The History of Music Video

  • The Beginning

    The earliest form of music videos were created. Images were projected during live performances to capture the themes of the song. The first series of music videos were by Warner Bros. and were purposely created to showcase the popular music of the time.
  • Period: to

    The Film Industry

    From the 1930s till the 1960s, music became dominate within the film industry and as a result clips within productions were extracted for promotional purposes.
  • The Television and Rock and Roll

    The introduction of the television was a success with the TV industry now being the driving source of media consumption. This alongside the newly found fever of rock and roll gripping the world gave way to popular music being broadcasted and when the artists couldn't show, music videos did.
  • Bohemian Rhapsody

    Queen's rock hit released it's iconic six-minute music video that consists of several sections of the song that differ from each other.
  • MTV

    Viacom's American based television channel was launched. The purpose of the channel was to play music videos for a teenage audience. Since it's launched the programme has proved successful with 79.2% of American households with a TV receiving it in 2015 and many sister companies spawn throughout the years. However, MTV is beginning to struggle as more and more younger audiences each year shift their media consumption to digital media.
  • Thriller

    American singer Michael Jackson released his popular, 14-minute Halloween-themed music video. It was first shown on MTV on December 2nd 1983. The song however was not released as a single until January 23rd 1984.
  • iTunes

    4 years following it's 2001 release, iTunes added video support to the program which ultimately enabled viewers to purchase music videos as well as just the audio track.
  • Here It Goes Again

    OK Go release their beautifully choreographed music video of the band dancing on treadmills in a single continuous take.
  • Vevo

    December 8th 2009 saw the release of Vevo; a streaming service for music videos in order to attract high-end advertises. Within the first month Vevo became the number one visited music site in the US.
  • Gangnam Style

    South Korean musician Psy released his 18th single. The song has been viewed over 2.61 billion times on YouTube and is now the most watched YouTube video since November 24th 2012.