Music Videos

A music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. 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 date back much further, they came into prominence in the 1980s.

The first music video made by Queen called Bohemian Rhapsody is considered the first music video. When the song was released in the UK in 1975 the band were on tour abroad and couldn't make it to Top Of The Pops each week when it reached no.1. No-one imagined the record would be so successful (at nearly 9 minutes long it was considered un-radio-friendly and the record company assumed no radio station would play it), and that is when they recorded the video to be played in their absence.

Musical films were another important precursor to music video, and several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of the best-known examples is Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl" which was closely modelled on Jack Cole's staging of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Several of Michael Jackson's videos show the unmistakable influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark "Thriller" and the Martin Scorsese-directed "Bad" which was influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story.