The Journey of Music Videos

In 1981, the music video had less significance than it does today, it can lead to the success of an artist. It was MTV who gave the music video significance, and when they aired the first ever music video, 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles. This was the first time the music video could actually influence a artists status in the music industry, for example Madonna's career was greatly aided as she became notoriously well known for her sex appeal.


Nowadays, the music video is as important as the song itself, sometimes even deciding the success of a song or artist. Collections of music videos are being sold on tapes or DVDs. Music video's greatest fans are apparently watching them muted just to enjoy their artistic value, as they consider it to be a new form of art. They consider that a music video should be assessed based on its visual qualities and not on the song quality. It seems that the music 'gurus', corporate managers, have realised the potential of using female sex-appeal in music videos, The advances in technology has meant that television can be interest specific, with the introduction of sky.therefore this feature is being used excessively as it is more popular for the public. One of the most sexually explicit videos is Christina Aguilera's Dirty, she is heavily sexualized, the argument is that this video has made the song more popular especially amongst males because of its content.

In the 80's Rowan Atkinson launched a comedy programme called 'Not the Nine O'clock News' it was shown at the same time as the nine o'clock news and was and altenrtaive. The itself programme involved parody songs, comedy sketches, re-edited videos. The catch phrase was 'Nice video shame about the song' this highlights how in many cases the videos were of very good quality and were alot better than the song.

The famous Micahel Jackson video 'Thriller', is seen by many as the best video ever, it was directed by John Landis who was a film director. This completley changed the face of music videos as they became a production and more like mini films.

For example KERRANGS music channel, will attract different audiences to magics. 30 years on the MTV have expanded, into various sections. They have several sections including MTV Rocks, Hits and Base. As well as MTV other companies have their own music channel in which songs are played, radio channels such as Magic and KISS including other well known channels like the The Hits and VIVA have joined the industry.