A2 MEDIA STUDIES - JOSH CALVER

 

 

Music videos are are films that accompany the music, different songs tell different stories. And in todays society, almost every popular song also has a music video. The origin of the music video is that of a long one, as it's history stretches from the 1940s to present day.

 

In the 1940s, music was very different from how it is today and America decided to advertise the music through short films known as "Soundies" due to the prescece of sound. The films were three minutes long and filmed on a 16mm camera.The film itself usually involved people dancing or acting out comedic scenes, some simply showed the big bands performing. Little did the people of 1940 know that their films that were produced would mold what we know as a music video today. The Soundies began to end when musical films were rising to fame around 1947, when movies such as Good News, Hollywood Wonderland and Fiesta were released.

 

Fast forward to the 1960s when the colour television emerged and most houses could watch musical shows in their front room. The other revolutionary aspect of the 60s was also the rise of Rock and roll which lead to performances on the television for all to see. But when the acts couldnt actually make the shows the music was still played, but with a prerecorded film, The Who's 1969 hit Pinball Wizard being a prime example. At the time, not all performances were crucial to the music video side of things though, in 1964 The Animals recorded a song called The House of the Rising Sun that became a revolutionising transatlantic, number one hit in England, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Finland and America. It merged rock music with folk and blues, which attracted a large audience. In the same year, The Beatles' first film A Hard Days Night was released and is, to this day, credited as one of the most influential musicals of all time. Allegedly inspiring future spy films and even The Monkees' television show. The reason that it was so popular was because up until that point, The Beatles were only recognised by their voices, not their image, so fans wanted to see what they looked like which eventually gained the film $12,299,668 at the box office.

 

In 1975, one of the most recognisable music videos was released. Like The House of the Rising Sun, it used hybridism in order to merge many genres of music together which attracted a larger range of music lovers. Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the most parodied music videos to date, this is because of the famous shot of the band members in a diamond formation. It was the peak of competitive musicvideos because in 5 years time (1980) the great David Bowie released Ashes to Ashes and the video that accompanied it was the most expensive music video produced at the time, costing £250,000. The editing was also a revelutionary aspect due to the opposite colours used, which was never before accomplished, a great example can be seen at 2:36 where the waves are an unnatural colour. In the same year The Buggles released Video Killed the Radio Star and it also featured a great mount of special effects that would influence future music videos. It was the first song played on the then-new-channel MTV. MTV would recognise the video's influence and continue to play it as the first song on their other channels, aswell as playing it on the day of MTV's anniversaries.

 

In 1986, Aerosmith and Run D.M.C collaborated together in order to create a modern hybrid of music. Rock and rap were combined for an unforgettable first time in Walk This Way. It was iconic due to the breakthrough in artists, MTV was jam-packed full of white bands/groups until this popular hit made it to MTV, and it featured a black rap group. This would go on to boost Rap artists' morale and make them more confident. To this day, MTV features a range of multicultural artists unlike what it did feature in those days due to the lack of hits from the black population.

 

Today, music videos are as common as the song it is accompanying. A lot of money is spent on modern music videos because of the amount of viewers that they get. In 1995, Michael and Janet Jackson claimed the record for the most expensive music video ever made. The song was Scream and the production cost a whopping $7,000,000. Not many videos cost that much money today, but artists still do find it essential to create a video. Many music videos are parodies and intertextual productions that take aspects from other films or television shows. An example of this could be Iggy Azalea's Fancy that copies the mise en scene from the 1995 film Clueless. It's also a perfect example that proves just how influential the past can be to the music video industry as many of the videos use intertexual featues in order to attract an audience that is either interested by the actual music video or the intertextual product.