History of the Music Video

A music video is a short film or video, usually about three to four minutes long, which accompanies a song or a piece of music. The term 'Music Video' first came into popular usage in the early 1980's, however the first ''Video'' Music video to be created was 'The Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen [1]. The idea started when the actual song was too complex to be performed live on the music show, 'Top of the Pops'. This then gave other artist the idea of making music videos instead of performing live [2].

Music videos in the 1980's were made just for the purpose of the artists not having to perform live, however now we have the new technology to create better music videos, these artists are using there videos for a much wider purpose, for example if an audience doesnt like the song they might prefer the music video instead; or to show off other talents they have, like acting and dancing.

Television programmes such as Top of the Pops, are where live bands are played. Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, was a british music chart video programme produced by the BBC. It rean for 42 years and meanwhile new music videos were being produced whilst this programme showed live bands. After a while people started to get bored of watching live bands as they were not as entertaining as music videos.

After Top of the Pops, came MTV. MTV is a cable television network and was originally produced to play music videos. To the current day, although it still shows a limited ammount of music videos, it mainly broadcasts a variety of reality television shows, which targets teenagers and young adults. Examples of these television shows are; My Super Sweet Sixteen; MTV Cribs and Runs House [3].

Through time, technology has changed and so has the music industry. In earlier stages of music, there was always live music, performed on stage, with true, genuine voices. Now, however, music is generally known for the music being accompanied by a music video, and their voices are being modified to sound better. As we can see, old bands/artists were always there for their voices, never there just for their looks. In modern days, some bands/artists are only there for visual purposes.

Not only televsion is used to show music videos. Now, we have the internet websites where we can view music videos, such as 'Youtube'; or there are other websites which we can download music videos from such as 'Limewire' or 'uToreent'. Technology has changed so much through history, affecting the music industry and is still changing.

[1] Everything2.com/title/bohemian+rhapsody
[2] Songfacts.com
[3] Wikipedia.com