A music video are used to advertise the band or artist, it is basically an advert. The adverts are for the target audience, if they see a pop promo and they like the song and the artist it will hunger the audience into buying or downloading the song, which is what music videos intend to do. If they want to promote the artist they would shoot a performance based music video. If they want to promote the track, then the director would listen and analyze the song carefully and then plan a narrative and physically show it on film. We know if the pop promo is successful by how well the track has sold, that’s the theory but it could be a rubbish video but a good song. Some pop promo’s are famous because they have memorable parts in them such as Michael Jackson - thriller, with the dance routine, or Frankie goes to Hollywood - relax with the colored lights and peter Gabriel - sledgehammer due to the claymation and pixilation effects and being an advanced video for it’s time.
In the 1930's musicians would sing there songs of in action during a segement over cartoons. these cartoons would be made by warner bros and they later on did these in upcoming musical films.
In the 1940's there was somthing called promtional clips which were one song films amde for panoram visual duke boxes. These were musical selections of a band on a band stand movie set. It was mostly jazz bands/musicians that played in this type of clip. Also at this time the American billboard charts had started so this would have been a good break for musicians to get well known.
In the late 50s's the big bopper was the first to come up with the phrase music video. Also at this time the rise of music to television which was quite succeful because this meant rising stars could be more exposed where as before then the most popular place to be exposed was Hollywood.
further more at this time a visual duke box had been invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists. The use of this spread as different countries tried to invent somthing one better than this. Italy invented the cinebox and America invented the colour sonic. All this meant that local future stars could get more well known by the audience and get there songs in the charts. Therefore not only trying to be popular but being successful, considering the UK charts had also begun ealier in the decade (1952).
Early in the 60's in Canada, lip syncing was somthing new. Manny pitson pre recorded audio and then filmed artist in certain places and got them to lip sync the song. then edited the audio and visual together later. Most early songs like these were shot in the studio, on stage or in another location. This would give the audience somthing new to look at and for the artist to be presented in a different way.
The animals had one of the earlist performances in 1960's pop with "house of the rising sun". Back then this was high quality colour and the set was espicailly built for them, all of the band were in the video and features an edited combination of tracking shots, long shots and close ups. This had a big impact on audiences worldwide, it went number 1 in UK, Sweeden and was the first number 1 in America of the British invasion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgANuwSNsok
In 1966 Bob dylon had an attempt at the modern day music video with "subterranean homsick blues". Directed D . A Pennebaker, Trying to combine performance and narrative together. It involves bob dylan shuffleing cards with some of the lyrics on them. The video didn't promte the song to badly with it reaching the top 10 in the UK singles charts and 39 in the billboard top 40. On the plus side this was a inspired peice of film. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQaDUD-a_EE Roling stone only ranked it 7 in 100 best videos at the time. Other bands and artist over the years have tried to copy this style of music video, artist like INXS with mediate using deliberate mistakes. Bloodhound gangs with the song mope for the copying use of cue cards. Weird al yankovic did it for Bob's video twice, one with "UHF" and "bob"He dresses up as bob and still has the use of cue cards with more letters written on each card.
This has also featured in a film called Bob Roberts which involves Tim Robbins in the same style ally way with the use of cue cards. The video for "Buzzards of green hill" by Les Claypool's fearless flying frog brigade copies the use of cue cards again. Alain chamford got sacked from his record company and got director Bruno Decharme to create an exact replica of the video.
The first proper modern day music video was the beatles with "strawberry feilds forever". Filmed on the 30th and 31st of January 1967. Directed by a Sweedish television director called Peter Goldman. The video involves jump cuts from day time to night time and the band spilling a load of paint on a piano. This was somthing new for the audience to look at and they liked it, with the song reaching number 8 in America. Most modern day music videos are made simular this, It was also an inspired peice of edited film. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7NoOhmVMac This was selected along with "penny lane" the most influential music video of the 60's at New York MoMA.
In the 1970's most music video's were performance based, such as David Bowie, roxy music and the rolling stones. One act which stood out in particular was Adam and the ants and Adam ant Due to his wacky, mad, upbeat attitude and his charisma please the audience, which is why there songs did well in the charts. It got the audience to find the artist true nature, making there video look good therefore making the song successful due the the audience reaction.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1j7bOVEew0
Plus not forgetting "Bohemian Rhapsody" which was a recieved video and the song went number 1 in the UK singles charts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VXc2eZtPN0 Pop promos like this got the record companies to show there bands on tv with out them having to turn up and play. So on shows like top of the pops they could just play the video.
In 1981 the start of MTV came along and the first video to be shown on MTV were The Buggles with "video killed the radio star" Which indicates to me that the reason why they showed that first is so that they could say music video's have now taken over from radio. This video made the song a huge success and and topped the UK singles chart, Austrailian and reached number 10 in the Billboard hot 100. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSJ27TgBvJE
In 1983 the most famous and successful video of all time was made. This would be Michael Jackson with "Thriller" The story behind this was there were eight other singles released before this one. When you release a new album the first song which you take off there, is going to cost the most to make the video for because you want to promote your album. After the first video the budget gets smaller, to a point where it is pointless, which was at the kind of stage that this song was at. The director said that it was pointless funding another because your albulm has been promoted enough. So Micheal Jackson decided to fund it himself, which payed off big time, the album sold four times more than it origanally did when it first came out. The video was shown at eleven o'clock due to the fact that at the time it was scary and may of effected the audience in a negetive way. Such as being more paronoid than before, sending out messages which people will refer differently to. You could say that this video was influenced by the film An Ameraican werewolf of London, due to the fact the film and the music video's share simularities such as werewolfs, scary moments, dark setting and both well received by the critics. The film did win two Oscars so it wasn't a bad film to try and copy. The album also won eight grammy awards and the video won two grammys and four MTV music awards. This also went in to the 2006 world record books as the most succesfull pop promo of all time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_MuUcxHATo
They carried on making famous music videos in the 80's, another one was "Take on me" by A-ha. The origanal video to this was shot in front of a blue background and the song sounded slightly different, this did not do well in the charts. They wanted to release it again although this time they worked with a different producer for the song and different director for there music video. There song and video proved to be a big improvement as the song reached number 1 in 10 different countries and the video won six MTV music awards. This goes to show that a music video can make a difference on a song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EXxMlIExpo
80's still carried on with great music videos with "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. Famous for it's use of pixelation and claymation. This video still holds the record for most MTV music awards for a video (9). This also went number 1 in the billboard charts. The Director of this video Stephen R Johnson made another video with the same artist which was simular called big time wich used the same effects. Nick Park who did the calymation for this went on to make wallace and Gromit.
These three video's not only have they promoted there song really well but they have been rewarded even more with awards meaning not only do the audience like them but they are officially good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1tTN-b5KHg
In the 90's and today music videos were made to look interesting with directors like spike jonze and Michel Gondry. With Spike Jonze "sabotage" video by the beastie boys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PN7Xbexq4 and "praise you" by fat boy slim http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ-gVx4lfXs showed a different side to music videos. Sabotage is set like a 1970's LA cop series which promoted the single not to badly reaching 19 and 18 in UK and US singles charts.
"Praise you" on the other hand is set in a shopping mall filmed from a hand held camera. This promoted the song well and went number in the UK singles charts. Also at this time computer anmation was making a hit, with blur coffee and TV video which didn't chart that well put won a lot of awards includijng best video at the NME and MTV Europe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXRVX1AKAew
One of Michel Gondry's well known videos would be around the world by daft punk. This video included each group of dancers dancing to a different instrument. Yet again this didn't do well in the charts but is a well known famous video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0HSD_i2DvA
Now days most videos have computer animated effects in
and judging by all these videos the purpose of them is to promote the song, the band and to make history by winning awards.
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