Music video timeline

Music video timeline

·       The late 1920’s and early 1930’s animation artist Max Fleischer made screen songs which were short sing a long cartoons

·       Promotional clips were made in the 1940’s and these were one song films. They were musical selections and they showed the band on a movie set bandstand

·       Between the 1930’s and the 1950’s musicals heavily influenced music videos. A classic example of this was Material Girl by Madonna and was based on Gentleman prefer blondes.

·       In France in the late 1950’s a visual jukebox was invented and was used by many people to accompany their songs.

·       Ozzie Nelson edited and directed the video ‘Travelin Man’ in 1961. It showed many different images of the World which were described in the song. Then in 1964 Scorpio Rising was a short film by Kenneth Anger and it used popular songs

·       In 1963 Surf City was one of the earliest music videos along with The Animals, House of the rising sun, which showed the band performing in a studio built set where they were lip synching

·       Between the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s promotional clips were growing in importance and a few examples of these were:

§  The Rolling stones

§  The Kinks – who made the first plot in their promotional videos for their song which was called the ‘Dead End Street’

§  The Who – Happy Jack – 1965 – Used a narrative

§  1972 – David Bowie – Jean Genie

Gentlemen prefer Blondes

Madonna doing her own version of the Marilyn Monroe scene in her music video