Music Video Timeline

A music video is a short film intergrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Through my research I found that over the years music videos have developed in a variety of ways, when comparing the first few music videos and also present day music videos.

In 1894, 'The Little Lost Child' by Joseph W Stern an co, sold more than two million copies of its sheet music following its promotion as the first ever illustrated song, an early precursor to the music video. The video shows a series of still images whilst live music is played in the background. This is the sheet music cover page.

From the years 1930-1959 many musical films were released, this is where songs are interwoven into the film. In 1949 'Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend' was famously performed by Marilyn Monroe in the film 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' where Monroe sings the song surrounded by well dressed men. This is one of the many best known examples of a musical film.

Another early form of music video were one-song films called "promotional clips" which were made in the 1940s for the Panoram visual jukebox. These were short films of musical selections, usually just a band on a movie-set bandstand, made for playing. Thousands of "soundies" were made, mostly of jazz musicians, but also of torch singers, comedians, and dancers.  Here is Louis Armstrong performing Dinah with his band

In 1960 the beatles were introduced. The promotional film for "Strawberry Fields Forever" was an early example of what later became known as a music video.The film featured reverse film effects, stop motion animation, jump-cuts from daytime to night-time, and The Beatles playing and later pouring paint over an upright piano.

MTV was launched in 1981. The first music video shown on MTV was The Buggles 'Video Killed the Radio Star' and the second music video shown was Pat Benatar's "You Better Run". The original purpose of MTV was to be "Music Television", playing music videos 24 hours a day, guided by on-air personalities known as VJs, or video jockeys

In 1990 Micheal Jackson and Janet Jackson released 'Scream'. Jackson and his sister Janet angrily retaliate against the media for misrepresentation to the public. The acclaimed video was shot primarily in black and white, at a cost of $7 million.

In 2005 YouTube was launched, YouTube is a video-sharing website which allows users to upload, view and share videos.