History and Development - Music Videos

History and Development

I did this so I could get an understand on where music videos originally came from and their development through time. Leaning about where they are mainly found with help me do target research and get inspiration for my own one. I have done this show that I am doing my research as if it was going out into the public domain in the real world which is helping me in finding what conventions and how they all started in the first place.

How did Music Videos begin?

The music video started as a method of promoting acts on an Australian programmer called ‘Countdown’ the music clips would appear on the show and therefore promote the artists and their music. The clips got more and more popular and so the music industry was born. This was around about 1974. The show became very popular because of this and was aired in 22 countries. One of the most popular music videos shown was ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top’ by AC/DC.

Creation of MTV… The first 24-hour music channel


In 1981 MTV was developed and launched and it started the now current thing of 24-hour music channels. MTV was now being used as a tool for artists to market their music and their self image. Madonna used MTV for this with the music video it was the whole package that could be seen and marketed. MTV was reasonable for the success of the 14 minute Michael Jackson Video ‘Thriller’. MTV is now a very popular music channel and is still going strong. This is still seen today as one of the most successful music videos in history. My music video I would expect to be seen on MTV as this music channel is still around today and shows a range of different music such as acoustic music video, like Ed Sheeran - Lego House.   

More Music Channels…

In 1985, MTV launched the channel VH1 which featured softer music for an older audience than the typical young MTV audience. MTV was now such a success that it was developing things like MTV Europe and Asia. MTV in now considered a globalisation channel. There are now more music channels being made such as VIVA and 4MUSIC that shows different programmes though out the day with programmes such as 'the charts' these are the sort of things I would expect my music video to be shown on with the main steam look of the artist and the acoustic/popular song I would really think it is a package to be shown a lot of music channels. In 2009 there was a new music channel realised called 'VIVA' this was all new channel as it didn't just show music and at other times through the day would show shows but the main focus would be about main stream songs and promoting new artists and their music.

Technology advances…

As technology has advanced so have music videos with better equipment such as HD quality cameras and more high developed editing software has made music videos a lot easier to make and at a higher quality. As well as this, the advance of the Internet age has meant that there are many website devoted to music videos and they are all over the Internet such as ‘Youtube’. In addition, they are also available on social networking site which means they are passed around a lot and a lot of people see them. My music video would be seen on YouTube as most mainstream music videos and ones like mine are shown on there even before they have been launched onto TV/Music channels.

Image above shows west country rising star 'Seth Lakeman' and an example of his music video online on 'YouTube'.

The image above shows the technology advances of online music videos and how this helps the artist to sell there music and themselves as a complete business product. I really think this would help my artist if my music video was a real media text in the real world, as like Seth Lakeman in the image above my artist is a not so well know artist and from the west country so this showing that new technology is helping music videos to become more widely shown on the www.

I learnt a lot of things about music videos and I think is knowledge will help me to create my own. Knowing the background information on music videos is good for me as it will help me understand where they came from and the standard they are up to today. I learnt mainly from this that new technology's can really help me in finding examples of other music videos from sites like Vimeo and YouTube, so this making the research part of my project easier than if I didn't have it.

I really liked learning about what music channels are out there and what ones I would think my music video might be shown. It really was interesting finding out that music channels haven't been out that long and yet they are very successful and are still going strong and developing. This helped me look at other video and get a concrete idea on what my music video would be like and where is would be seen, therefore also helping find a specific target audience.