A2 MEDIA STUDIES - GRACE SUITER
Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was created due to them declining to perform on Top of the Pops and thought they should do something artistic to repay the declined invitation. Up until this time, music videos were shortened in order to promote the song instead of the whole song being featured in the music video. Queen changed this with Bohemian Rhapsody and created a music video which was 6 minutes and 6 seconds long; this then created a trend for other artists who then created longer music videos. This trend has continued into the 21st Century with music videos getting longer and longer; Pharrell Williams even creating one which was twenty-four hours long!
The Buggles, Video Killed the radio star was the first music video to be played on MTV in 1972 and this was when the Jukebox disappeared and TV's started to become in more popular demand. MTV therefore opened sub channels with song and the song was extremely popular with the popular. In the 1980's David Bowie released Ashes to Ashes which was the most expensive music video ever made at that time; costing £250,000 to produce. However, this financial investment did have its rewards because it was the most iconic music video of the 1980's and incorporated solarised images with black and white which had never been done before and it was therefore original. leading to its success. The Wall was sung by Pink Floyd and the music video is quite abstract and shocking to the audience. The nonsense before the music video begins is a backwards message which caused a lot of worry and concern amongst parents due to the disturbing content of the music video. Elaborate theatrical effects were used and was a best selling album. The director told the children to shout instead of just singing and the sound was then multi tracked to give the illusion that there were more children than there actually were.
The first shift from music as a solely live and audiovisual experience to recorded audio on various forms of disc was when Edison invented the gramophone in the USA. Certain genre's also began to dominate the industry, typically white performing pop acts and successful British artists included Duran Duran and Eurthmics. White, male rock artists mainly dominated the market. However Aerosmith's Walk This Way video was a breakthrough because it combined rap and rock music. Rap music was linked with gangs and diversification which was deemed to be threatening to some people, even though other genres had different stereotypes. It was thought that if rap artists weren't threatening, they were comical and so they were never fully respected.
MTV was used by all genres of music and promoted mega stardom. It broadcasted both female and male artists which abolished sexism. MTV placed a huge emphasis on image, performance, choreography and the use of close ups and was a central point in the music business.
HISTORY OF A MUSIC VIDEO - September 7th 2015
Music Video's were originally shot to promote a music track and was constructed based on the image of a band or performer or could be used to construct their image if they were a new and upcoming artist. Music Videos are still used for advertising purposes, for instance Carly Rae Jepson's 'I really like you' music video has Tom Hanks and Justin Bieber featured in the music video which added to the songs success. Oskar Fischinger was a German-American abstract animator, film maker and painter who is well known for creating abstract musical animations before computer graphics were invented. He was one of the first people to create abstract musical animations and was the man who came up with the idea of music videos! The first ever film musical was The Jazz Singer which was released in 1927 and produced by Warner Bros. The film musical was filmed in black and white and cost $500,000 to produce but earned a phenomenal $3.9 million at the Box Office. 30 years later Jailhouse Rock was released and was the first music video to ever be released and is classed as the most memorable intro's into Rock history and was a promotional art form. It was so successful in the USA that it stayed Number One for an amazing seven weeks. 1962 was when Summer Holiday was released and was the first music video to synchronise dance, song and sound. The opening sequence was filmed in black and white and the remainder of the sequence was then filmed in colour. Peter Yates was the director and Cliff Richard had a starring role and the combined elements led to it being a number one in the UK. The Beetles released A Hard Day's Night which gave each band member their own clear identity which was the construction of an image for the star. This allowed the audience to create a personal relationship with them as well as personal identity which created a connection between the audience and the star. This changed the way they were marketed and at the height of Beetlemania they were seen as rebellious and not doing as they are told which was appealing; as well as having sexual magnetism which attracted the female audience. Soundies were three minute American musical 16mm films which were produced in big American cities between 1940 and 1946 and each soundie contained a song, dance, or an orchestra. An atypical music video came from The Animals, House of the rising sun and this became a number one hit in numerous countries including the UK, USA, Canada, Sweden and Finland. It was the first transatlantic hit which was four minutes long which was extremely atypical. The song was blues/folk music and was a form of hybridism.