History of the music video

Before the music video

In the 1940's and 1950's  Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley were the biggest stars around the world. The only ways that fans could have access to these stars was to watch them in films, TV specials or in concert. Outside of that there really wasn't availability to see them, this is dues to many of the mediums that we use today not being around at that time for examples music videos had not been created at the time. Here are some examples of these stars and some of the things that fans would have been able to see at the time.

Bing Crosby

Frank Sinatra

Elvis Presley

                           

The First Music Video

In the 1960's the Beatles became the next big thing. However this time the need for exposure to fans was much bigger, and the reactions of the fans was almost hysteria many would scream and make incredible amounts of noise. This became frustrating when the Beatles decided to do concerts as it would be quite distracting making it incredibly hard to play their music properly. At their concert at the Shea Stadium in 1966 you can here that the screaming is incredibly over powering.

This is when the Beatles decided that instead of giving a substandard performance due to the distracting screaming they would film a video of them playing their song and distribute it around the world so that their fans could still appreciate their music and see them. This was with their single "Paperback Writer"- The first music video. 

Music Video- An Art Form

Queen- "Bohemian Rhapesedy"

In 1975 Queen released their song "Bohemian Rhapesedy's" which experienced some small success. However the real point of note about "Bohemian Rhapesedy" is video which created a new found success for the song. This was a real milestone at the time as it was the first music video directly affected the sales of a song. This created a new found industry in making music videos as corporations found that a good music video could increase sales drastically. Another reason that "Bohemian Rhapesedy" is so influential is due to the standard and creativity of the footage in the music video. It was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before in a music video. It was considered a real piece of art which has lead to more creative and inventive music videos.

Bohemian Rhapesedy

Thriller

Micheal Jackson was well know for making a spectical of his music videos. They were mini movies in their own right and incredibly creative and atristic. They were also vastly popular - the most popular and expensive to make was "Thriller" which is regarded as one of the most famous music video of all time. "Thriller" was so popular that it was released in cinemas and sold on video so that fans could fully enjoy the video.

 Here is a mini documentary on the making of "Thriller"