1960's
Bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones started experimenting with promotional short films back in the 1960's as they were growing tired of touring and wanted an easy way for thier fans to be able to see them performing thier latest realeases.At first the short films that were produced by the bands were in black in white, however in 1965 the Beatles produced thier second short film feature for "Help!" in colour which was a great success. Most of the video's by The Beatles were shown on Top Of The Pops.
In 1967, other artists such as Pink Floyd, The Who, The Loved Ones, Bob Dylan and The Small Faces started creating thier own promotional clips and soon many countries across the world started copying the music video trend.
1970's
The 1970's were the start of Music Television. In 1974 Australia started airing shows such as "Countdown" and "Sounds" which made music video's very popular nd also highlighted the importance of promoting cureent bands as well as new acts. In the late 1970's "Top Of The Pops" started playing music videos which helped many bands increase thier record sales and become number one in the charts. In 1975, Queen produced a video of thier song "Bohemean Rapsody" so that it could be shown on Top Of The Pops. The whole video was shot on video tape and is now one of the most famous videos in music history. In 1980, David Bowie had his first number one in ten years for "Ashes to Ashes" as the music video captured the attention of millions when it was shown on TV.
1980's
In 1981 MTV was launched in the U.S, making the demand for music video's much higher as this kick-started the era of 24 hour-a-day music in television. This enabled bands to have thier video's broadcast all over the world, and therefore increasing artist's success. Adam and the Ants and Madonna owe their success to the seductive appeal of thier music video's. It was mainly British acts however who created videos to be shown on MTV - hence the massive 'Brit Invasion' into the US charts in the 1980's.
Promotional
A music video is a visual representation of a song, which can be used to help the public to remember the music and go out and buy it. It also gives a further opportunity for the track to be heard and also helps to promote the artist and thier upcoming albums or singles.
Extension Of Income
Music video's help to keep the artist in the public eye for as long as possible, as thier video will still be shown months after the release of thier songle/album. This also helps to recoup some of the production costs involved in initially recording the music.
Extension Of Outlets
Music video's can be watched via a variety of Media Platforms. For example, you can watch music video's via MTV, Kerrang!, 4Music, Viva, Smash Hits and other music channels on TV. You can also watch music video's via the interenet on sites such as Youtube, VodPod and Videocure and finally you can also download video's to you phones or i-pods. This means that artists popularity can increase even more as everyone will be able to watch the video's.
Links To Films Or TV Programmes
Some songs can be used as part of a soundtrack for a film. When this happens, clips from the film will be shown in the music video as part of the narrative, which means that the band and film can be advertised at the same time. Programmes such as American Idol and X factor can boost an artists popularity as bands can perform live on results shows. In 2009, X Factor helped Lady Gaga reach number one with her single "Bad Romance" which she performed on the Sunday night results show. However, Music related TV shows can also help bands which havent been in the charts for a while regain thier status. For example, The Kings Of Leon came back into the chart with a re-release of "Sex On Fire" after it had regained popularity during an audition on X Factor. Also, Journey have re-released thier single after it appeared on X Factor last year and have also given the cast of Glee to release it as a single.
Producers Strategies
In the 1960's producer's tended to make the videos more performance based as bands used to perform in thier pop promos so that fans could see them on screen instead of them touring around the globe. However, this started to change in the late 1970's and early 80's as artist such as Madonna came on the scene which meant that music video's became more seductive as artists success became based more on sex appeal than performance. In the 90's music video's started to be more narrative as producers made video's have a story to them and tried to make them relate to the lyrics of the songs. Directors also started appearing on the credits on MTV which meant that music video's were seen as more of an art form than pop promo.
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