The History Of Music Videos

The first channel dedicated to music videos, MTV, was started in 1981 in the USA. But it was long before this that people were watching music accompanied by film on their TVs and at the cinema.

The first time people really became interested in the concept of music and films was when musicals first started being shown at the cinema. Musical such as 'The Talkies' and 'MGM musicals' were very popular and people really enjoyed going out and seeing there favourite songs accompanied by story lines and dancing. The next stage was Rock'n'Roll  musicals such as 'Kissin' cousins' which starred Elvis Presley. At the time when they were produced they were part of a new culture when peoples ideas about music and dancing were really changing, and it became a common practice for young boys and girls to go see these films at the cinema.

By this point people were enjoying going out and seeing these musicals but real music videos still weren't being produced.  It wasn't till The Top OF The Pops started in the UK in 1964 that artists started producing music videos. When artists were on tour if they became top of the charts they were unable to go to the studios in London to perform live. To get around this problem and still be able to perform something for their fans they started creating music videos to be shown on tele. One of the first music videos was the Beatles 'A Hard Day's Night' in 1964. The film was a 'mini film' and it was a great success. This encouraged more bands to start creating music videos for there fans .
 
The music video that really created a craze for music videos was Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. The song itself was extremley popular but the reason people really loved the video was because of how experimental it was and how different it was from anything people had seen before. Even to today's standards it is a exceptional music video and you can see why so many people thought it was good.

Now artists had started creating music videos they needed a platform to show them to their fans and this was when MTV started. Launching with the words "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll," .