A music video is a short video that accompanies a complete piece of a song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the idea. The term "music video" first came into popular use in the early 1980s. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation and live action, usually dependant on the music genre.
Music videos represent a crucial part of the music industry. Artists owe their careers to music videos as they are being given the chance of impressing the public not just with their vocal talent, but also with their looks or moves.Around 3 decades ago, music video used to be less important then it is nowadays. MTV (Music Television) started broadcasting in 1981 in the USA and it marked the beginning of the music video’s dominance over the music industry. The first video ever played on MTV was ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by The Buggles. MTV was broadcasting 24-hour-a-day music and music videos were needed to be produced in order for them to be played on the TV. This then meant music videos began to play an important role in artists’ careers.
It is thought that artists like Madonna have used music videos to represent themselves. She used videos like ‘Like a virgin’ to present a sexy image of herself. She also used it to cause controversy as she had a video of herself on the cross in her ‘Like a prayer’ video. By causing controversy in the video it makes people want to watch it even more and it brings the song out and people will listen and hear about it more.
The birth of the music video has created a new type of directors: video directors. MTV started even listing directors with video credits and this profession has become more and more popular. But it seems that most video directors don’t specialise in this particular art form, they see it as being just a step on the way to directing a movie. Many start directing videos or adverts, hoping to get the recognition to build a name and to direct a movie. It seems that even video directors admit the fact that a music video is secondary to the song itself.
It is now regarded that the music video is as important if not more than the song itself. As it is selling not only the song, it is selling an image of the artist.
Micheal Jacksons Thriller video that was produced in the 1983 still stands as one of the greatest most publicised music video of all time. It is listed as the most successful as it sold over 9 million units. It lasts 14 minutes long as was directed by John Landis with a full script, story and iconic dance routine. This defined a standards for Micheal Jacksons music videos as he then later produced a video with sister Janet for the song Scream. The song and video only lasts 4.30 minutes but cost around £7 million to produce. Because Jackson set such a high standard of his music videos due to thriller, he had to continue to make such outstanding videos to keep it up. This sets him as an iconic artist just down to his music videos alone.
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