History of Music Videos.

History of Music Videos. 

When it comes to the history of music videos a lot of people don’t know the background as to where they began. Most think that Bohemiam Rhapsody by Queen was where they first began and in many ways this is true as it was the first video labelled as a music video. Queen hold the label of having the first music video mainly because they were the first artists to use a video to promote themselves and their music and the first to gain a lot in doing so.

However a lot of artists did create music videos, they just didn’t label as ‘music videos’. For instance The Beatles brought out a video in 1964 of themselves. This featured a slight comical storyline and multiple videos of them preforming their song. In many ways these performances could be classed as ‘music videos’ but back then they were not labelled as this so they cannot be counted as the first music videos. It was more of a film made for their fans about the band which will have been shown at cinemas around the world.

The one aspect that started a worldwide phenomenon of music videos was MTV. MTV began their television show in 1981 in the USA. The first ever song put on the show was Video Killed the radio star by the Buggys. With the shortage of music videos to be shown on the 24/7 broadcast of MTV artists began to realise what a difference a music video could make to their career. It was an easy and cheap way for artists to promote themselves, so therefore more artists began to make music videos.


In the 70's Top of the Pops had a huge inpact on the history of music videos within the UK.  They began introducing short films to viewers and this then build up over time to them them showing music videos, this is were most people in the UK would have first seen music videos.

In comparison to videos made nowadays Bohemium Rhapsody is alleged to have taken 3 hours to shoot and cost a mere £3500 to shoot.  Videos can now cost millions of pound to create. For instance Puff Daddys video Victory cost more than £2.700.00 to make in 1998. And in Michele Jackson’s and Janet Jackson’s video Scream they spent 7million pound in 1995. This shows the massive impact that music videos have had over the years and how much people are willing to pay to impress their fans. Music industries know what is important to use in a video in order for people to want to view them, therefore the prices of the videos rise.

Music videos today however, have obviously changed how we view them massively. We can accesses them pretty much wherever we are and whatever we are doing. There is now YouTube and an endless amount of music channels where we can access videos at any point of the day. The biggest impact the music video has had to the public is via the internet, with access being pritty much anywere this then can make the smallest music video global as the internet has had this inpact. The internet has made the smallest of audiences into global audiences, this is mostly done via youtube.