The history of music video

In 1894 the first images projected onto a screen simultaneously with a performance created the first song illustrated by images. By 1930 the first musical films were produced with songs weaved into the film. These may not be officially music videos but they were the beginning and where all other music videos have developed from.
In the late 1950's machines were being invented such as the color-sonic in the USA which allowed artist to create short films to accompany their music, and in 1956 the increase in television brought new artists to perform and popular music rose.
In the 1960's producers would begin to pre-record the singing and film at locations with artists miming the lyrics and in 1964 Top Of The Pops was first aired on the BBC.

In 1967 after releasing their first feature in 1964 called A hard days night which was a film showing people the life of The Beatles for a few days and included some of their songs which involved them being themselves increasing the popularity of the film:

The Beatles produced the television film, the Magical mystery tour which contained music videos such as that for Flying:

This music video in the film was largely unsuccessful due to a combination of televisions still being uncommon so the audience size was reduced and the fact that television was black and white which made the video more unpopular.

and the video for I am the walrus:

At this point in time music videos were just beginning to surface and had no rules as to what went in them. As with the music video for flying they were trying to create a certain mood but instead produced something that many people found uninteresting. For the video for I am the walrus a quote from John Lennon states that the song was written partly under the influence of drugs:
"The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend"
However in the late 1960's when these videos appeared the ideologies were different and drug use was a relatively normal activity as people didn't realise the dangers associated with it. The connection to drugs in this video caused no problems as there were no rules against it and in general no rules for music video content.
In 1975 Queen released the music video for Bohemian Rhapsody. Upon it's original release it was unpopular and was at the bottom of the charts, however when the music video was released it reached the top of the charts. Bohemian Rhapsody was the first video to be shot using VHS which was a huge advancement in quality for the video. The video was also appealing to the audience due to the effects in the video created by lighting and camera angles.

In the early 80's MTV was released and available on most televisions. The channel played music video's all day and the first music video to be shown on MTV was Video killed the radio star. This video can be said to be used as a comment on the development of television and music videos by MTV.

In 1983 Michael Jackson released the 14 minute long music video for Thriller. The video is a narrative performance with Michael as the main character. The video was hugely popular and showed much advancement for music video after he performed a dance shot all in one and used makeup and costume to add to the narrative. These components became more popular after this video as others became inspired by Michael.

Under 10 years later in 1990 Madonna released the video for Vogue which appealed to women with it's reference to the popular magazine. It's use of effects and references to previous stars such as Marilyn Monroe with the way she dresses also shows advancement for music video as it was deliberately shot in black and white although technology had far advanced beyond this showing the way the use of effects can change the video.

By 1998 choreography by the artist in music videos was extremely popular after the use of it in Thriller.This is repeated in Britney Spears Baby one more time. This video also shows how the use of women as sexual objects had advanced. This video appealed to both young men and women for different reasons.

Music videos also began to be used to present messages from artists such as in 2003 when the Black eyed peas released Where is the love and in 2008 when Beyonce released the hugely simple and popular video for Single ladies which promoted female empowerment as with her 2011 video for Run the world (Girls) which carried a similar message. The technological advancement and increase in television channels that display music videos e.g. 4music has allowed for bigger more impressive effects such as those in Mark Ronson's Uptown funk in music videos whilst other videos are staying simple yet very effective such as Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney's Four Five seconds video. ( This video also shows the advancement of music videos featuring certain people such as Paul McCartney's advancement from The Beatles).

These videos all show the advancement of music videos from 1894 to 2015 and in 121 years a lot has changed and improved. Techniques have developed and some videos still use old ones e.g.black and white which shows that although music videos have advanced they are still keeping the same aim of promoting the music. The launch of websites like YouTube has also affected music videos as they are available to everybody with access to the internet now and not like they were when only some people had televisions. Streaming has allowed music videos to be more unlimited in length and technique as it will reach almost everyone so therefore they will need to be more creative to get the video noticed above all the others.