Music Videos

What is a music video?
A music video is a short film involving a song and imagery, produced to promote a song or for artistic purposes. In 1926 with the arrival of 'talkies' many musical short films were produced, however music videos came into prominence during the 1980s when MTV made them there focus. The basic conventions of a music video are narrative (telling a story in a chronological structure), performance (the artist performing the song), or both performance and narrative. The technological revolution made making music videos much easier due to the relatively cheap video cameras and easy to use editing equipment. I think the best music videos have a combination of both performance and narrative as it's more exciting for the viewer to watch, however I will investigate this and watch different examples and then make a conclusion.

Where do they appear?
In 1981 the U.S video channel M.T.V launched which was the first official T.V channel to air non-stop music videos. The rise of the internet has made broadcasting of music videos easy for 'the average person', and more accessible. The website iFilm launched in 1997 and since it has hosted short films, including music videos. In 2005 YouTube was launched, which made the viewing of music videos much faster and easier. It also allowed unknown musicians to attract attention from record producers, music agents, and to also build a fan base. For example Justin Bieber was an unknown YouTube artist before a record company found him and signed him to their label; YouTube was paramount to his success. VEVO is a music video website launched in 2009 by some major music publishers, in which Google, YouTube and VEVO shared the advertising revenue.