History of music videos

A music video is described as a short clip that has music in the background, usually the video is there to describe what is going on in relation to the song. However music videos have changed over the years, they are now used to sell songs and make money. Music videos started to come about in the 1980's. One of the most early music videos was from a woman called Bessie Smith 'St Louise Blues', it was made in 1929, the music video is bad quality below is a screen shot from the video:

 

Throughout the video, it is slow, I found that it was very dull and boring especially when you compare it to the music videos that we watch on television today. Due to the time that it was made there wasnt any colour television therefore its been made in black and white. It disallows any deep connotations or meaning. There are also not a variety of different shots or editing skills. Even though to us in this modern day it may look a rubbish music video at its time it was seen as being very successful.

 

Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was directed by Bruce Gowers in 1975, it is famous still to this date for its music video. The video is based around the band itself singing to the camera , it contains different lighting skills and also different camera shots. Compared to Bessie Smiths video, this has some editing style to it, not only this but the video quality is a lot better than Bessie's, this evidently proves that in time technology has improved.

 

 



 

In the late 1970's a show called Top of the pops came about, it was a programme that had artists perform on the show weekly of top artists who were in the running for the number 1 single.

 



 

In the year of 2005 the music video industry changed forever, as YouTube was brought to the internet, it made the viewing of music videos much more easier, simply type in the video and its there. Its there for anyone to upload videos but specialises in music videos and is most popular for that. Artists get a certain amount of views on their music channel videos, for example Taylor swifts we are never getting back together got 92,449,694 views on YouTube, the video is of a good a clear quality, with a range of different camera shots.