The History of Music Videos

By archie97

  • The First Illustrated Song

    The First Illustrated Song
    The Little Lost Child was the very first illustrated song, Still images were projected onto a screen. This was the early stages of a music video.

  • Talkies

    Produced by the Warner Brothers, talkies were a short musical film, featuring many bands, vocalists and dancers. Later developments saw them introduce a sing along of short cartoons called screen songs.

  • Screen Songs

    Series of cartoon films which encouraged audiences to sing along by following the bouncing ball were introduced

  • Bessie Smith St. Louis Blues

    St. Louis Blues was first showcased in cinemas around 1932 and was also one of the first music videos created.

  • Promotional Clips

    1940-49 These were short films of many famous jazz artists and their bands on a movie-set bandstand.

  • Televison

    Rise of Television 1956-60
    The rise and increase of popular music was tied with the rise of television as it created a new way to view the music videos.

  • Thriller

    The Michael Jackson Thriller music video was one of the first videos to have a plot and to have a narrative. Music videos were really being seen as promotion and made into high- budget productions.

  • ITunes

    ITunes
    Allows music videos to be downloaded from internet. One million downloads after twenty days.

  • Gangnam Style

    Gangnam Style
    Gangnam Style becomes the first ever YouTube video to reach over 1 billion views.

  • MTV

    MTV was first aired im 1981 which kept you updated with all the latest music videos. The first video shown was 'Video Killed The Radio Star' and was a real break through, still today it is one of the top ways in which music videos are viewed.