In 1894,
sheet music publishers
Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various artists to promote sales of their song "
The Little Lost Child". Using a
magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. This would become a popular form of entertainment known as the
illustrated song, the first step toward music video.
Blues singer
Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called
St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period.
Soundies, produced and released for the
Panoram film jukebox between 1939 and 1947, were musical films that often included short dance sequences, similar to later music videos. Musician
Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film,
Look-Out Sister (1948). These films were, according to music historian
Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video.
Musical films were another important precursor to a music video, and several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s–50s. One of the best-known examples is
Madonna's 1985 video for "
Material Girl" (directed by
Mary Lambert) which was closely modelled on
Jack Cole's staging of "
Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" from the film
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Several of
Michael Jackson's videos show the unmistakable influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark "
Thriller" (1983), and the
Martin Scorsese–directed "
Bad" (1987), which was influenced by the stylized dance "fights" in the film version of
West Side Story (1961). According to the Internet Accuracy Project,
DJ/singer J. P. "
The Big Bopper" Richardson was the first to coin the phrase "music video", in 1959. In his autobiography, Tony Bennett claims to have created "...the first music video" when he was filmed walking along the
Serpentine in
Hyde Park, London, with the resulting clip being set to his 1953 recording of the song "
Stranger in Paradise". The clip was sent to UK and US television stations and aired on shows including
Dick Clark's
American Bandstand. The oldest example of a promotional music video with similarities to more abstract, modern videos seems to be the
Czechoslovak "Dáme si do bytu" ("We´ll put in the apartment") created and directed by
Ladislav Rychman in 1958.
Beginnings of popular music television and promotional clips: late 1950s–1973 In the late 1950s the
Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was introduced in France and short films were produced by many French artists, such as
Serge Gainsbourg,
Françoise Hardy,
Jacques Dutronc, and the Belgian
Jacques Brel to accompany their songs. Its use spread to other countries, and similar machines such as the
Cinebox in Italy and
Color-sonic in the U.S. were patented. In 1964,
Kenneth Anger's
experimental short film,
Scorpio Rising used popular songs instead of dialogue. On 1 January 1964,
Johnnie Stewart and
Stanley Dorfman created the British
chart music television series
Top of the Pops, which they produced in tandem and directed in weekly rotation until the 1970s
. The show's format created a demand for frequent studio appearances by renowned British and US artists at short notice, as the charts came out on Tuesday mornings and the show was taped live on Thursdays. Coupled with the artists busy touring schedules and subsequent requests from broadcasters in Europe and America to showcase popular British acts, ultimately prompted the production of pre-recorded or filmed inserts referred to as "promotional videos." These videos served as substitutes for live performances by the artists and played a pivotal role in the development of the music video genre. During the early stages of the show's introduction in 1964, when alternative footage was unavailable, Dorfman and Stewart resorted to capturing footage of the enthusiastic audience dancing. However, a significant change took place in October 1964 when a decision was made to occasionally introduce a
dance troupe with choreographed routines for specific tracks. This addition brought a new dynamic to the show, enhancing its visual appeal and diversifying the entertainment value for viewers. One notable example was the video for
Roy Orbison's song '
Oh Pretty Woman', which Dorfman filmed and directed in the rooftop garden of London's Kensington-based
Derry and Toms department store on 19 October 1964 as a visual accompaniment to the song. It subsequently aired on Top of the Pops on 22 October, 29, as well as 12 November and 19." By the 1970s, Top of the Pops had an average weekly viewership of 12,500,000 people, had solidified its status as the premier international platform for artists launching new records at the time, had firmly established the significance of promotional film clips as a crucial tool for promoting the careers of emerging artists and generating buzz for new releases by established acts, and was significant in developing and popularizing what would later become the music video genre across the globe. The Beatles' second feature,
Help! (1965), was a much more lavish affair, filmed in color in London and on international locations. The title track sequence, filmed in black-and-white, is arguably one of the prime archetypes of the modern performance-style music video, employing rhythmic cross-cutting, contrasting long shots and close-ups, and infrequent shots and camera angles, such as the shot 50 seconds into the song, in which
George Harrison's left hand and the neck of his guitar are seen in sharp focus in the foreground while the completely out-of-focus figure of
John Lennon sings in the background. In 1965, the Beatles started making promotional clips (then known as "filmed inserts") for distribution and broadcast on Top of the Pops and in different countries—primarily the
U.S.—so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances. Their first batch of promo films shot in late 1965 (including their then-current single, "
Day Tripper"/"
We Can Work It Out"), were fairly straightforward mimed-in-studio performance pieces (albeit sometimes in silly sets) and meant to blend in fairly seamlessly with television shows like
Top of the Pops and
Hullabaloo. By the time the Beatles stopped touring in late 1966, their promotional films, like their recordings, had become highly sophisticated. In May 1966, they filmed two sets of colour promotional clips for their current single "
Rain"/"
Paperback Writer" all directed by
Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who went on to direct
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus and the Beatles' final film,
Let It Be. It aired on Top of the Pops on 2 June. The colour promotional clips for "
Strawberry Fields Forever" and "
Penny Lane", made in early 1967 and directed by Peter Goldman, took the promotional film format to a new level. They used techniques borrowed from underground and avant-garde film, including reversed film and slow motion, dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles, and colour filtering added in post-production. At the end of 1967 the group released their third film, the one hour, made-for-television project
Magical Mystery Tour; it was written and directed by the group and first broadcast on the
BBC on
Boxing Day 1967. Although poorly received at the time for lacking a narrative structure, it showed the group to be adventurous music filmmakers in their own right.
Concert films were being released in the mid-1960s, at least as early as 1964, with the
T.A.M.I. Show. The monochrome 1965 clip for
Bob Dylan's "
Subterranean Homesick Blues" filmed by
D. A. Pennebaker was featured in Pennebaker's Dylan film documentary
Dont Look Back. Eschewing any attempt to simulate performance or present a narrative, the clip shows Dylan standing in a city back alley, silently shuffling a series of large cue cards (bearing key words from the song's lyrics). Besides the Beatles, many other British artists made "filmed inserts" so they could be screened on TV when the bands were not available to appear live.
The Who featured in several promotional clips, beginning with their 1965 clip for "
I Can't Explain". Their plot clip for "
Happy Jack" (1966) shows the band acting like a gang of thieves. The promo film to "
Call Me Lightning" (1968) tells a story of how drummer
Keith Moon came to join the group: The other three band members are having tea inside what looks like an abandoned hangar when suddenly a "bleeding box" arrives, out of which jumps a fast-running, time lapse, Moon that the other members subsequently try to get a hold of in a sped-up slapstick chasing sequence to wind him down.
Pink Floyd produced promotional films for their songs, including "
San Francisco: Film", directed by
Anthony Stern, "
Scarecrow", "
Arnold Layne" and "
Interstellar Overdrive", the latter directed by
Peter Whitehead, who also made several pioneering clips for
The Rolling Stones between 1966 and 1968.
The Kinks made one of the first "
plot" promotional clips for a song. For their single "
Dead End Street" (1966) a miniature comic movie was made. The BBC reportedly refused to air the clip because it was considered to be in "poor taste". The Rolling Stones appeared in many promotional clips for their songs in the 1960s. In 1966,
Peter Whitehead directed two promo clips for their single "
Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?" In 1967, Whitehead directed a plot clip colour promo clip for the Stones single "
We Love You", which first aired in August 1967. This clip featured sped-up footage of the group recording in the studio, intercut with a mock trial that clearly alludes to the drug prosecutions of
Mick Jagger and
Keith Richards underway at that time. Jagger's girlfriend
Marianne Faithfull appears in the trial scenes and presents the "judge" (Richards) with what may be the infamous fur rug that had featured so prominently in the press reports of the drug bust at Richards' house in early 1967. When it is pulled back, it reveals an apparently naked Jagger with chains around his ankles. The clip concludes with scenes of the Stones in the studio intercut with footage that had previously been used in the "concert version" promo clip for "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby". The group also filmed a color promo clip for the song "
2000 Light Years from Home" (from their album
Their Satanic Majesties Request) directed by
Michael Lindsay-Hogg. During late 1972–73,
Alice Cooper featured in a series of promotional films: "
Elected", "
Hello Hooray", "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and "
Teenage Lament '74". Also during late 1972–73,
David Bowie featured in a series of promotional films directed by pop photographer
Mick Rock, who worked extensively with Bowie in this period. Rock directed and edited four clips to promote four consecutive David Bowie singles—"
John, I'm Only Dancing" (May 1972), "
The Jean Genie" (November 1972), the December 1972 US re-release of "
Space Oddity" and the 1973 release of the single "
Life on Mars?" (lifted from Bowie's earlier album
Hunky Dory). The clip for "John, I'm Only Dancing" was made with a budget of just
US$200 and filmed at the afternoon rehearsal for Bowie's
Rainbow Theatre concert on August 19, 1972. It shows Bowie and band mimicking to the record intercut with footage of the
Lindsay Kemp mime troupe, dancing on stage and behind a back-lit screen. The clip was turned down by the BBC, who reportedly found the homosexual overtones of the film distasteful; accordingly,
Top of the Pops replaced it with footage of bikers and a dancer. The "Jean Genie" clip, produced for just US$350, was shot in one day and edited in less than two days. It intercuts footage of Bowie and band in concert with contrasting footage of the group in a photographic studio, wearing black stage outfits, and standing against a white background. It also includes location footage with Bowie and
Cyrinda Foxe (a MainMan employee and a friend of David and
Angie Bowie) shot in
San Francisco outside the famous
Mars Hotel, with Fox posing provocatively in the street while Bowie lounges against the wall, smoking. Country music also picked up on the trend of promotional film clips to publicize songs. Sam Lovullo, the producer of the television series
Hee Haw, explained his show presented "what were, in reality, the first musical videos", while JMI Records made the same claim with
Don Williams' 1973 song "
The Shelter of Your Eyes". Country music historian Bob Millard wrote that JMI had pioneered the country music video concept by "producing a 3-minute film" to go along with Williams' song.
1974–1980 The Australian TV shows
Countdown and
Sounds, both of which premiered in 1974, followed in the steps of the UK's
Top of the Pops and were significant in developing and popularizing what would later become the music video genre in Australia and other countries, and in establishing the importance of promotional film clips as a means of promoting both emerging acts and new releases by established acts. In early 1974, former radio DJ
Graham Webb launched a weekly teen-oriented TV music show which screened on
Sydney's
ATN-7 on Saturday mornings; this was renamed
Sounds Unlimited in 1975 and later shortened simply to
Sounds. In need of material for the show, Webb approached Seven newsroom staffer
Russell Mulcahy and asked him to shoot film footage to accompany popular songs for which there were no purpose-made clips (e.g.
Harry Nilsson's "
Everybody's Talkin"). Using this method, Webb and Mulcahy assembled a collection of about 25 clips for the show. The success of his early efforts encouraged Mulcahy to quit his TV job and become a full-time director, and he made clips for several popular Australian acts including
Stylus,
Marcia Hines,
Hush and
AC/DC. As it gained popularity,
Countdown talent coordinator
Molly Meldrum and producer Michael Shrimpton quickly realized that "film clips" were becoming an important new commodity in music marketing. Despite the show's minuscule budget,
Countdowns original director
Paul Drane was able to create several memorable music videos especially for the show, including the classic film-clips for the AC/DC hits "
It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" and "
Jailbreak".
Rolling Stone has said of "Bohemian Rhapsody": "Its influence cannot be overstated, practically inventing the music video seven [sic] years before MTV went on the air." At the end of the 1970s, the broadcasting of music videos on television became more and more regular, in several countries. The music videos were, for example, broadcast in weekly music programs or inserted into various programs. In the United States, for example, on terrestrial networks at the end of the 1970s, music videos were sometimes broadcast on music shows:
The Midnight Special, ''
Don Kirshner's Rock Concert'', and occasionally on certain talk shows. A worldwide pioneer in programs that only transmitted rock and pop music video clips was the Peruvian program Disco Club, hosted by the Peruvian musician Gerardo Manuel, which began its transmission on the Peruvian state channel (Channel 7 of
Lima, Peru in free-to-air TV) in June 1978, three years before the appearance of MTV. Initially, it was only broadcast on Saturdays at 7 p.m., but due to acceptance, in November of that same year it began to be broadcast every day.
Video Concert Hall, created by Jerry Crowe and
Charles Henderson and launched on November 1, 1979, was the first nationwide video music programming on American cable television, predating MTV by almost two years. The
USA Cable Network program
Night Flight was one of the first American programs to showcase these videos as an art form. In 1980, the music video to
David Bowie's "
Ashes to Ashes" became the
most expensive ever made, having a production cost of $582,000 (equivalent to $ million in ), the first music video to have a production cost of over $500,000. The video was made in
solarized color with stark black-and-white scenes and was filmed in different locations, including a padded room and a rocky shore. The video became one of the most iconic ever made at the time, and its complex nature is seen as significant in the evolution of the music video. The same year, New Zealander group
Split Enz had major success with the single "
I Got You" and the album
True Colours, and later that year they produced a complete set of promo clips for each song on the album (directed by their percussionist,
Noel Crombie) and to market these on videocassette. This was followed a year later by the video album,
The Completion Backward Principle by
The Tubes, directed by the group's keyboard player, Michael Cotten, which included two videos directed by Russell Mulcahy ("Talk to Ya Later" and "Don't Want to Wait Anymore"). Among the first music videos were clips produced by
ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith, who started making short musical films for
Saturday Night Live. – influenced by Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" clip, it featured only the text of the song's lyrics. In the early 1980s, music videos also began to discover political and social themes. Examples include the music videos for
David Bowie's "
China Girl" and "
Let's Dance" (1983) which both discussed race issues. In a 1983 interview, Bowie spoke about the importance of using music videos in addressing social issues, "Let's try to use the video format as a platform for some kind of social observation, and not just waste it on trotting out and trying to enhance the public image of the singer involved". In 1983, one of the most successful, influential and iconic music videos of all time was released: the nearly 14-minute-long video for
Michael Jackson's song "
Thriller", directed by
John Landis. The video set new standards for production, having cost US $800,000 to film. The video for "Thriller", along with earlier videos by Jackson for his songs "
Billie Jean" and "
Beat It", were instrumental in getting music videos by
African-American artists played on MTV. Prior to Jackson's success, videos by African-American artists were rarely played on MTV: according to MTV, this was because it initially conceived itself as a rock-music-oriented channel, although musician
Rick James was outspoken in his criticism of the cable channel, claiming in 1983 that MTV's refusal to air the music video for his song "
Super Freak" and clips by other African-American performers was "blatant racism". British rock singer David Bowie had also recently lashed out against MTV during an interview that he did with them prior to the release of "Thriller", stating that he was "floored" by how much MTV neglected black artists, bringing attention to how videos by the "few black artists that one does see" only appeared on MTV between 2:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m. when nobody was watching. MTV also influences music video shows aired on other American TV channels, such as:
Friday Night Videos, launched in 1983 on the terrestrial network NBC and
MV3 launched in 1982. On March 5, 1983,
Country Music Television (CMT), was launched, created and founded by Glenn D. Daniels and uplinked from the Video World Productions facility in
Hendersonville, Tennessee. The
MuchMusic video channel was launched in
Canada in 1984. In 1984, MTV also launched the
MTV Video Music Awards (later to be known as the VMAs), an annual awards event that would come to underscore MTV's importance in the music industry. The inaugural event rewarded
the Beatles and
David Bowie with the
Video Vanguard Award for their work in pioneering the music video. In 1985, MTV's Viacom (currently Paramount) launched the channel
VH1 (then known as "VH-1: Video Hits One"), featuring softer music, and meant to cater to the slightly older baby-boomer demographic who were out-growing MTV. Internationally,
MTV Europe was launched in 1987, and
MTV Asia in 1991. Another important development in music videos was the launch of
The Chart Show on the UK's
Channel 4 in 1986. This was a program that composed entirely of music videos (the only outlet many videos had on British TV at the time), with no presenters. Instead, the videos were linked by then state of the art
computer graphics. The show moved to
ITV in 1989. The video for the 1985
Dire Straits song "
Money for Nothing" made pioneering use of computer animation, and helped make the song an international hit. The song itself was a wry comment on the music-video phenomenon, sung from the point of view of an appliance deliveryman both drawn to and repelled by the outlandish images and personalities that appeared on MTV. In 1986,
Peter Gabriel's song "
Sledgehammer" used special effects and animation techniques developed by British studio
Aardman Animations. The video for "Sledgehammer" would go on to be a phenomenal success and win nine MTV Video Music Awards. In the same year,
Kraftwerk released the song "
Musique Non Stop". The video featured 3D animations of the group. It was a collaboration with
Rebecca Allen of the
New York Institute of Technology and ran continuously on
MTV for a while. In 1988, the show
Yo! MTV Raps introduced; the show helped to bring
hip-hop to a mass audience for the first time.
1992–2004: Rise of the directors In November 1992,
MTV began screening videos made by
Chris Cunningham,
Michel Gondry,
Spike Jonze,
Floria Sigismondi,
Stéphane Sednaoui,
Mark Romanek and
Hype Williams who all got their start around this time; all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed. Some of these directors, including, Gondry, Jonze, Sigismondi, and
F. Gary Gray, went on to direct feature films. This continued a trend that had begun earlier with directors such as
Lasse Hallström and
David Fincher. Two of the videos directed by Romanek in 1995 are notable for being two of the three
most expensive music videos of all time:
Michael and
Janet Jackson's "
Scream", which allegedly cost $7 million to produce, and
Madonna's "
Bedtime Story", which cost a reported $5 million. From this, "Scream" is the most expensive video to date. In the mid to late 1990s,
Walter Stern directed "
Firestarter" by
The Prodigy, "
Bitter Sweet Symphony" by
The Verve, and "
Teardrop" by
Massive Attack. During this period, MTV launched channels around the world to show music videos produced in each local market:
MTV Latin America in 1993,
MTV India in 1996, and
MTV Mandarin in 1997, among others.
MTV2, originally called "M2" and meant to show more alternative and older music videos, debuted in 1996. In 1999,
Mariah Carey's "
Heartbreaker" (featuring guest rapper
Jay-Z) became one of the
most expensive ever made, costing over $2.5 million. From 1991 to 2001,
Billboard had its own Music Video Awards.
2005–present: Music video downloads and streaming The website
iFilm, which hosted short videos including music videos, launched in 1997.
Napster, a
peer-to-peer file sharing service which ran between 1999 and 2001, enabled users to share video files, including those for music videos. By the mid-2000s, MTV and many of its sister channels had largely abandoned showing music videos in favor of
reality TV shows, which were more popular with its audiences, and which MTV had itself helped to pioneer with the show
The Real World, which premiered in 1992. 2005 saw the launch of
YouTube, which made the viewing of online video much faster and easier;
Google Videos,
Yahoo! Video,
Facebook and
Myspace's video functionality use similar technology. Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online. The band
OK Go capitalized on the growing trend, having achieved fame through the videos for two of their songs, "
A Million Ways" in 2005 and "
Here It Goes Again" in 2006, both of which first became well-known online (OK Go repeated the trick with another high-concept video in 2010, for their song "
This Too Shall Pass"). At its launch,
Apple's
iTunes Store provided a section of free music videos in high quality compression to be watched via the iTunes application. More recently the iTunes Store has begun selling music videos for use on Apple's
iPod with video playback capability. The 2008 video for
Weezer's "
Pork and Beans" also captured this trend, by including at least 20
YouTube celebrities; the single became the most successful of Weezer's career, in chart performance. In 2007, the
RIAA issued cease-and-desist letters to YouTube users to prevent single users from sharing videos, which are the property of the music labels. After its merger with
Google, YouTube assured the RIAA that they would find a way to pay
royalties through a bulk agreement with the major record labels. This was complicated by the fact that not all labels share the same policy toward music videos: some welcome the development and upload music videos to various online outlets themselves, viewing music videos as free
advertising for their artists, while other labels view music videos not as an advertisement, but as the product itself. To further signify the change in direction towards Music Video airplay, MTV officially dropped the Music Television tagline on February 8, 2010 from their logo in response to their increased commitment to non-scripted reality programming and other youth-oriented entertainment rising in prominence on their live broadcast.
Vevo, a music video service launched by several major music publishers, debuted in December 2009. The videos on Vevo are syndicated to YouTube, with
Google and Vevo sharing the advertising revenue. As of 2017, the most-watched English-language video on YouTube was "
Shape of You" by
Ed Sheeran. As of 2018, the most-watched remix video on YouTube was "
Te Bote" by Casper Mágico featuring Nio García,
Darell,
Nicky Jam,
Bad Bunny, and
Ozuna.
Official lo-fi Internet music clips Following the shift toward internet broadcasting and the rising popularity of user-generated video sites such as
YouTube around 2006, various
independent filmmakers began films recording live sessions to present on the Web. All of these swiftly recorded clips are made with minimal budgets and share similar aesthetics with the
lo-fi music movement of the early nineties. Offering freedom from the increasingly burdensome financial requirements of high-production movie-like clips, it began as the only method for little-known
indie music artists to present themselves to a wider audience, but increasingly this approach has been taken up by such major mainstream artists as
R.E.M. and
Tom Jones.
Vertical videos In the late 2010s, some artists began releasing alternative
vertical videos tailored to mobile devices in addition to music videos; these vertical videos are generally platform-exclusive. These vertical videos are often shown on
Snapchat's "Discover" section or within
Spotify playlists. Early adopters of vertical video releases include the number-one hit "
Girls Like You" by
Maroon 5 featuring
Cardi B. "
Idontwannabeyouanymore" by
Billie Eilish is the most-watched vertical video on YouTube, although the presence of borders in the video actually make it in landscape.
Lyric videos A
lyric video is a type of music video in which the
lyrics to the song are the primary visual element of the video. As such, they can be created with relative ease and often serve as a supplemental video to a more traditional music video. The music video for
R.E.M.'s 1986 song "
Fall on Me" interspersed the song's lyrics with abstract film footage. In 1987,
Prince released a video for his song "
Sign o' the Times". The video featured the song's words pulsing to the music, presented alongside abstract geometric shapes, an effect created by Bill Konersman. The following year, the video for the
Talking Heads single "
(Nothing But) Flowers" composed of the song's lyrics superimposed onto or next to members of the band, was released. In 1990,
George Michael released "
Praying for Time" as a lyric video. He had refused to make a traditional music video, so his label released a simple clip that displayed the song's lyrics on a black screen. Lyric videos rose to greater prominence in the 2010s, when it became relatively easy for artists to disperse videos through websites such as
YouTube. Many do not feature any visual related to the musician in question, but merely a background with the lyrics appearing over it as they are sung in the song. The concept album video featured imagery pulsing to the music and stylized typography created by bandleader Simlev. As of 2017, the 2016 song "
Closer" by
The Chainsmokers, featuring vocalist
Halsey, is the most-watched lyric video on YouTube. ==Censorship==