In 1975, rock band “Queen” employed Bruce Gowers to make a promotional video for their upcoming single, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a video these days considered ground breaking, as it paved the way for the modern music video to take centre stage. The song written by Freddie Mercury surprisingly remained at the top of the charts for 9 weeks, despite its unusual format, and this is believed to be down to the promotional video.
Bohemian Rhapsody took about 4 hours to record, and cost about £45,000 which the band no doubt recouped from the sales of the record. By putting the video onto Top of the Pops, Queen were able to broadcast their song to a wide audience and because of the video, people would continue to tune in hoping to see it.
In 1981, U.S music channel MTV (Music Television) launched; the start of 24-hour music broadcasting. By the mid 80’s, music videos were essential in the marketing of band’s singles. Popular acts such as Madonna owed much of their fame and popularity to their creative and seductive videos.
However, when MTV started, it had less than 1 million viewers. Word soon spread between its target audience of 12 – 14 year olds, and 2 years on, the expansion of cable TV took MTV to more than 10 million homes.
The first VJ (video jockey) was New Romantic, Adam Ant, of Adam and appeared on the channel before a video was about to be played, introducing the video which was about to be played. The high profile gusts like Adam Ant showed the channels affect and influence on the sales of records.
On the second of December, 1983, Michael Jackson released the best selling single of all time, Thriller, accompanied with a nearly 14minute long music video. Jackson spent $500,000 of his own money on this video, which is listed in the Guinness book of records as being the most successful video of all time, sifting over 9 million units.
“Thriller” was not a conventional music video however, mainly because of the duration of it; it was seen as more of a short film, a homage to horror films with the inclusion of science fiction favourites, zombies, choreographed to dance alongside a werewolf Jackson in the iconic dance sequence that is till admired for its striking moves and complexity in modern times.
“Music fans began to expect songs to have images – glossy ones too – otherwise they would not succeed” said Simon Warner, pop music lecturer at Leeds University. “So record companies had to start adding at least £50,000 to an artist’s marketing budget to make that essential video” he added.
In the 80’s, a wave of new romantics hit Britain, who benefitted most from MTV. Bands such as Adam and the Ants and Duran Duran made creative and catchy videos, a legacy of their art college backgrounds. However American acts soon caught up, Madonna, for example, can to this day be known as one of MTV’s biggest success stories. And in latter years, Eminem, Britney Spears and the Spice Girls have all become global superstars through the constant airing of their videos.
MTV also held an annual awards ceremony for the videos and music they broadcast, as well as broadcasting all of Live Aid, which was held to raise money for famine in Ethiopia.
MTV has a number of Spin of channels like MTV2 and MTV Dance, in order to show videos of specific genres to an ever growing community of diversity.
Music Videos now days can present a public image that the band want to promote. Nirvana’s dingy videos could be seen to represent the darkness in their personalities. The Spice Girls each had a band name e.g. Sporty Spice, Posh Spic, leaving young girls all over the UK aspiring to be who their favourite was.
The internet has challenged the traditional music channel, as well as creating a number of “internet sensations” like Lilly Allen and the Arctic Monkeys. YouTube is the most popular place for young artists to upload their videos, in the hope someone will see their talent, as well as spreading the word on social networking sites.
Videos can now be downloaded from iTunes and also illegally via sites like Limewire and the Pirate Bay. This is more convenient than sitting by your TV all day waiting in hope of your favourite video coming on. This has led to the closure of a number of channels and shows, most notably Top of the Pops who was unable to compete with the 24-hour service provided by channels like MTV.
Sources
- wikipedia.org
- bbc.co.uk
- NYPress.com (New York Press)
- MTV.com
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