History of Music VideosBy Fahrin Sultana

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a piece of complete music. Defining a

music video a few decades ago would be different to now. It used to be a way of promoting an artist.

Whereas now its more of a show piece to show off the song and gain a lot of money from record being

sold in their millions.

1980sDuring the mid 80s The Jacksons created a launch music video which had a million dollar budget. The song was ‘’Can you feel it,’’ You can see below how videos have changed a lot. There’s an element of animation to it. They used effects for quite a lot of it. The group Jackson 5 could also be seen in the video but with effects they weren’t actually physically filmed and shown in the video. In modern era you would see actual filming of the stars.

Mid 1980s Madonna was at the peak of her career during the 1980s. Her video approach was different to the Jackson 5. It was her performing live on stage. There were lots of shots of her fans and her getting out the car. It had a ‘live’ vibe to it. You can see lots of long shots of her on stage.

2000sDestiny’s child released a song in 2000 which was a number one single. The approach for the video was different to the others. There were no special effects used and neither were there any live performance footages. It was purely done in a studio with a well thought out colour scheme. It was focused on the singers.

2010

Usher released this single in 2010. It was Top 10 in over 15 countries. The song was part of an extension of his sixth album. The music video is set in a club and has contrast in light. There weren’t necessarily any special effects it was mostly good camera movement.