History of Music Videos

Origin: the very first music video (illustrated song)

1894- The first “music video” was presented, and consisted of a song named “The Little Lost Child” being played over a series of still images, while an actor performed simultaneously. This was known as illustrated song, and would lead on to become what we know as a music video.

As for the first actual music video, that was created in the 1920s, in the form of talkies, which were just clips with sound. Many musical shorts were spawned from this, which could be classed as music videos as they had lyrics for the audience to follow, dedicated producers and even animation, such as a bouncing ball to track lyrics and allow the audience to sing along accurately.

In the 1950s, Tony Bennett supposedly created the very first music video, with a clip of him in Hyde park which would later be used in conjunction with his song “Stranger in Paradise”.

Music videos as we know them didn’t become popular in the mainstream until the 1980s, taking the common narrative or performance conventions that are so common in today’s music videos.

In the modern era,music videos can and do differ substantially as there are many different viable ways to create a music video. Popular options now include lyric videos, as well as performance and narrative music videos. Additionally, Starset recently created an interactive 360 degree music video for their song Ricochet.
The changes that music videos have progressed through over time are staggering, going from nothing but black and white low quality clips to immersive, fully interactive lyric videos that are simultaneously narrative videos.