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One of the earliest Videos of a Top 40 hit, was Jan & Dean's "Surf City", produced in July 1963.
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The Beatles starred in their first feature film A Hard Day's Night, directed by Richard Lester, which was shot in black-and-white.
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Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" was filmed by D. A. Pennebaker. It was featured in Pennebaker's Dylan film documentary Dont Look Back.
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In 1974 the band Sparks filmed a promo video for their single "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" from the album Kimono My House.
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The long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s. Therefore a good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week.
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The band Queen ordered Bruce Gowers to make a promo video for their new single "Bohemian Rhapsody" to show it in Top Of The Pops; this is also notable for being entirely shot and edited on videotape.
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The U.S. video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed the Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television.
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The most successful, influential and iconic music video of all time was released — the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller". The video set new standards for production, having cost US$500,000 to film.
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Music video's grew to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period, most notably Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran and Madonna, owed a great deal of their success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos.
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MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors i.e. Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Hype Williams all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed.
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Two of the videos directed by Romanek i are notable for being two of the three most expensive music videos of all time: Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream", which cost $7 million to produce, and Madonna's "Bedtime Story", which cost $5 million.
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MTV and many of its sister channels had largely abandoned showing music videos in favor of reality television shows, which were more popular with its audiences.
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The launch of the website YouTube made the viewing of online video much faster and easier, just like Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook, etc. which uses similar technology. Some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online, i.e. the band OK Go.
