Music Videos as they are known today first became popular through music television. The first Music show in america was Video Concert Hall, which was then followed by MTV 3 years later. MTV is the most well known music television programme, and started broadcasting in 1981, but both were proceeded by Australian TV shows 'Sounds' and 'Countdown', which were chart shows that began broadcast in 1974. Institutions and artists in the music industry quickly became aware that in order to gain the free publicity provided by these popular music channels, they had to produce a music video for the songs they were releasing. According the the BBC's "The Story of Bohemian Rhapsody," (2004), Bogemian Rhapsody was credited as starting the MTV age.
The use of music videos as a central marketing strategy tool was first used by Queen for their single "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975) according to Rock Historian Paul Fowles. Although some short promotional clips had been made for singles, it wasn't until the success of the music video for Bohemian Rhapsody that, according to Jari Muikku, it became common practice for record labels to produce videos for all singles. The video was produced, according to James May, to be played on Top of The Pops, as the band were on tour and wouldn't have been able to perform it live. It cost less than £5000 and took 4 hours to film,. This music video's special effects were created during shooting as a pose to during editing, the kaleidoscope effect was achieved with a kaleidoscope camera lens, and the cascading effect was created by positioning the camera at a TV behind Freddie which was playing what the camera could see, creating visual feedback.
David Bowies music video for "Ashes to Ashes" was the first video to cost over half a million dollars. It was published in 1980, and cost over £1.3m to make in 2017 money. The most expensive music video of all time to create was Michael Jackson's "Scream", 1955, which cost $7m to make ($11m+ when adjusted for inflation).
Midway through the 2000-2010, the technology influencing music video production and consumption improved, allowing for fast online streaming of music videos. People stopped listening to CDs and the radio so much, and started watching videos online, through sites like YouTube and Vevo. MTV stopped showing music videos all the time and started showing reality TV.
Youtube was launched in 2005, and artists quickly saw the commercial benefits of uploading their music videos online. Every time a video was played, advertisements accompanying the video would allow a small royalty to be paid for each play of the video. Youtube had issues with record labels, as different labels had different policies on music videos, some saw them as free advertising, and were happy for them to be put onto youtube, while others saw them as the product itself, and hence didn't want it available freely to the public. After Youtube's merger with Google, an agreement with all major record labels, through the Recording Industry Association of America, was formed to allow music videos on Youtube. This was created in the form of Vevo, a website set up by the RIAA which streams its videos through googles UI, and the profits from advertisement revenue is shared between google and vevo.
A notable example of one of the firsts singles to use Youtube to market its music video successfully was Thirty Seconds to Mars' video for "Kings and Queens", which generated over 100 million views. Even more notable was Psy's Gangnam Style (2012), this video defined the word "Viral", the mediocre song was accompanied by an entertaining video full of easy to learn, recognisable dancing. The music video was shared on social media by millions of people, and intertextually referenced across almost all media forms, this lead to it being the first youtube video to reach 1 billion views. The fact it reached 1 billion views made it a headline news story, causing it to make even more views. The video has now been watched over 2.79 billion times. This means that the video has made Psy and his record label over $2 million from the youtube advertising revenue alone, giving record labels even more incentive to create them.
Sources:
Music Videos are a short film that accompanies a piece of music. Music videos offer another dimension to the music industry, and allow marketing and promotion of the song and certain products, hence them often being called Promotional Videos (or promos)
One example of an early music video could arguably be Walt Disney's third animated feature film Fantasia, 1940 - a piece featuring Mickey Mouse, with the backing music by Stokowski, played by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Another example of one of the first music videos could be Bessie Smith's video for St Louis Blue's (1929), which was a short film shown in cinemas from 1929 - 1932. The short film is 15 minutes long, and the 'music video' part of it starts around 7 minutes in.
This was one of the earliest cases of synergy being used in the music industry through the medium of a music video. The short film was in cinemas for years, and promoted the song, and people who liked the song went to watch the short film in the cinema.
In the 1940s, short films were produced in the US, called Soundies, were displayed on a jukebox. These jukeboxes, called a Panoram, were positioned in many popular social locations. Many artists created videos to accompany their songs, as this would make them more likely to be played in the popular locations, and therefore sell more - hence the birth of music videos as promotional tools.
The conventions used by music videos today arguably came about from TV and Films such as The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" (1964), "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" (1967) and TV show The Monkees (1966-68). These films and TV shows were specially made to fit with the songs sung by the artists, and developed filming and editing techniques that are still used in music videos today, an example is the use of editing to the beat, and lip syncing. Below is a clip from A Hard Days Night, where The Beatles perform She Loves You.
A better example of an early music-video-styled piece of work can be taken from the same film, A Hard Days Night, but the section for the song "Can't Buy me Love." Unfortunately due to copyright the video cannot be embedded into my blog, but in the video, the Beatles run away from a building and dance in a field. The video shows early hints of conventions of music videos, including a postmodern breaking of the fourth wall where one of the band members interacts with the camera. The videos uses fast motion, artistic angles and editing to the beat..
Concert Films, which were videos of liver performances because popular in the 1960, with the first documented in 1960, "Jazz on a Summer's Day", which was recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival. These films were more documentaries than music videos.
Music Videos as they are known today first became popular through music television. The first Music show in america was Video Concert Hall, which was then followed by MTV 3 years later. MTV is the most well known music television programme, and started broadcasting in 1981, but both were proceeded by Australian TV shows 'Sounds' and 'Countdown', which were chart shows that began broadcast in 1974. Institutions and artists in the music industry quickly became aware that in order to gain the free publicity provided by these popular music channels, they had to produce a music video for the songs they were releasing. According the the BBC's "The Story of Bohemian Rhapsody," (2004), Bogemian Rhapsody was credited as starting the MTV age.
The use of music videos as a central marketing strategy tool was first used by Queen for their single "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975) according to Rock Historian Paul Fowles. Although some short promotional clips had been made for singles, it wasn't until the success of the music video for Bohemian Rhapsody that, according to Jari Muikku, it became common practice for record labels to produce videos for all singles. The video was produced, according to James May, to be played on Top of The Pops, as the band were on tour and wouldn't have been able to perform it live. It cost less than £5000 and took 4 hours to film,. This music video's special effects were created during shooting as a pose to during editing, the kaleidoscope effect was achieved with a kaleidoscope camera lens, and the cascading effect was created by positioning the camera at a TV behind Freddie which was playing what the camera could see, creating visual feedback.
David Bowies music video for "Ashes to Ashes" was the first video to cost over half a million dollars. It was published in 1980, and cost over £1.3m to make in 2017 money. The most expensive music video of all time to create was Michael Jackson's "Scream", 1955, which cost $7m to make ($11m+ when adjusted for inflation).
In the early 90s, MTV started to include directors in a Music Video's credits. This lead to the rise of famous, well known music video directors, some of who went onto directing feature films, an example of these could be Spike Jonze. A playlist of all of Spike Jonze's music videos can be found here.
Midway through the 2000-2010, the technology influencing music video production and consumption improved, allowing for fast online streaming of music videos. People stopped listening to CDs and the radio so much, and started watching videos online, through sites like YouTube and Vevo. MTV stopped showing music videos all the time and started showing reality TV.
Youtube was launched in 2005, and artists quickly saw the commercial benefits of uploading their music videos online. Every time a video was played, advertisements accompanying the video would allow a small royalty to be paid for each play of the video. Youtube had issues with record labels, as different labels had different policies on music videos, some saw them as free advertising, and were happy for them to be put onto youtube, while others saw them as the product itself, and hence didn't want it available freely to the public. After Youtube's merger with Google, an agreement with all major record labels, through the Recording Industry Association of America, was formed to allow music videos on Youtube. This was created in the form of Vevo, a website set up by the RIAA which streams its videos through googles UI, and the profits from advertisement revenue is shared between google and vevo.
A notable example of one of the firsts singles to use Youtube to market its music video successfully was Thirty Seconds to Mars' video for "Kings and Queens", which generated over 100 million views. Even more notable was Psy's Gangnam Style (2012), this video defined the word "Viral", the mediocre song was accompanied by an entertaining video full of easy to learn, recognisable dancing. The music video was shared on social media by millions of people, and intertextually referenced across almost all media forms, this lead to it being the first youtube video to reach 1 billion views. The fact it reached 1 billion views made it a headline news story, causing it to make even more views. The video has now been watched over 2.79 billion times. This means that the video has made Psy and his record label over $2 million from the youtube advertising revenue alone, giving record labels even more incentive to create them.
Music videos can also directly make the artist money in other ways besides ad revenue, and getting people to buy the songs. Product placement has become common practice in music videos, with the narrative often written to include a certain product, most notably the Beats Pill speaker, which has appeared in numerous music videos, a playlist of a collection of songs featuring . Below is a video by WatchMojo.com showing some of the most blatant product placement.
Sources:
- "Dan Moller: Redefining Music Video". Dan Moller. 2011.
- Cutietta, Robert (1985). "Using Rock Music Videos to Your Advantage". Music Educators Journal. 71 (6): 47–49.
- Sandahl, Linda J. (1987). Rock films: A viewer's guide to three decades of musicals, concerts, documentaries and soundtracks 1955-1986
- Eil, Philip (29 July 2016). "This 1960 Jazz Film Shaped Concert Documentaries as We Know Them | NOISEY"
- Biography for Russell Mulcahy at the Internet Movie Database
- David Buckley (1999). Strange Fascination – David Bowie: The Definitive Story: pp.366–369
- Fowles, Paul (2009). A Concise History of Rock Music. Mel Bay Publications
- "The Most Expensive Music Videos Ever Made". MSN. October 16, 2009.
- Muikku, Jari (1990). "On the role and tasks of a record producer". Popular music and society.
- Black, Johnny (2002). "The Greatest Songs Ever! Bohemian Rhapsody". Blender. Archived from the original on 17 January 2010.
- "WATCH: David Bowie's New Video (Directed by OCAD Grad Floria Sigismondi)". Toronto Standard. February 26, 2013.
- "Floria Sigismondi's Runaway Movie". IFC. IFC. March 22, 2010.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0 view count as of March 2017
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2014/06/16/at-2-billion-views-gangnam-style-has-made-psy-a-very-rich-man/#31399a783fdb
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