History of a music video - Miss Georgiou

History of a music video

Music Channels (MTV)

The Internet/youtube

There are many ways in which media can be consumed such as through phones,laptops,TV and tablets are just some of the ways in which media can be consumed by people, we now can also see music videos at any time and anywhere. The ways in which these devices access the music can be through things such as apps,itunes and YouTube  and with new wireless technology we can view these like never before. Things such as 3g have made accessing music easy and fast and can be done anywhere, whereas before you needed wires so were limited on the places that music could be consumed. Music videos can now also be viewed in higher quality than ever before, we can now see HD music videos with no wires. TV has not changed over the years too much with MTV being the first music TV channel in the 1980s and  there now being many other music channels such as 4Music and Viva which have increased there popularity as there is now a wider variety of choices of music. This shows that the ways in which music videos can be viewed has had a dramatic change over such a small amount of time.

The first company to show Music videos on TV was the american music channel MTV. The channel first aired on August 1st 1981 with its first song being "Video killed the Radio Star" at 12.01 am. The aim of the channel was to play music 24/7 , 7 days a week and having various personalities as video jockies such as Eddie Murphy and Phil Collins. At the start MTV was aimed at young adults, however there new target market has opened to include teens and young adolescents. This can be seen in the way that they heavily censor songs which have reference to sex,drugs and violence. For example with the artist Eminem they often use very censored versions of his music to play during non watershed hours.This was successful as we can see by how popular it was as in 1990 MTV reached 28 million viewers worldwide. Later in MTV's life they broke the "colour barrier" which had been around in music by playing artists such as Prince and Michael Jackson, this was one of the first forms of music media that did this. MTV also introduced the MTV music awards, which has become an award where artists can win different awards depending on there genre. This makes it obvious how MTV revolutionized the way that people can access music through there TV and at the time they were very forward thinking.

One of the biggest changes of the way people are able to access music is through the internet and specifically you tube. YouTube was set up in February 2005 and is a site which allows users to watch,upload and comment on videos. This has become one of the biggest ways in which artists can get to there audience as it is free for everyone, so there are few limits on who can watch. This meant that people did not now need to watch through other music videos and could pick what particular music video they wanted.Also it would be much easier to see which artists are the most popular in another way than sales of music.Furthermore as anyone can upload videos to YouTube there is a big chance for amateur artists to get attention. The video with the most views is Gangnam Style by Psy a South Korean pop star with his video having 2,030,153,868 views. So we can see that this is a very viable way in which artist can get global attention for their songs and will promote them on a international level.

 We can also see the way that music videos themselves have changed over the years, with increasing amounts of technology and bigger and bigger budgets.The first music videos were first introduced in the 1940s, however they really became prominent was in the 1950s, with Tony Bennett claiming he made the first music video, with him in a basic black and white picture. This was made up of simply  him singing with a very poor quality video showing him.  Over time music videos have become more and more advanced with other artists using editing,special effects and new technology. The most expensive music ever being Micheal and Janet Jackson's Scream which was 4.46 minutes long but cost $7000000 to make. This huge price comes from the special effects and editing that was used and was very visually impressive for viewers. However music videos do not need to be expensive such as another Micheal Jackson song, Dont Stop Til You get it Enough which uses no technology with just the artist singing and dancing. This shows how music videos can be cheap or expensive and but have changed dramatically over time, but can be successful no matter which option that is used for the video.

The technology and special effects of the films have also changed dramatically, with things such as special effects, CGI and new editing techniques becoming frequent in music videos. This has been able to increase the marketing potential of the videos as they become more visually interesting for the audience.The genres that have developed most over the years are the genres that do not use music instruments, such as dub step, electronic and drum n base. This genre of music uses pre recorded sounds which can be altered to make new sounds and then are made into full songs . Then the artist can put these together and create a new song which would not be possible without the stored sounds. An example of an artist  New technology with electronic equipment and music studios , especially with the use of new computer which can make music using pre recorded sounds. An example of an artist who uses this type of new technology is skrillex who is a dubstep artist who solely uses technology to make his music and is just as successful as any artist that uses musical instruments. This music genre is so recent as the technology has just been been able to be used in this way and has trickled down to make it more affordable for amateur artist.


This research will help the planning of my own music video greatly in many ways. It is clear to see that the lastest technology and editing techniques is most often used in some of the biggest videos as audiences want to see new technology which will also attract them to the video as they want to see what is new. Furthermore that technology can make a video so much more entertaning for the audience which will hopefully increase the sales of the video and the popularity of the artist with fans. Thirdly that the most successful songs often have a very memorable and striking music video which people will want to watch and they will more likely buy the music track for this reason. All of these aspects I will try to incoprporate into my music video which will hopefully make it stand out and memorable to the audience, whilst still keeping the song at the centre attention. Overall this would help us make a successful music video.

In conclusion music videos and the way they are consumed by audience have changed dramatically over the years especially in the 1990s and 2000s with technology such as CGI and new editing techniques being the biggest factor for change. Things such as the internet and wireless technology have completely changes the way music videos are viewed as they can be seen anywhere at any time, unlike ever before.