History of the Music Video

Music videos haven’t always been around, in the 1950’s artists had to make films in able to promote their tracks and themselves. The most popular was artists such as Elvis and The Beatles. Elvis became popular worldwide with such films as Jail House Rock; all his songs were written by professionals. In the early 60’s attitudes towards young people changed. They became more rebellious and girls in particular didn’t want to be like their parents and ultimately challenged their views and values. The teenager was invented.
The Beatles in 1964 made the film Hard Day’s Night (directed by Dick Lester) which created an image which was consistent. They featured a lot of close-ups which was needed to promote stars. They then went on to make HELP! which was a colour film and linked in with their previous films.
Bob Dylan made a documentary called Don’t Look Back directed by D.A Pennabaker which is regarded as the first music video even though it’s just on the beginning. Dylan was challenging people and their views and one of the first artists to write his own songs with lyrics with much meaning. This was in 1965.
In 1967 The Beatles made ‘I am the Walrus’ where their image became more ‘wild’. The end of the video has vocals talking over the music to which it says ‘umpa umpa stick it up your jumper, everybody smoke pot’, which again is creating the rebellious the rebellious teenager.
In the video to the song the lyrics are shown visually, for example when it says ‘I am the Walrus’ somebody dressed as a walrus appears on screen.
David Bowie in 1972 released a futuristic music video to his song ‘Space Oddity’. It’s a performance where we see lots of major close-ups and regular close-ups of Bowies face in order to promote him and to create his ‘weird’ image. They filmed the video in a recording studio and edited the piece with a red tint to make it look futuristic and space-like.
1975 saw rock band, Queen, release ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which was at number one for nine weeks and cost £5000, which was very expensive in those days. Regarded as the first ‘real’ music video the band gives off a ‘glam-rock’ image in the performance element of the video. Low angles are recurrent throughout the video as they make the artists look dominant and powerful.
The development of the music video gradually got better and in the early 80’s Peter Gabriel released ‘Sledge Hammer’ which made videos become more important for artists. Gabriel used imagery to interpret lyrics; there were also aspects of animation in there too.
As music video’s got better, bands and artists began to experiment more.
Michael Jackson made short film Thriller which made millions of dollars and cost a million dollars. It follows a narrative structure and uses horror conventions and codes (semiotics). It uses performance and dancing. It also has intertextual references and is self-reflective and aware of itself as a media text as at points Michael will look at the camera directly.
Throughout the 80’s and early 90’s we saw the humorous, self-reflective video by The Beautiful South with ‘A song for whoever ’. The video is self-aware of itself as a media text which creates humour; it also has elements of performance and narrative but doesn’t have any link with the song lyrics.
To be quite artistic it also features colour isolation, which was seen as advanced.
A lot of artists began to use intertextual references for example Madonna and her video Vogue presented Madonna looking almost identical to glamorous Marilyn Monroe as the video is projecting the audiences desires.
Also REM’s video to ‘Losing my Religion’ where it represented the fact that religion has been shattered so man is creating his own, they do this by showing angles losing their wings.
In the 1990’s Fat Boy Slim changed music videos ultimately as he didn’t star in his own video to his song ‘Right here’. The majority of the video is comprised of CGI and it shows the process of evolution.
Radio head in the late 90’s used black and white in their video to ‘Street Spirit’ to give an abstract and artistic interpretation but it has no meaning however because its abstract we still enjoy it.
Weezer ‘Buddy Holly’ in the late 90’s was very advanced and used clips from TV show Happy days in the video to look like they was actually there. It’s very humorous and enjoyable for the audience and fans because it gives you something to look at.

Daddy's Gone - Glasvegas

Lyrics to My Chosen Song!

How you are my hero
how your never here though
remember times when you put me on your shoulders`
how i wish it was forever you would hold us
right now im too young to know
how in the future it will affect me when you go
you could have had it all
you, me, and mum y`know
anything was possible


i wont be the lonley one
sitting on my own and sad
a fifty year old
reminiscing what i had


i wont be the lonley one
sitting on my own and sad
forget your dad, he's gone


all i wanted was a kick-a-bout in the park
for you to race me home when it was nearly getting dark
how i could've been yours, and you be mine
it could've been me and you until the end of time
do what you want, when you want
be as fuckin' insincere as you can
what kind of way is that to treat your wife
to see your son on saturdays
what way is that to live your life?


i wont be the lonley one
sitting on my own and sad
a fifty year old
reminiscing what i had


i wont be the lonley one
sitting on my own and sad
forget your dad, he's gone