History of Music Videos

(By Lauren)

History of music videos. To see below image click on this. (Source is MySpace.com)

1894:
The first step towards a music video was created in this year.
Song title: The little lost child
By: Edward B. Marks & Joseph Stern

They used a magic lantern and projected a series of still images on a screen to live performances. This would become popular and known to everyone as the illustrated song. It sold more than 2 million copies of its sheet music.

1902-1917: Phonoscene era
This was a big development within the sound film industry. It was a combination of a chronophone sound recording with a chronograph film shot and actors lip-synching to the recording sound. The first phonoscene was presented by Gaumont in 1902 in France.

1926-1959: Talkies, soundies, and shorts
In 1926 many musical short films were produced as Talkies were introduced. Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs. This invited audiences to sing along to popular songs.

Musical films were another important precursor to music video, and several well known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 30's to the 50's. According to the Internet Accuracy Project, disk jockey singer J.P, The Big Bopper, Richardson was the first to coin the phrase music video in 1959.

1960-1973:
In the late 50's a visual jukebox was invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists.

1974-1980:
UK: Top of the pops began playing music videos in the late 1970's.

1981-1991:
Music videos went mainstream and MTV launched 'Video Killed the Radio Star'.

1983:
The most successful and influential music video of all time was released: 'Thriller' by Michael Jackson.

1992-2004: The rise of directors
Two videos directed by Romarek in 1995 are notable for being 2 of the 3 most expensive videos of all time. These are Michael and Janet Jacksons song 'Scream' costing $7 million to produce and Madonna's 'Bedtime Story' costing $5 million.

2005: The Internet becomes video friendly
The earliest purveyors of music videos on the internet were members of IRC based groups. They recorded them as soon as they appeared on TV then digitised them.

2005: Launching of Youtube & i Tunes
This made viewing of online videos faster and easier. Apple made music videos available to buy through i Tunes.

Edited from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video.