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Up until 1975, there was no clear definition of a music video. The Beatles and Elvis had brought out films were they performed their music but they were not used as a promotional device. Then Queen brought out the video for their hit “Bohemian rhapsody” and the industry changed dramatically. Stars realised that they could not only promote their music with their voice, but with their looks as well.
Videos had been associated with music back in the 1940/50s’s but it was only in films and not in a promotional sense. Hollywood musicals such as “Singing in the Rain” (1952) and “On the Town” (1949) had a flowing narrative but with the stars performing in between certain parts. “The Beatles” then copied this style only without a full flowing narrative. They made films of themselves performing their music so that it could be broadcast to people all over the world if they could not see them live at a concert. In April of 1964, “The Beatles” starred in their first Mock-documentary “A Hard Day’s Night” which was a huge success across the UK and the US.
Bob Dylan is still regarded by many people to be the first artist to have a music video for his song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" on the music documentary by D. A. Pennebaker's 1967, Don't Look Back. However, it was not produced for promotion.
In 1981, a new television station began broadcasting; this station was called MTV (Music Television) and became the main form of stars promoting songs through videos. The station was a 24 hour broadcaster, which meant there became a need for music videos, not just a want. With the new idea of stars needing video promotion, there was a lot of speculation on whether the new video era was the death of real artistic talent or the start of the modern music era. In today’s society, a good collection of music videos could determine the success or failure of an artist.
Artists like Madonna and Michael Jackson used the music video highly to their advantage. Not only did their videos promote their musical talent, they helped create an image for the artist, which is still associated with the artists to date. Madonna based a lot of her looks and attitude on 50’s actress Gretta Garbo and in her videos she portrayed herself to be mysterious, sexy and confident and this image is still vastly popular within her modern work.
The upcoming success of music videos did not only mean artists had an opportunity for a more successful career, directors did too. Directors began to use music videos as a stepping stone into making movies, some directors got their name into Hollywood through music videos they directed early in their careers e.g. Michel Gondry.
Music began to have a visual narrative with the development of music videos, stars could not only tell stories with their lyrics, they could not essentially create a mini film to go along side. The majority of music videos in modern times vary immensely from its predecessors like “David Bowie’ Space Odyssey”, stars today are always more concerned about their looks and videos than the actual music they produce and perform. A mass amount of “mainstream” stars don’t even tour to perform their music live. A high amount of pressure is placed upon stars to conform to how their audience expects them to look, e.g. Lady gaga fans would expect her to give her best performance possible in both music videos and live shows and they would expect her to be quite eccentric as that is how she has been portrayed in her music videos. A lot of people argue that music is slowly losing its value in terms of talent as it no longer about the music/lyrics it’s all about looks and star appeal.
