Hey, film student here. We learned about "The Little Lost Child" in an editing class a few months back, and I was completely unaware of how far back the concept of images and music had gone and definitely didn't expect to see it in a TH-cam video. Nice work.
as well as 1928 or 1929 short Waiting for A Train staring Jimmie Rogers who died in 1934. Cab Calaway had one short with all 3 parts of Minne the Moocher, Kicking the Gong Around, and the third part I forget the name with small transition bits for the songs.
I wrote an essay on this topic when I was in film school: many of the pre-WWII Vitaphones were being shown across the USA on a sort of jukebox, which even predated the use of jukeboxes for audio-only records. Fascinating stuff.
Pieces of musical performances are not videoclips, per se. In your case, I would investigate the influence of the visual jukebox machines like the scopitone and the cinebox. The Scopitone, introduced in France in the late 1950s, was a visual jukebox that played short films featuring popular songs. These machines were primarily found in bars and aimed to attract patrons with vibrant, Technicolor films. Each film typically lasted about three minutes and often included creative storytelling elements, making them visually engaging for an audience that might not be directly focused on the screen.
Black American blues/rock artist here. I LOVE your videos so much! 💜 They’re filled with so much information and always inspire me to dive deeper into American and Black American culture. Thank you for addressing the dark parts of American history that so many people try to ignore. I can’t wait to see more of your future videos! You’re amazing! 🎸
@@HoosierDaddy2a hey! So sorry for the late reply. (I live in Japan currently), and I literally just started getting more equipment while practicing the guitar more so when I finally start recording it will be on this channel. (I used to rap because I felt that was the only thing, now, nothing against hip hop, but I LOVE rock so much, so I’m trying to making my culture/ America proud by going back to our roots and more positivity, I’m originally from Mississippi) I’ll leave a comment again here when I finally upload 👍🏼
I love this series; you did a fantastic job! I teach Intro to Humanities for early and first-year college students and would love to use the series in class as the basis of an assignment. Could I use your work for educational purposes?
One of the most amazing marriages of film and sound is the opening credits to "Vertigo"--between Saul Bass's trippy visuals and Bernard Herrmann's spectacular score, it's like seeing a 2-minute art film before the Hitchcock movie even starts.
Funny you'd include Arca, I'm directing an hr long vid for their next project rn where I'm aiming to push the boundaries of what a music video can be. Excited for the rest of this series
This is going to be a great series, I feel like he's touched on some of these topics in the past and just putting them all together at this point will be cool.
Waiting For a Train the Music Stroy by Jimmie Rodgers in 1928 or 1929 looks like one of the early music videos promoted as a music short, he was the first country/bluegrass artist to make it big without the help of exclusively Nashville a big recording hub for bluegrass. the RCA and Western Electric for sound pioneered the Video Music that the Who with Tommy, the Wall with Pink Floyd, and Heavy metal helped make famous.
im so so excited for this, im a huge fan of you, music and film. ive had a fastination for music videos since a child and i think as a medium theyre absolutely underrated
There was a "DJ Set" to 40,000 music fans in Heaton Park, Manchester in 1919....maybe the first ever mega "rave" (albeit with classical / opera music 😊).
Cool new series, can't wait for the next episode. And it makes me wonder... do we want to be obtuse and go on with the mix of music and puppetry hawkers in ages past to now.
Scopitone is a type of jukebox featuring a 16 mm film component. Scopitone films were a forerunner of music videos. The 1959 Italian Cinebox/Colorama and Color-Sonics were competing, lesser-known technologies of the time one year before the Scopitone in France.[1] Scopitone machine Based on Soundies technology developed during World War II,[2] color 16 mm film shorts with a magnetic soundtrack were designed to be shown in a specially designed jukebox. The difference between the Panoram and the Scopitone jukebox was that with Panoram the 16mm films were black and white with optical sound and there was no selection among the 8 short films in the jukebox, whereas Scopitone featured color (in the US produced films Technicolor), with Hi-Fi magnetic soundtracks, with selection available between all 36 Scopitone films in the Scopitone Jukebox. Scopitone films, like Soundies, featured recordings that performers lip synced to, with at least one exception; Billy Lee Riley was recorded live performing the song "High Heel Sneakers" in his Scopitone. [3]
That's what I think as well, that Scopitone could be considered the 1st actual music videos, as they were promotional clips designed to sell make money for the exhibitor who had the video jukebox on site, and also promote the musicians that were featured in the video. Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walking" is probably the most famous of the Scopitone videos. Before that, most of the "music videos" were created as shorts for the movie theaters, either for animation or interludes between features to play along with newsreels.
@@deementia6796 One thing that was good about Scopitones is that they preserved the performances of artists, including many who were better known in Europe than in the U. S.
A music video is a clip used to promote a song. If story based It can last up to 12 minutes before it becomes a "short film". Performance videos of that length weren't made for promotional purposes. The first legitimate one was likely British and produced sometime between 1960-1963. Or you can just give the Beatles the credit for "Paperback Writer".
St James infirmary animation was my guess. Its one that clung to my mind like Felix the Cat. Animations that inspired me to be an illustrator. Visual Animation is as warm in my heart as Music
Here in Brazil a lot of people believe the first music video was Humberto Mauro's 1964 short A Velha a Fiar, a film whose scenes portray, in live action, the verses of a nursery rhyme. The thing is, Mauro had been making this kind of film since the 1940s.
In his song, "Walking in Memphis," Marc Cohn mentioned someone named W.C. Handy. "Put on my blue suede shoes/And I/Boarded the plane/Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues/In the middle of the pouring rain/W.C. Handy/Watching over me/Yeah, I've got a first-class ticket/But I'm as blue as a boy can be." I didn't know who that was, until you mentioned him. Thanks for explaining that reference! And thanks for the video! It's very informative.
I’ve heard the argument made that “Paper Doll” from the Mills Brothers is actually the first dedicated music video. The Fleischer animation and other Hollywood stuff you’ve presented are compelling choices, but they’re not dedicated music videos. There are fundamentally part of other artistic mediums. I don’t know where exactly to draw the line, but I tend to agree with the scholars that site “Paper Doll” as the first. I just finished this series and really enjoyed it, but was surprised about the lack of citation of this particular tune. Enjoyed watching!
Oooh my. I am very pleased about this. I saw Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie on a black and white TV when I was 5 years old and it turned me into a video hound from then onwards. Looking forward to the whole thing.
I recall a Local L.A. Station had a half hour program showing recent music videos in the late 70's early 80's. That's where I first heard of Cheap Trick. I vaguely remember it showing older music videos.
Per Wikipedia It was a Disney Silly Symphony Short named "Music Land" that was released in 1935. It features the Isle of Jazz and the Land of Symphony. It's the story of a romance between the son of the King of the Isle of Jazz and the daughter of the Queen of the Land of Symphony. The short is available to view on TH-cam. Bit of Trivia: The short was written by Pinto Colvig, who the original voice of Goofy.
I’m amazed that you didn’t discuss Fantasia, considering it’s basically the first music video compilation, which was derived from those silly symphonies shorts you discussed.
For myself, I consider something a music video as long as: (1) it features music, and (2) it features images that illustrate the music. In some cases it can be abstract images like in "Fantasia."
The first attempts at adding sound to movies in the 1900-1920 period were often musical numbers, the early attempts could barely sustain synchronization between sound and picture for more than the few minutes of a popular song, comic songs with accompanying on screen action were common subjects. In many case the sound on a record survives but the accompanying film footage is long lost. Often they took a popular record of the day and filmed visual accompaniment to match the song. I have a record with a 1907 date that has a label pasted over it for the film company , it also has a large arrow showing where the projectionist would line up the phonograph needle to start the synchronization.
Interesting, I am very interested in the topic since I grew up finding music through television, music videos, concerts, etc., for me the difference is very clear, the images produced and or edited intended to keep the music company are music videos , no matter the technique. or format, the difference is music videos from films and as part of larger narratives and as individual productions to accompany songs or musical pieces selected outside of a broad narrative (films), either for promotion or simply as artistic intention. When MTV came out, music videos were already very common in Europe, the United States and Japan, as far as I know.
Imo for a music video the music comes first. You have a song, or piece of music, that already exists and was created to stand on its own. Then you produce a video as a way to enhance the experience of this piece of music. The video may tell and refine the story already in the lyrics, it may add a story, it may just try to match the mood of the music, it may just show the musicians, whatever. But it should be a video as you said, i.e. moving pictures, not a collage of still images. If I understand the term correctly, still images or more abstract art shown to accompany music are sometimes called "visualizers". Then there's also the lyric video which I would distinguish from the music video because its primary concern is to show the lyrics, not to enhance the experience of the song.
Spooney Melodies Is what I always counted as the first music video. Because it wasn't just a musical performance or a peice of music in a wider work. And it wasn't just music set to imagery. It was that plus cuts of performers playing the song as well. It is a stand-alone, purposely made music video. Really surprised it wasn't mentioned
I'm afraid to say that the early history of sound films is a lot more complex than what you mentioned here. Contrary to what you will often read online, sound films of songs with perfectly synchronised, amplified sound were a thing as early as about 1908 (the amplification bizarely using compressed air or other mechanical means rather than vacuum tubes). The limiting factor with these films was the audio quality, cost and practicality in terms of splitting the soundtrack of a film across multiple records.
I remember my first time reading MTV's justification for giving the very first Lifetime Achievement VMA to the Beatles, which was that they "essentially invented the music video," and immediately calling BS. Now yes, music and video go way back (the earliest piece of synchronised audio-visual that we have, and probably the first ever made, is not of talking or street noise but of two dudes dancing to violin music) but even excluding the early technicality edge cases there's no real definition for "music video" you can craft that will let you tear out everything until you're down to 'Strawberry Fields Forever.' Even if you want to restrict it down to a thematically relevant promotional video for a single by a musical act then something like 'Travelin' Man' by Ricky Nelson gets there first before even their first single released to radio, let alone stuff like 'Penny Lane.' The VMAs just wanted to validate themselves as an awards show by giving something to the Beatles and that was the first idea they came up with. Which...I mean, they're the Beatles. You can do better than that.
If you were to ask what the first music video was or how to define it, I believe it should be any visual production created in an effort to support an earlier made audio track's sales. Many of the examples given here were either made to go along with products or were lifted after the fact. The Bessie Smith film is probably the earliest proper example. In the modern age, I'd argue The Beatles were way ahead of the curve with "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever".
A music video clip that to me is one of the best is the Sia video for Chandelier. It is a surprisingly complicated 'simple looking' video that pulls you in and never gets boring. No matter how many times you watch it your going to not look away. Björk's Army Of Me is another stand out for all sorts of other reasons.
I am from the MTV generation. I was 11 years old when MTV launched in 1981. This is the first time I have ever heard a music video defined as anything other than a short film or video to promote a music recording. If it was not created to promote the recording featured in the short film, I would not consider it a music video.
No, it has to do with intention, the function of the work, and a context of many others doing the same, and strictly speaking, there is a first music video, and it is 'Video Killed the Radio Star'. There's no reason for this video. A music video has to be a standalone film made expressly to accompany a song or other piece of music, and frankly, it has to be commercial and made to promote the song, and be one of many made by others for that same purpose. You might be able to count the short film made to accompany 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or some of the same made in the sixties like the one for 'Sunny Afternoon' by The Kinks or the ones by The Beatles, but again, they weren't conceived as music videos, which are a whole commercial art form conceived by multiple people simultaneously as a way to promote commercial music which occurred for the first time during the birth of MTV. A handful of promotional music films preceding that doesn't really count. They're outliers. No one knew what a music video was when these short music promotional films were made during the sixties because music videos didn't exist yet. 'Video Killed the Radio Star' was the first video. It was conceived as being a part of what was then a new commercial art form, part of a canon of similar examples.
The erroneous but popular idea that the modern music video as we now understand it began with the advent of MTV is myopically American-centric. In August 1981, MTV, and by extension the US, arrived very late to the music video party that had already been going for some time, globally speaking. The first video shown on MTV was the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” by British band the Buggles. But by that point, the video and the single it accompanied were already more than two years old. Music videos had been a standard part of the promotion of singles for years at that point in Europe and Australia. Of the first ten music videos broadcast on MTV, six are British. The “second British Invasion” that occurred in the early eighties - whereby new British bands dominated the American charts again, as they hadn’t done since the 60s - resulted in part because when MTV started there was an enormous supply of British music videos available to them, and relatively few American ones, and they needed to fill their schedule. It took American acts a while to catch up to what (to them, but not to the foreign bands with which they were competing) was a new way of doing business.
Nice to finally see you Polyphonic, & I gotta say, that you look absolutely nothing like I pictured, lol. All kidding aside, though, lol, I am looking forward to the rest of this series.
If we're talking actual music videos and not videos-that-also-have-musical-numbers, probably the stronger case is actually for the Beatles. They recorded what could be recognized as proper modern music videos to send to stations once touring/traveling became too much of a burden for them. Paperback Writer and Rain are two specific examples that come to mind (IIRC, they were a favour to Ed Sullivan but other stations received copies as well)
From the early 70s in Sydney, Australia, Saturday morning TV shows were set up & did nought but play music videos, frequently segments of things like Mad Dogs & Englishmen, live concert songs by Wishbone Ash etc. with an occasional interview or in studio performance. Sounds Unlimited which later became Sounds, Tubes was another. Flashez on the public broadcaster in the after school hour etc. MTV wasn't a serious thing here and it was, well & truly a concept, apart from the program length, usually two or three hours here until all Saturday morning with Beat Box and midnight until dawn with RAGE, that was explored without the Corporation Culture. Like so many things the US takes its involvement in something as the beginning & end despite, history or reality. Nevertheless, you videos recounting a somewhat jaundiced history, are good.
MTV indeed showed videos by black artists in the beginning but only black artists that were specifically rock artists because they did show John Butcher axis and Joan Armatrading and a couple others because they identified as ROCK artists and not RnB or Soul artists…
A soundie is a three-minute American musical film displaying a performance. Soundies were produced between 1940 and 1946 and have been referred to as "precursors to music videos".[1] Soundies exhibited a variety of musical genres in an effort to draw a broad audience. The shorts were originally viewed in public places on "Panorams": coin-operated, 16mm rear projection machines. Panorams were typically located in businesses like nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. Due to World War II, Soundies also featured patriotic messages and advertisements for war bonds. More adult shorts, such as burlesque and stripteases, were produced to appeal to soldiers on leave.[1]
I left once I realized this video considered video musical accompaniment the same as music promotional videos. They aren’t. And the suggestion that they somehow serve the same purpose is incorrect. Perhaps the Victorian opera paintings are music videos. Or perhaps media is widely ranging.
Hey, film student here. We learned about "The Little Lost Child" in an editing class a few months back, and I was completely unaware of how far back the concept of images and music had gone and definitely didn't expect to see it in a TH-cam video. Nice work.
off topic: love ur pfp. awesome album
It has to be cathartic to be able to use Steamboat Willy unedited now that its in the public domain
At least Steamboat Willie is now PD in the US. We Aussies have to wait until 2042 for Ub Iwerks’ whole tenure to become PD!
I want my Polyphonic TV
I read that in Sting’s voice on Money For Nothing lol
I want my
_(I want my)_
I want my P T Veeeee
I heard that in Sting's voice too, lol!
Sting was not in Dire Straits.@@oar5926
Aren’t you the guy who comments on like every video about Nirvana? Didn’t expect you here.
"St. Louis Blues" looks like the first modern music video to me.
I would agree because the film was made to feature the song. It wasn't a film that had music added like the earlier examples.
as well as 1928 or 1929 short Waiting for A Train staring Jimmie Rogers who died in 1934. Cab Calaway had one short with all 3 parts of Minne the Moocher, Kicking the Gong Around, and the third part I forget the name with small transition bits for the songs.
Did a “Whoop” when you said there would be seven episodes. Great stuff!
Same
Yes!!! ❤
Same!
I wrote an essay on this topic when I was in film school: many of the pre-WWII Vitaphones were being shown across the USA on a sort of jukebox, which even predated the use of jukeboxes for audio-only records. Fascinating stuff.
And then you have the scopitone and the cinebox in Europe, which were actual video jukebox and thus the real origin of the videoclip.
Jukeboxes predate Vitaphone. There were cylinder jukeboxes.
@@Tadfafty Holy sh*t you are right. Just found a picture of a cylinder jukebox online. What a strange machine.
4:46 Oh shit.. For a moment I thought I was in a Vsauce video hahaha
Wonderful essay video, as always
I thought it's was him for a second, but it wasn't. 😅
Any bald guys with a beard and glasses looks just like Vsauce.
Me too what a coincidence
Pieces of musical performances are not videoclips, per se. In your case, I would investigate the influence of the visual jukebox machines like the scopitone and the cinebox. The Scopitone, introduced in France in the late 1950s, was a visual jukebox that played short films featuring popular songs. These machines were primarily found in bars and aimed to attract patrons with vibrant, Technicolor films. Each film typically lasted about three minutes and often included creative storytelling elements, making them visually engaging for an audience that might not be directly focused on the screen.
Black American blues/rock artist here. I LOVE your videos so much! 💜 They’re filled with so much information and always inspire me to dive deeper into American and Black American culture.
Thank you for addressing the dark parts of American history that so many people try to ignore. I can’t wait to see more of your future videos! You’re amazing! 🎸
Where can I find your stuff?
@@HoosierDaddy2a hey! So sorry for the late reply. (I live in Japan currently), and I literally just started getting more equipment while practicing the guitar more so when I finally start recording it will be on this channel. (I used to rap because I felt that was the only thing, now, nothing against hip hop, but I LOVE rock so much, so I’m trying to making my culture/ America proud by going back to our roots and more positivity, I’m originally from Mississippi) I’ll leave a comment again here when I finally upload 👍🏼
I hope that you talk about what I believe they called Soundies
@@sharonjefferson5944 Good idea! I will incorporate that!
A series about the music video by Polyphonic?! … amazing
2:52 oh thats so cute they used to sell sheet music instead of records I’m giggling
Hell yeah, love when you do series like this and Axe to Grind. Fantastic documentaries they are
One of the clearest(cinematic like) best done early videos......THE ANIMALS DOING " HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN"......HANDS DOWN
Would an illustrated song be closer to Karaoke than a music video?
I love this series; you did a fantastic job! I teach Intro to Humanities for early and first-year college students and would love to use the series in class as the basis of an assignment. Could I use your work for educational purposes?
One of the most amazing marriages of film and sound is the opening credits to "Vertigo"--between Saul Bass's trippy visuals and Bernard Herrmann's spectacular score, it's like seeing a 2-minute art film before the Hitchcock movie even starts.
Funny you'd include Arca, I'm directing an hr long vid for their next project rn where I'm aiming to push the boundaries of what a music video can be. Excited for the rest of this series
This is going to be a great series, I feel like he's touched on some of these topics in the past and just putting them all together at this point will be cool.
Waiting For a Train the Music Stroy by Jimmie Rodgers in 1928 or 1929 looks like one of the early music videos promoted as a music short, he was the first country/bluegrass artist to make it big without the help of exclusively Nashville a big recording hub for bluegrass. the RCA and Western Electric for sound pioneered the Video Music that the Who with Tommy, the Wall with Pink Floyd, and Heavy metal helped make famous.
Great idea for a series, thank you.
im so so excited for this, im a huge fan of you, music and film. ive had a fastination for music videos since a child and i think as a medium theyre absolutely underrated
There was a "DJ Set" to 40,000 music fans in Heaton Park, Manchester in 1919....maybe the first ever mega "rave" (albeit with classical / opera music 😊).
I really hope Mike Nesmith is brought up with his pioneering videos like Elephant Parts.
the founding father of Mtv
I really hope him and the Monkees are mentioned in the next episodes!!
Cool new series, can't wait for the next episode. And it makes me wonder... do we want to be obtuse and go on with the mix of music and puppetry hawkers in ages past to now.
Scopitone is a type of jukebox featuring a 16 mm film component. Scopitone films were a forerunner of music videos. The 1959 Italian Cinebox/Colorama and Color-Sonics were competing, lesser-known technologies of the time one year before the Scopitone in France.[1]
Scopitone machine
Based on Soundies technology developed during World War II,[2] color 16 mm film shorts with a magnetic soundtrack were designed to be shown in a specially designed jukebox. The difference between the Panoram and the Scopitone jukebox was that with Panoram the 16mm films were black and white with optical sound and there was no selection among the 8 short films in the jukebox, whereas Scopitone featured color (in the US produced films Technicolor), with Hi-Fi magnetic soundtracks, with selection available between all 36 Scopitone films in the Scopitone Jukebox. Scopitone films, like Soundies, featured recordings that performers lip synced to, with at least one exception; Billy Lee Riley was recorded live performing the song "High Heel Sneakers" in his Scopitone. [3]
That's what I think as well, that Scopitone could be considered the 1st actual music videos, as they were promotional clips designed to sell make money for the exhibitor who had the video jukebox on site, and also promote the musicians that were featured in the video. Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walking" is probably the most famous of the Scopitone videos. Before that, most of the "music videos" were created as shorts for the movie theaters, either for animation or interludes between features to play along with newsreels.
@@deementia6796 One thing that was good about Scopitones is that they preserved the performances of artists, including many who were better known in Europe than in the U. S.
Great video! I cant wait for the next one!
A music video is a clip used to promote a song. If story based It can last up to 12 minutes before it becomes a "short film". Performance videos of that length weren't made for promotional purposes. The first legitimate one was likely British and produced sometime between 1960-1963. Or you can just give the Beatles the credit for "Paperback Writer".
St James infirmary animation was my guess. Its one that clung to my mind like Felix the Cat.
Animations that inspired me to be an illustrator. Visual Animation is as warm in my heart as Music
Here in Brazil a lot of people believe the first music video was Humberto Mauro's 1964 short A Velha a Fiar, a film whose scenes portray, in live action, the verses of a nursery rhyme. The thing is, Mauro had been making this kind of film since the 1940s.
In his song, "Walking in Memphis," Marc Cohn mentioned someone named W.C. Handy. "Put on my blue suede shoes/And I/Boarded the plane/Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues/In the middle of the pouring rain/W.C. Handy/Watching over me/Yeah, I've got a first-class ticket/But I'm as blue as a boy can be." I didn't know who that was, until you mentioned him. Thanks for explaining that reference! And thanks for the video! It's very informative.
Being a vtuber fan has evolved my definition of what a music video can be. If still images can tell a story, I qualify that as a music video.
Fantastic! I love these deep dives into the history of popular media. Thank you for your work!
I’ve heard the argument made that “Paper Doll” from the Mills Brothers is actually the first dedicated music video. The Fleischer animation and other Hollywood stuff you’ve presented are compelling choices, but they’re not dedicated music videos. There are fundamentally part of other artistic mediums. I don’t know where exactly to draw the line, but I tend to agree with the scholars that site “Paper Doll” as the first. I just finished this series and really enjoyed it, but was surprised about the lack of citation of this particular tune. Enjoyed watching!
Oooh my. I am very pleased about this. I saw Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie on a black and white TV when I was 5 years old and it turned me into a video hound from then onwards.
Looking forward to the whole thing.
Love it. Great work as always 🙏🏼
What a great way to announce a series, truly. Hahaha, I thought "A huevo 😎" at the end 🇲🇽
We needed at least a mention of Al Bowllys recordings with Pathe 😭
Polyphonic ❤🔥 Thank you for the knowledge! Hit Record is sick I love it !
Oh my goodness I am so excited for the rest of this series…
I recall a Local L.A. Station had a half hour program showing recent music videos in the late 70's early 80's. That's where I first heard of Cheap Trick. I vaguely remember it showing older music videos.
13:52 What is that cartoon that shows the "Isle of Jazz"? Disney?
Per Wikipedia It was a Disney Silly Symphony Short named "Music Land" that was released in 1935. It features the Isle of Jazz and the Land of Symphony. It's the story of a romance between the son of the King of the Isle of Jazz and the daughter of the Queen of the Land of Symphony. The short is available to view on TH-cam. Bit of Trivia: The short was written by Pinto Colvig, who the original voice of Goofy.
My answer to that beginning was old cartoons.
I’m amazed that you didn’t discuss Fantasia, considering it’s basically the first music video compilation, which was derived from those silly symphonies shorts you discussed.
I love polyphonic ❤
For myself, I consider something a music video as long as: (1) it features music, and (2) it features images that illustrate the music. In some cases it can be abstract images like in "Fantasia."
0:30 Black and white is the opposite of Technicolor.
What a great presentation this was.
Oh nice, a series! I really hope Kenneth Anger's work is included when we get to the 60s-70s
7:25 WHAT is this amazing Music Typewriter I see here? any names?
After watching this, I immediately started watching the list of 106 original MTV music videos.
The first attempts at adding sound to movies in the 1900-1920 period were often musical numbers, the early attempts could barely sustain synchronization between sound and picture for more than the few minutes of a popular song, comic songs with accompanying on screen action were common subjects. In many case the sound on a record survives but the accompanying film footage is long lost. Often they took a popular record of the day and filmed visual accompaniment to match the song. I have a record with a 1907 date that has a label pasted over it for the film company , it also has a large arrow showing where the projectionist would line up the phonograph needle to start the synchronization.
Interesting, I am very interested in the topic since I grew up finding music through television, music videos, concerts, etc., for me the difference is very clear, the images produced and or edited intended to keep the music company are music videos , no matter the technique. or format, the difference is music videos from films and as part of larger narratives and as individual productions to accompany songs or musical pieces selected outside of a broad narrative (films), either for promotion or simply as artistic intention. When MTV came out, music videos were already very common in Europe, the United States and Japan, as far as I know.
Before MTV there were shows that aired new music videos. MTV just made it so that every artist wanted to make music videos.
Imo for a music video the music comes first. You have a song, or piece of music, that already exists and was created to stand on its own. Then you produce a video as a way to enhance the experience of this piece of music. The video may tell and refine the story already in the lyrics, it may add a story, it may just try to match the mood of the music, it may just show the musicians, whatever. But it should be a video as you said, i.e. moving pictures, not a collage of still images. If I understand the term correctly, still images or more abstract art shown to accompany music are sometimes called "visualizers". Then there's also the lyric video which I would distinguish from the music video because its primary concern is to show the lyrics, not to enhance the experience of the song.
I'm loving this series. I had to come back to watch it here on YT to clear it out of my to Watch list though. 😂
You're telling me the original music video was... a lyrics video
Spooney Melodies
Is what I always counted as the first music video. Because it wasn't just a musical performance or a peice of music in a wider work. And it wasn't just music set to imagery. It was that plus cuts of performers playing the song as well. It is a stand-alone, purposely made music video.
Really surprised it wasn't mentioned
I'm afraid to say that the early history of sound films is a lot more complex than what you mentioned here. Contrary to what you will often read online, sound films of songs with perfectly synchronised, amplified sound were a thing as early as about 1908 (the amplification bizarely using compressed air or other mechanical means rather than vacuum tubes). The limiting factor with these films was the audio quality, cost and practicality in terms of splitting the soundtrack of a film across multiple records.
I remember my first time reading MTV's justification for giving the very first Lifetime Achievement VMA to the Beatles, which was that they "essentially invented the music video," and immediately calling BS. Now yes, music and video go way back (the earliest piece of synchronised audio-visual that we have, and probably the first ever made, is not of talking or street noise but of two dudes dancing to violin music) but even excluding the early technicality edge cases there's no real definition for "music video" you can craft that will let you tear out everything until you're down to 'Strawberry Fields Forever.' Even if you want to restrict it down to a thematically relevant promotional video for a single by a musical act then something like 'Travelin' Man' by Ricky Nelson gets there first before even their first single released to radio, let alone stuff like 'Penny Lane.'
The VMAs just wanted to validate themselves as an awards show by giving something to the Beatles and that was the first idea they came up with. Which...I mean, they're the Beatles. You can do better than that.
Watched it on Nebula. Here for the like. Can't wait for the next ep!\
They've been filming songs ever since sound movies. And don't forget Scopitone (a sort of video jukebox).
If you were to ask what the first music video was or how to define it, I believe it should be any visual production created in an effort to support an earlier made audio track's sales. Many of the examples given here were either made to go along with products or were lifted after the fact. The Bessie Smith film is probably the earliest proper example. In the modern age, I'd argue The Beatles were way ahead of the curve with "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever".
A music video clip that to me is one of the best is the Sia video for Chandelier. It is a surprisingly complicated 'simple looking' video that pulls you in and never gets boring. No matter how many times you watch it your going to not look away. Björk's Army Of Me is another stand out for all sorts of other reasons.
love me a polyphonic series
I really hope the Monkees are brought up and Mike Nesmith.
crazy how far these ideas were already in motion so many centuries ago.
I am from the MTV generation. I was 11 years old when MTV launched in 1981.
This is the first time I have ever heard a music video defined as anything other than a short film or video to promote a music recording. If it was not created to promote the recording featured in the short film, I would not consider it a music video.
5:18 I never expected to see the thumbnail of a Man Carrying Thing video in a Polyphonic video.
Man Carrying Polyphonic
Great idea, thank you.
Great video.
No, it has to do with intention, the function of the work, and a context of many others doing the same, and strictly speaking, there is a first music video, and it is 'Video Killed the Radio Star'. There's no reason for this video. A music video has to be a standalone film made expressly to accompany a song or other piece of music, and frankly, it has to be commercial and made to promote the song, and be one of many made by others for that same purpose. You might be able to count the short film made to accompany 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or some of the same made in the sixties like the one for 'Sunny Afternoon' by The Kinks or the ones by The Beatles, but again, they weren't conceived as music videos, which are a whole commercial art form conceived by multiple people simultaneously as a way to promote commercial music which occurred for the first time during the birth of MTV. A handful of promotional music films preceding that doesn't really count. They're outliers. No one knew what a music video was when these short music promotional films were made during the sixties because music videos didn't exist yet. 'Video Killed the Radio Star' was the first video. It was conceived as being a part of what was then a new commercial art form, part of a canon of similar examples.
Finally another Polyphonic Series :)
The erroneous but popular idea that the modern music video as we now understand it began with the advent of MTV is myopically American-centric. In August 1981, MTV, and by extension the US, arrived very late to the music video party that had already been going for some time, globally speaking.
The first video shown on MTV was the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” by British band the Buggles. But by that point, the video and the single it accompanied were already more than two years old. Music videos had been a standard part of the promotion of singles for years at that point in Europe and Australia. Of the first ten music videos broadcast on MTV, six are British.
The “second British Invasion” that occurred in the early eighties - whereby new British bands dominated the American charts again, as they hadn’t done since the 60s - resulted in part because when MTV started there was an enormous supply of British music videos available to them, and relatively few American ones, and they needed to fill their schedule. It took American acts a while to catch up to what (to them, but not to the foreign bands with which they were competing) was a new way of doing business.
Right. It's important to define what a 'music video" is before you can point to the "first" one!
Nice to finally see you Polyphonic, & I gotta say, that you look absolutely nothing like I pictured, lol. All kidding aside, though, lol, I am looking forward to the rest of this series.
Dude, are you from Canada?
14:20 is this from RKS free fall?
What's that cartoon at 0:40
1933 Betty Boop in Snow White, from the Fleischer's
Was minstrelsy prominent in Canada as well?
I always thought of Sinatra singing I’ve got you under my skin it was like this demo take I believe but it was shown in tvs and other things
MTV gets too much credit, The NewMusic on CityTV in Toronto started in 1979 and arguably did it better until it aged out
Yeah, I would like to see more coverage of pre-MTV precursors.
@@juniorjames7076 Interesting idea for a video!
So, the first music video was basically a lyric video.
4:46 for a second I thought you were Vsauce. :)
If we're talking actual music videos and not videos-that-also-have-musical-numbers, probably the stronger case is actually for the Beatles.
They recorded what could be recognized as proper modern music videos to send to stations once touring/traveling became too much of a burden for them. Paperback Writer and Rain are two specific examples that come to mind (IIRC, they were a favour to Ed Sullivan but other stations received copies as well)
From the early 70s in Sydney, Australia, Saturday morning TV shows were set up & did nought but play music videos, frequently segments of things like Mad Dogs & Englishmen, live concert songs by Wishbone Ash etc. with an occasional interview or in studio performance. Sounds Unlimited which later became Sounds, Tubes was another. Flashez on the public broadcaster in the after school hour etc. MTV wasn't a serious thing here and it was, well & truly a concept, apart from the program length, usually two or three hours here until all Saturday morning with Beat Box and midnight until dawn with RAGE, that was explored without the Corporation Culture. Like so many things the US takes its involvement in something as the beginning & end despite, history or reality. Nevertheless, you videos recounting a somewhat jaundiced history, are good.
I wonder how similar this series will be to the 1986 BBC History of the Music Video by John Peel and John Walters.
I want to see the next episode
ok... the first MV is just as hard to pin down as the last MV.
MTV indeed showed videos by black artists in the beginning but only black artists that were specifically rock artists because they did show John Butcher axis and Joan Armatrading and a couple others because they identified as ROCK artists and not RnB or Soul artists…
i literally did a spit take when you said _SEVEN_
Good new series
I'm incredibly disappointed you didn't mention King of Jazz. They are at least the first compilation of music videos
A soundie is a three-minute American musical film displaying a performance. Soundies were produced between 1940 and 1946 and have been referred to as "precursors to music videos".[1] Soundies exhibited a variety of musical genres in an effort to draw a broad audience. The shorts were originally viewed in public places on "Panorams": coin-operated, 16mm rear projection machines. Panorams were typically located in businesses like nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. Due to World War II, Soundies also featured patriotic messages and advertisements for war bonds. More adult shorts, such as burlesque and stripteases, were produced to appeal to soldiers on leave.[1]
1:34 RIP thomas u would’ve loved youtube🙏
born in the wrong generation. he would’ve been making tiktok text edits😭
I want my polyphonic tv
I left once I realized this video considered video musical accompaniment the same as music promotional videos. They aren’t. And the suggestion that they somehow serve the same purpose is incorrect.
Perhaps the Victorian opera paintings are music videos.
Or perhaps media is widely ranging.
good video
I love this
Illustrated song is closer than a totp performance at least for me
Big Yap, we know you want it to be Bob Dylan.