History of the Music Video

In the 1930's, T.V's started becoming common appearances in households, pubs and bars etc. When the T.V was introduced, the music industry took a big knock, and people lost a lot of interest in the music industry. To help battle this loss of interest, a soundie was introduced. Soundies came about in the 1940's and short music video's. They were played on jukeboxes in pubs and bars, and brought interest within the music video back alive. They covered all genres from Swing, hillbilly novelties to patriotic songs. They normally just consisted of the artist lip syncing to the song.

In the 1950's, the rise of the teenager began. A main part to play in the rise of the teenager was the king himself, Elvis Presley. Elvis' songs and short films targeted teenage girls. This craze became popular with the release of 'love me tender' Elvis' first staring role featuring his hit single 'love me tender'.

The 60's also came with the introduction of the beatles. The beatles, like Elvis Presley, main target audience where teenage girls. They also released a number of films, one being 'A Hard Days Night'. This began the rise of the rebellious teenagers, taking control over their ungrateful adults. Youth orientated films dominated the 60's and continued the rise of the teenagers.

Documentary films are something that were born in the 1970's. Documentary films are films that would follow a band showing a mixture of both their performances and interviews with band members, fans and people associated with the band. A famous example of the documentary film is 'Gimme Shelter'. This was documentary that followed The Rolling Stones US tour, featuring footage of their performances, but also showing footage of interviews with band members, such as Mick Jagger. Also in the documentary film 'Stones in the Park', also a Rolling Stones documentary, there was an interview with Hell's Angels who were actually used as security for that performance.

In 1975, music videos were changed forever with the release of Bohemian Rhapsody. Queens single went straight to number one on Top of the Pops and stayed in that position for 9 weeks. A huge risk was taking when this video was released, being 6 minutes long. The first music video longer then around 3/4 minutes. However the risk took of as everybody loved the video, being the main reason it stayed at the top of the charts for so long.

In 1983 came the release of 'Thriller' the Michael Jackson video to his song. The original song was only 4:37 seconds long, however his music video is a 14 minute long video directed by John Landis. The video differed from the song, almost making it a short film. This video changed pop culture and has been known to be called 'the watershed moment for the music industry'.