Timeline of Music Videos

1926

The talkies were introduced, this involved musical short films featuring bands, vocalists and dancers 

 

1930

Screen songs ere introduced. This clouded a series of cartoon films which encouraged audiences to sing along by following a marker 

 

1963

The first appearance of music videos. One of the earliest videos of a top 40 hit, was Jan and Dean’s “Surf City”

 

1964

The Beatles became one of the most famous boy bands in the world with their modern music video for ‘A Hard Days Night’, which was shot in black and white 

 

1975

The long running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s. Therefore, a good video would increase a song’s sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week. The band Queen ordered Bruce Gowers to make a promo video for their new single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody” to shoe it in Top if the Pops; this is also notable for being entirely shot and deities on videotape 

 

1981

The music channel MTV was created. This enabled music videos to play a central part in music marketing by mid 1980s. It began an ear of 24 hour a day music on television

 

1984

Michael Jackson released his music video,‘Thriller’ which proved to be a big hit. It was the most successful, influential and iconic music video of all time. It was nearly a 14 minute long video.

 

1985

The music channel VH1 was launched. This featured a range of soft music to suit an older audience helping to broaden the audience of music videos. Music videos grew to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period such as Madonna and Adam and the Ants, owed a great deal of their success to the skilful construction and seductive appeal of their videos

 

1988

Hip Hip music began to increase in popularity 

 

1992

MTV began to show the director names in the credits of music videos, reflecting the fact that music videos has increasingly become an auteur’s medium. Directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and Hype Williams all bought unique visions and style to the videos they directed 

 

1995

Michael Jackson’s music video ‘Scream’ becomes one of the most expensive music videos, costing a total of 7 million dollars to create 

 

2005

iTunes opened allowing people to download their favourite tracks from the computer. The online entertainment website ‘YouTube’ was created enabling music lovers to access their favourite music videos online. This resulted in an increase of new artists. MTV and many of its sister channels had largely abandoned showing music videos in favour of reality tv shows, which were more popular with its audience 

 

2010

The number of music videos viewed online begins to massively increase. Lady Gag’s music video ‘Poker Face’ reaches one billion views