Music video
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"Several aspects of Performance (1970) were novel and the film foreshadowed MTV type music videos (particularly the "Memo from Turner" sequence in which Jagger sings) and many popular films of the 1990s and 2000s." --Sholem Stein |
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A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly 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 (Music Television)'s format was based around them.
Music videos are often called promo videos or simply promos, due to the fact that they are usually promotional devices. Sometimes, music videos are termed short-form music videos to distinguish them from full length movies pertaining to music. In the 1980s, the term "rock video" was often used to describe this form of entertainment, although the term has fallen into disuse.
Music videos can accommodate all styles of filmmaking, including animation, live action films, documentaries, and non-narrative, abstract film.
1981: MTV
In 1981, the U.S. video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed the Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period, most notably Adam & the Ants, Madonna and Mylène Farmer, owed a great deal of their success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos. Some academics have compared music video to silent film, and it is suggested that stars like Madonna have (often quite deliberately) constructed an image that in many ways echoes the image of the great stars of the silent era such as Greta Garbo. But the music video which would arguably make the biggest impact on the music video industry was the music video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller."
In 1986, Peter Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer" used special effects and animation techniques developed by British studio Aardman Animation. The video for Sledgehammer would go on to be a phenomenal success and win nine MTV Video Music Awards.
See also
- MTV Video Music Award for Most Experimental Video
- List of music video directors
- One shot (music video)
- Semiotics of music videos
- Video art
- Michel Gondry