History of music videos

Decades before now songs were listened to and that was all, music for the ears, but as time and technology expanded music was for the eyes too. In 1884 Edward B. Marks and Joseph W. Stern created a picture story for their song ‘A little lost boy’ which consisted of a set of still pictures related to the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTCBtMPvuKQ
The first performance of this didn’t go without the usual technical difficulties that we see today and some of the pictures were upside-down and of inappropriate size and placement; however this was corrected and proved very popular. The illustrated song technique was still being used in 1937 when some colour movies had begun to appear.

In the late 1950’s the Scopitone which is a visual jukebox was invented, and the trend of creating short films to accompany your song was popular. Then came more modernized short films, Bessie Smith takes the main role in a dramatized video telling the story of her song St Louis blues. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Who6fTHJ34


And from then Black and White videos for artist’s songs were popular, and the Beatles became influential with videos such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9FQhRu5HMs A hard days night.

As the world developed technologically television played a main role in promoting artists and their music, Top of the Pops in the UK showed bands mainly live. However then a ‘music channel’ made an appearance, the first ever 24-hour-a-day music, called MTV. Here videos were shown, and so promoted a band or artist without them having to be there singing. This was influential to the world of music videos, in Chinese music videos are known as ‘MTVs’. People who listen to songs don’t all hear it the same way, and so a music video gives an insight into one interpretation of the song. Also a music video aids the music and lyrics in bringing the song to life.