Research: History of music videos

Music videos have been around for a very long time, unofficially 42 years, as there is history of music videos being created from the 19^th century. Looking back on the technology and the video quality from way before, we have come a long way from low quality videos to high quality and 4k resolution.

We will start off in 1894, where publishers of ‘sheet music, Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern, hired electrician George Thomas and a variety of performers to promote sales of their song ‘The Little Lost Child’, this was done using a magic lantern. Thomas then projected a series of still images onto a screen simultaneous to live performances. This became a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step toward music videos. This then set the benchmark for others to use this as a means of reimbursing technological advancements as the years flew by. Music videos will have been seen as something small and less-known to the audience during the 19^th and 20^th century.

It came to 1929 when a young black woman, by the name of Bessie Smith first appeared in a two-reel short film called Saint Louis Blues, composed by W. C. Handy. This also featured a dramatized performance of the song. Fast-forwarded to 1940 around the time Disney was a massive company (even though they still are).

Walt Disney released Fantasia, which was an animated film entirely based around incredibly famous pieces of classical music. As well as this, there were many films accompanied by moving images, especially animations.

1950-1060 saw Tony Bennett introduced to the early music video stages. He was filmed walking in Hyde Park, London, for his song “Stranger in Paradise”, of course at this stage these films weren’t necessarily available to the audience as open and freely as music videos are in our modern era of technology. By 1964, The Beatles jumped onto the bandwagon and then set the out the basic visual vocab of today’s music videos, this would later allow other artists to follow suite and help advance music videos. Two years later, the BBC created Top of the Pops, a show in which two amateur singers would come on and compete against each-other for screen time, this show created the platform for little known artists to make it in the industry and launch a singing career from then on, benefitting both the program and the contestants on there.

A year later in 1967, ‘music video’ producers started using video techniques seen in films, and borrowed them. Film effects, dramatic lighting, camera angles and rhythmic editing were seen in music videos as well as films, this allowed music videos to try and be on the same level in terms of editing techniques as films.  This is around the moment where we enter the modern era of music videos where artists such as Jackson 5, with Michael Jackson, and Queen started to use videos with some of their songs as in 1975, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody was the first to be made on video format. It was created to replace a live performance on TV, and yes, The Beatles had created videos, however, Queen were the first to create a video specifically for that song to be played on TV.

By 1980, music videos started recording with editing processor, high quality videotape recorders were common and portable video cameras allowed for many pop acts to produce promotional videos much quickly and cheaper too. In 1981, MTV launched, and with that they dropped the first ever music video, ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’, by The Buggles (This was later sampled by Will.i.am in his song Check It Out, with American artist Nicki Minaj). 

Michael Jackson, a fresh faced teenager straight from Jackson 5 after their split up, was next as his single Thriller, took the music video format to another level, a 10-minute-long video including various measures of performance. TOTP, began to censor music videos not released by them. By the mid-80s, releasing a video to accompany a song became the standard of most artists. Artists started to use more sophisticated effects, adding storylines and allowing for music videos to have a narrative based concept.

The 1990’s saw more artists use music videos as an endorsement to promote themselves. The rise of artists such as Tupac, Ashanti, Usher, Beck, Rage Against the Machine, Guns and Roses amongst many others. That was the time hip-hop and R&B became a big thing and attempted to become a mainstream genre of music. The videos that followed the songs were what created the stereotypical back drop for many hip-hop and R&B music videos. This allowed for the tie in with Dyers theory that videos will have a link to the song, which was mostly true at that stage in time. By the 2000’s music video filming techniques started to improve drastically, and allowed for other artists to come into the picture and do their thing. Artists such as Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Eminem and Coldplay all started using music videos to accompany their songs and make a name for themselves.

By doing this they also attracted record labels who were looking to sign artists. As well as in the 90’s, hip-hop and R&B artists used the same stereotypical mise-en-scene to promote their music video. Although many see MTV as the start of a ‘golden era’ of music videos, others see it as hastening the death of a true artist, placing appeal before talent, and allowing for people with less singing ability to make it in the industry over those with wonderful talent. This is a good and bad thing nowadays as it means that those without talent can attempt to use what they do have and make it in the industry.

The video format used now is so much more advanced than of a long time ago in the 20^th century, the value of music videos is so important now as it helps new artists attract fans more simply and by simply listening to it on a website such as YouTube and Vimeo, it means the audience is more likely to be engaged to see a new artist performing their song with a music video. It is very important to know about the history as it allows for me to look back on other videos from way back and try to take some ideas to add to my own plan. Understanding the history is good as everything has a past to how it came about, nothing falls from the sky, so to understand how to do good it is a necessity to evaluate how far we have come from images on a sheet of paper. 

Research: Genres

Music Genres

A music genre is a conventional category for which some pieces of music are identified as commonly sharing the same traditions or conventions. There’s three different formal styles of music, art, popular and traditional. Art music is music that is usually associated with the bourgeoisie of society e.g. classical music, opera, music that isn’t as mainstream or widely promoted. Then there is popular music, which is more mainstream, the type of music that is promoted on a larger scale, which makes it easily accessible to the general public and allows for it to be spread by mass media. This style of music is found on many, if not most commercial radio stations, in most commercial music retailers and department stores, and in movie and television soundtracks, e.g. Hip-Hop, R&B, Pop. The distinction between art and popular music has been obscure a few times in marginal areas. Lastly there is traditional music, which has been often referred to as just modern folk music and now world music too, e.g. African, South American. According to Rob Fitzpatrick, writer for The Guardian, ‘new genres can arise if two or more existing genres influence the emergence of a new one, in which a fusion between them can be said to have taken place. The proliferation of popular music in the 20th century has led to over 1,200 definable sub-genres of music’.

Genres

Indie, Hip-Hop, Pop, R&B, Classic, House, Dance, Soul, Reggae, Dancehall, Afrobeat, Alternative, Rock, Electronic, Rap, Dubstep.

Afrobeat – This style of music originated from Fuji, with heavy Nigerian drumbeats and tight footwork. It was later exported to the southern part of Nigeria in the 1970's, Fela Kuti, one of the first African artists, experimented with many different forms of contemporary music of the time. It is a genuine mixture of traditional Nigerian, Ghanaian, jazz, high-life music and chanted vocalists. He is the man responsible for the creation of the style and the constant spreading on the genre outside of Nigeria.

Alternative – This genre, ‘alternative music’ is often referred to as a genre of rock music. Similar music from this background first emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980's and became widely popular in the 1990's and 2000's. The term refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream rock music. By the end of the 1980's magazines, college radio, and word of mouth had increased the notability of alternative music, but by the end of the decade, alternative rock's mainstream prominence declined. Entering into the noughties. Coldplay, The White Stripes are notable artists to have brought this genre back into the mainstream limelight.

Dance-hall – This style of music generated from Jamaica in the late 70’s. Dance-hall is a sparser version of reggae. Progressing into the mid-1980's, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound, with digital dancehall, or ragga, becoming increasingly popular by faster rhythms. Rihanna, Beenie Man, Vybz Kartel, Shabba Ranks and, Chaka Demus and Pliers amongst other artists who have come along the Dance-hall route have made it what it is today.

Dubstep – This is a style of electronic music that originated in South London, England. It came about in the late 1990’s influencing styles of 2-step garage, dub, bass, techno, jungle and broken beat. The music is generally made up of sporadic, syncopated drum and percussion patterns with bass lines that include persistent sub bass frequencies. In 2011, dubstep gained significant attraction in the US market, by way of a post-dubstep style known as brostep, this was due to prominence of American producer Skrillex, who marginally increased the notability and popularity of dubstep, making it now a mainstream genre.

House – This style also came about through electric dance music, and was created by club DJ’s and music producers in Chicago around the early 1980’s. House music was originally dance-based music identified by its repetitive 4/4 beats, a rhythm usually provided only by drum machines, off-beat hi-hat cymbals and synthesized bass lines. This can all still be achieved with modern technology but it’s the combination of these sounds that allowed for the notability of house music. Calvin Harris and Swedish House Mafia are one of many acts that are known for their house-style music.

Hip-Hop – This style of music which could also be called hip-hop or rap, is a genre formed in the 1970’s, as an underground urban movement in South Bronx, New York City, consisting of a stylized rhythmic piece that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic or rhyming speech. It is most common upon African-American youths. Rap is generally the same thing with musicians of this genre mainly performing with spoken lyrics rather than sung lyrics. Artists like Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Logic, Drake and Kendrick Lamar amongst many others are known for taking on this style.

R&B – This style of music, short for Rhythm and Blues, a kind of pop music within black origin with a soulful vocal style. This genre was generated in the 1940’s as an African-American subculture. Its lyrical themes often reflect the African-American experience of pain and the ongoing quest for freedom and joy. Lyrics focus heavily on the themes of successes and failures in the regions of relationships, economics, and sex.

Rock – This genre of music originated as rock and roll in the 1950's, and then developed into a range of different styles all coming under rock whilst also being influenced by other genres in the 1960’s and later, particularly in the UK. It mainly stems from 1940’s and 1950’s influencing above everything else. Rock music has naturally grown on the electric guitar, usually as part of a group with an electric bass guitar and drums, with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form. Along the years however, the genre has become extremely diverse, but still retains the stereotype of having white males within the genre.

I find that it is necessarily important to follow generic conventions in a video if the artist is not really trying to step away from the crowd and be an independent and visually unusual artist. Whereas, by following conventions and putting Dyer’s theory into practice, small skills liking editing techniques, use of mise en scene amongst many others can be used to create a masterpiece while also following generic conventions.

Take Coldplay, Adventure of a Lifetime, the use of CGI is amazing, it is just them but as apes, the technology they used to create this video and the time they spent behind the video is just a case of careful consideration and dedication, with the right technology advanced products, an artist or artists can make a wonderful video and showcase to the world what they can do.

Conclusion

This has really helped with my planning as now I can take this and explore how to use generic conventions and place them rather skilfully into video creating and editing. Another thing I can do is look at a wide range of videos that have and haven’t followed generic conventions and try to reflect it in my own piece of work. The genre I am looking to go into is Hip-Hop with a bit of Gospel in terms of theme and location choice.