1877 - Edison invents the gramophone In the USA, it’s the first shift from music as a solely live concept and they can now have an audio-visual experience.
Throughout 1920s Fischinger experimented with sound and vision synchronisation on film.
1930s – Creation of the first ‘soundies’; short films made to showcase artists like Billie Holiday and Bing Crosby.
1939-1945 – World War II slowed down progress in the music industry.
1964 – Top of the Pops was first released.
1966- The Monkee’s TV show starts on NBC in the USA including for the first time jump cuts, wacky comedy and action shots.
1980- David Bowie released Ashes to Ashes.
Mid 1980s - The form was being used by all genres of music, including 'serious' rock acts like Bruce Springsteen.
1985 – The stage musical Material Girl was first performed. This was based on ‘diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ from gentlemen prefer blondes, this just represents how women were painted in the music industry.
1992 - MTV launches ‘the real worlds’ a fly-on-the-wall documentary following the love of seven people sharing a New York loft.
2000 – Jackass
1927 – First ever sound film by The Jazz singer.
1939 – Introduction of the Panoram (visual jukebox that played music accompanied by a synched, filmed the equivalent of today's music videos)
1957 – music feature of Jailhouse Rock.
1964 – A Hard Day’s Night sent out a mock documentary/film accompanied by their album at the same/similar time.
1975- Queen realised Bohemian Rhapsody.
1980s – Diversification in the early years, assumptions about the demographics of the audience led to dominance by white acts and preponderance of the male rock.
1984 – MTV established as central to the music business and instituted its own version of the Oscars, the Video Music Awards. Since which it has won many more awards.
1986 – Breakthrough for rap with run DMC & Aerosmiths “walk this way”. Along with the humour in the work MC Hammer and Coolio by the end of the decade, Rap became more acceptable and eligible for big budget videos.
1993 – Beavis and Butthead
2003 – Creation of MTV2, MTV base, MTV hits, MTV dance.
The form had also started to propel some acts to mega-stardom. An example of this is Madonna, whose videos have always been high profile and innovative. She led a host of female artists whose rise to prominence had undoubtedly been precipitated by the use of music video to showcase their talents. There was a huge emphasis on the image, choreography and performance within the video and they started using close up shots to show their beauty and emphasise the fact they are strong women.
History of music timeline
To summarise the idea of music promotion videos has only just really taken off and become successful. It’s successfully developed the fusion between music and image. Music videos are there to establish an image or key factors of an artist and establish their music. By the end of the 1980s, the music video was a prerequisite in the promotion of singles.
