Music video

A music video or video clip is a short film meant to present a visual representation of a popular music song. They were introduced in the early 1980s. The TV station MTV, or "Music Television" originated the format of end-to-end music video programming without any conventional programs.

The first music videos were called Soundies and were made in the 1940s for 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 torch singers, comedians, and dancers.

Before the Soundie, even dramatic movies typically had a musical interval, but the Soundie made the music the star and virtually all the name jazz performers appeared in Soundie shorts, many still available on compilation video tapes or DVDs.

The Panoram jukebox with eight three-minute Soundies were popular in taverns and night spots, but the fad faded during World War II.

In 1940, Walt Disney released Fantasia, an animated film based around famous pieces of classical music.

The very first short musical films made specifically for television, however, were the Snader Telescriptions[?], more than 1000 short musical presentations filmed for use a television filler between 1950 and 1954. The Snader Telescriptions covered the entire musical landscape. Although most of them were of conventional pop performers, there were many rhythm and blues, jazz, and country music performers. Over the years, the Telescriptions have been re-released many times as compilations, such as Showtime at the Apollo.

In the 1960s, French technology developed for the aerial photography during the war was adapted to create the Scopitone, a modern visual jukebox. The Scopitone was a hit in France with fairly primitive scenes of bands playing, but when it was introduced into the US, the videos took on a vivid quality, with crooners wandering through crowds of girls in bikinis or "jungle" furs. The Scopitone also was a hit, but involvement of organized crime led to its demise, just as rock and roll was being revitalized, too late for Scopitone.

The history of the modern music video has its roots in the early 1960s with The Beatles first major motion picture, A Hard Day's Night in 1964, which included musical segments that resemble today's music videos. That same year, the band began filming short promotional films for their songs which were then aired on television variety shows. By the time the band stopped touring in 1966, they used the promotional films to tour for them. Soon it was common place for artists to do this, and bands like The Byrds and The Beach Boys were also filming promotional films.

The first music videos of the modern era were produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith who started making short musical films for Saturday Night Live in 1979. In 1981, he released Elephant Parts[?], the first video album and first winner of a Grammy for music video. A further experiment on NBC television called Television Parts[?] was not successful, due to network meddling (notably an intrusive laugh track and corny gags).

During the 1980s promotional videos became pretty much de rigueur for most recording artists, a rise which was famously parodied by UK BBC television comedy program Not The Nine O'Clock News who produced a spoof music video; Nice Video, Shame About The Song.

In the information technology era, they are now just as popular as songs themselves, being sold in collections on video tape and DVD.

Table of contents 1 Notable/influential music videos 1.1 1960s 1.2 1970s 1.3 1980s 1.4 1990s

Notable/influential music videos

1960s

• "I Feel Fine" by The Beatles (one of the first modern music videos)
• "Hello Goodbye[?]" by The Beatles
• "Penny Lane" by The Beatles
• "Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles
• "Subterranean Homesick Blues[?]" by Bob Dylan (one of the first modern music videos)

1970s

• "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen (early music video, long, progressive and bizarre, making it unusual for single; later became popular a second time after its use in Wayne's World)
• "Rapper's Delight" by Sugarhill Gang (widely acknowledged as the first rap video, released in 1979)

1980s

• "Video Killed the Radio Star[?]" by The Buggles (first video shown on MTV)
• "Every Breath You Take" by The Police (notable as the most famous video to use black and white footage as a stylistic choice]
• "Rio", "Hungry Like The Wolf[?]" and "Save A Prayer[?]" by Duran Duran (the first high-budget "on-location" videos, and the first band to be largely launched by video success)
• "Union of the Snake[?]" by Duran Duran (the first song released to MTV before its radio release -- caused a huge ruckus at the time)
• "Fight for Your Right to Party[?]" by The Beastie Boys (early crossover rap hit)
• "Don't Cry[?]" and "November Rain[?]" by Guns N' Roses (unusually cinematic for their time)
• "Welcome to the Jungle[?]" by Guns N' Roses (established primacy of heavy metal in popular music)
• "When Doves Cry[?]" by Prince (extremely popular and controversial for sexual content)
• "Thriller" by Michael Jackson (unusually cinematic for its time, including use of at that time 'cutting edge' special effects. This video was also unusually long (15 minutes), and framed the actual musical content within a wider narrative context)
• "Money for Nothing[?]" by Dire Straits (early computer animated)
• "Calling Elvis[?]" by Dire Straits (made by Gerry Anderson, featured puppets of band members in Thunderbirds (television) parody)
• "Rockit[?]" by Herbie Hancock (animatronics[?], Hancock is/was not associated with the MTV market)
• "Sledgehammer[?]" by Peter Gabriel, produced by Aardman Animation
• "Take On Me[?]" by a-ha (pioneering use of rotoscoped[?] animation)
• "Walk This Way[?]" by Aerosmith and Run D.M.C. (brought rap into the mainstream, helped revitalize career of Aerosmith and an early example of the fusion of rock and rap)

1990s

• "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana (launched grunge music, ended glam metal)
• "Buddy Holly[?]" by Weezer (extremely popular, included the band members spliced into old TV footage of Happy Days)
• "Black and White" by Michael Jackson (innovative use of morphing technology[?])
• "Stan" by Eminem (the first truly cinematic and narrative-based hit rap single and video)
• "Gin and Juice[?]" by Snoop Doggy Dogg (established Snoop's career, helped define G Funk and rap music in the late 1990s)
• "Jeremy[?]" by Pearl Jam (only video ever released by Pearl Jam, controversial at the time of its release)
• "Californication" by Red Hot Chili Peppers (innovative use of computer animation)
• "Firestarter[?]" by The Prodigy (early mainstream electronic hit)
• "California Dreamin'[?]" by Tupac Shakur (established Tupac's career and popular primacy of West Coast rap)
• "Untitled (How Does It Feel)[?]" by D'Angelo (uniquely simple for its time; consisted entirely of the singer, naked and singing)
• "What I Got[?]" by Sublime (breakout success occurring only a few weeks after the death of Bradley Nowell, one of the longest-lasting videos on various countdowns in history)