Research and Planning - 1.4 - The History of the Music Video

The History Of The Music Video

In this essay l will be discussing the history of the music video, starting with what is claimed to be the first ever music video, Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
Bohemian Rhapsody was claimed to be the first music video ever made because it was the first to be shot on video instead of film. However when this video was first shown, the full version was never aired on television. Queen made a separate video of Bohemian Rhapsody to be shown on Top Of The Pops because the original song was too long and complex to be performed live. This then started all musical artists to join the new found trend of making videos to replace live performances. When MTV started in 1981 most of their videos came from British artists for purely this reason.
The video for Bohemian Rhapsody was very much concentrated on the aesthetic side of it as it was also the first video where the main focus was on the visual images and the song took more of a background role. The idea for it came from their album cover where the 4 members are all in
shadows looking up, this was shot in 3 hours costing $3,500. The way that the effects were produced was from the cameras feedback and also using prism lenses.
I think that Bohemian Rhapsody was written for the purpose of the band themselves as, when
looking closely at the lyrics, Freddie has incorporated a lot of jewish words to link to his religious
beliefs to make the song a lot more personal. Many of these words appear in the Qu'ran for
example; 'Bismillah' which when translated means 'In the name of Allah'. Another is 'Beezlebub'
which is one of the many names that is given to describe the devil, and 'Scaramouch' which means 'A stock character that appears as a boastful character'.
Freddie Mercury also tried to incorporate some of Brian May's interest's, by using the reference to 'Galileo' (a famous astronomer who was known for being the first to use a refracting telescopes) as Brian May had a strong passion for astronomy.
The purpose of a music video is to inform the audience of any meanings in the songs and add an
extra depth to the song. Also, it's there to be used as a promotion tool to sell more of the band's
songs. They can also be seen as showing your status in the music industry amongst other competing artists. However music videos can just be more like a necessary thing to do like a chore rather than wanting to do it for the pure pleasure. Although, the music videos in the eyes of record labels are still used to show some sort of potential exposure to the public and, possibly having the opportunity of becoming a 'Youtube Hit'. 1
As mentioned earlier TV shows such as Top Of The Pops were some of the first to broadcast the new rage of music videos, beginning in 1964.
It was the longest running popular music show in the history of television. It was first broadcast from a Manchester church hall on a Wednesday evening at 6.36 pm and was introduced by DJ


1 'From the first frame to the last, music videos serve as a blank canvas to your mind's
eye. ' Quoted from http://www.videomaker.com/article/13049/



Jimmy Saville. It featured artists such as Dusty Springfield, The Hollies, The Dave Clark Five andThe Rolling Stones. It was only intended to broadcast for six editions, but there have been
more like over 2000.
This show eventually began to make managers and record labels realise that being on
Top Of The Pops made the difference between being number 10 in the charts instead of
number 1. It was the red carpet of TV shows, everyone wanted to be seen on it.
Eventually in the late 1960's European artists began to arrive on the scene of Top Of The
Pops as well, including people such as Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder.
MTV became the next generation in music video broadcasting emerging into our lives in
1981.
MTV is music is a television network which was originally only to show music videos, especially
popular rock music. It later became used for a variety of different material all to be aimed at
teenagers and broadcasted this across the world 24 hours a day seven days a week.
The first video to be played was Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggies, however when it first started out the channel was streaming hardly any music videos at all which is why the MTV business expanded to then form MTV2 which was purely for music. Also VHl was added but was to be aimed at a more adult audience although this became very quickly TV shows and music as well. On August 1st 1987 MTV franchised to Europe bringing stations like MTV Asia and MTV Latin America.
It took another decade for MTV Europe to split into channels to channel to different countries, and in 1997 MTV UK and Ireland finally began broadcasting and went digital in 2001. The 'main, original' MTV channel was used for showing the bigger programmes made in the U.K. or brought in from America, but the music videos themselves were/are aired on the other MTV channels, like MTV Hits and MTV Base. 2
Music Videos have turned into an art form and have progressed very far from the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody to the more new videos of Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. The videos have evolved to satisfy the worlds population's growing yearn for exciting aesthetically pleasing videos with mysterious storylines.


2 'Wherever you go, MTV is now an established part of the entertainment landscape. ' quoted from http://www.ministryofrock.co.uk/the-beginning-of-mtv.html



Bibliography/Webliography

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=685
http://idolator.com/395561/what-purpose-do-music-videos-serve-in-2008
http://www.videomaker.com/article/13049/
http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/totp.htm
http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/mtv/history.html
http://www.ministryofrock.co.uk/the-beginning-of-mtv.html