1.0 The History of the Music Video

In order to create a music video I first needed to first look into the history of music videos to get a better understanding of how to create my own, and this is the reason of the following essay.

The term “music video” first became popular on the 1st august 1981, with the launch of Music Television (MTV). It came on air at 12:01pm followed by these words “Ladies and Gentlemen, Rock and Roll” spoken by John Lack. There was then a picture of the “Apollo 11” Moon landing, with a flag and MTV’S logo on it to represent that this was a ground breaking moment in television. Straight after this they played the first music video on MTV, which was “Video Killed The Radio Star” followed by “You Better Run”. Inadvertently MTV had just created a global phenomenon, which would change our understanding of music forever. From that point onwards everyone would tune into MTV hopeing to see the latest music videos from there favourite bands or artists. MTV was originally given these promotional videos for free, and it was not until MTV started to become extremely popular before record labels decided to charge MTV for there promotional videos

It took another 6 years until MTV was available in the UK and Europe, and was called MTV Europe, and then a further 10 years later MTV decided yet again to expand the TV Empire and create specific MTV channels in Europe for each country. This lead to the birth of MTV UK& Ireland, which then again 10 years later got its name changed to MTV One. But the station name changing didn’t end there, 2 years later it once again got its name changed for hopefully the final time to just MTV.

As well as MTV changing there stations names a lot, they have also played around with the programming, this first started to arise in the early 21st centaury, with shows such as “Dirty Sanchez, Pimp my Ride and MTV Cribs” flooding the channel and surprisingly getting positive feedback. Since this success MTV has decided to make MTV more of an entertainment channel and less of a music channel, and instead shifted the music to there sister channels, such as MTV Two, VH1 and TMF. This allows for MTV to make more revenue because they are now catering to a much wider audience instead of just a select audience.

After the successful launch of MTV, most bands have decided that having a music video to go with a song is mandatory for the success of that song and for them as a band. The band probably most responsible for this craze would be “Queen” with “Bohemian Rhapsody”. The video was considered ground breaking at the time, and it most certainly was because it helped shape the conventions of most music videos we still see today. The song stayed at the top of the UK charts for nine weeks; partly do to the help of the promotional video. Sales boomed again in 1991 after the death of Freddie Mercury, raising the sales of the record to over 2,000,000 and made it the UK’s third best selling single of all time. Most people say that “Bohemian Rhapsody” is considered to be the magnum opus of “Queen’s” songs.

In most cases such as “Bohemian Rhapsody” it is good for gaining popularity and revenue to have a promotional video, but some fans might watch the music video itself to determine how good the song is, even is the song is not good itself. This is most apparent in gimmicky less talented bands, which create funny videos to gain an audience, even if they do not poses any musical talent at all. This is almost opposite to the more talented bands, where they will create videos for there songs usually to a much higher quality then the less talented bands, but most the time there songs would popularity would not require them to need a promotional video in order for there songs to be good.

There are currently around 18 Music channels available through Sky’s satellite service, and 2 on Freeview. Before the launch of MTV back in1981 the prospect of having a channel specifically just for music would just seem incomprehensible. But because of MTV’s success and the rapid advancement in technology having 18 channels just for music seem the norm. It is mainly because of this very advancement in technology that music channels might soon become a thing of the past in the same way as Television has made the radio a thing of the past. Now it is the internet that will make Television a thing of the past. The availability of an endless source of media direct to your finger tips, weather it be a missed episode of “Coronation Street” or the latest music video from your favourite band or artist, or even what your favourite band or artist is currently doing by reading there blog. The way that we consume and process media is changing at a rapid pace, and may soon destroy the traditional ways that we used to consume media.

But in the mist of all this chaos the music video can adapt with these rapid changes, nearly every music video that has been made used to be available on “YouTube” or is still available. But since a current affair involving “OFCOM” “YouTube” have decided to crackdown on copyrighted music that is being used on user made videos by disabling the audio in order to save money. But this does not mean that “YouTube” can not have copyrighted music/ Music videos on it, as long as the user owns the rights to the music. This has made a lot of bands switch to this median to push there music videos out to there fans. This in most cases is a much more effective way, because fans can just go onto “YouTube” at any time and watch there favourite bands videos for free. This means that music channels have to adapt in order to still make a profit, because there target audience is quickly slipping away to the means of new media. The way the channels are adapting is by having entertainment shows as well, as having music videos broadcasting; in an attempt to claw back some of there lost audiences. One channel in particular has changed completely to an entertainment channel which is MTV; it is now listed under the entertainment section on “Sky” instead of music.

My conclusion of “The History Of The Music Videos” is that the music video have come a very long way over the past 28 years, and even with the rapid advancement technology they prove to be able to adapt with it and continue to fur fill there role of prompting a song and the band, and proving that they are still a very strong form of entertainment. Even 28 years later.

Bibliography

Some history on music videos
http://ezinearticles.com/?Some-History-Facts-on-Music-Videos&id=85854 – 8th Sep 2009

Bohemian Rhapsody Facts
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Bohemian_Rhapsody -8th Sep 2009

Rise of MTV
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1456093.stm
-8th Sep 2009

MTV facts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_UK#Former_MTV_shows
-10th sep 2009

Bohemian Rhapsody Queen Facts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Rhapsody
-10th Sep 2009