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Which music video kicked the whole thing off? |
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#1 |
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Which music video kicked the whole thing off?
Over the years whenever the question is asked "who started off the music video?" Vienna by Ultravox is always the one that springs to people's mind from 1981, and indeed it was a brilliant video and of course song as well.
But watching the trailer on tele for the forthcoming programme Guilty Pleasures. Whenever I hear a bit of The feeling doing their rendition of "Video Killed The Radio Star" it reminds me of The Buggles who originally wrote and took this song to number one in 1979. For me it's this song and band that kicked of the age of the music video. Anyone agree with me or is there another band and video you think was the one that kicked off the age of the music video? Or for you was it Ultravox's Vienna? |
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#2 |
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Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody.
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#3 |
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I think Michael Jackson and Madonna can both be credited with taking bigger risks with music videos.
Not really sure who started it all off though, I always thought it was that 'Video killed the radio star' one. |
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#4 |
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yes i think it was queen,ultravox is too late on,thought that was 1982 rather than 1981.
[just checked it was actually released earlier,in 1980] Did you not watch top of the pops in the 1970s?there were plenty of videos by the time of ultravox. bohemian rhapsody was 1975 Last edited by beintot : 07-03-2008 at 22:48. Reason: add info |
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#5 |
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The first one I remember was Dave and Ansell Collins Double Barrel. This had a video featuring the artists as gansters in old fashioned cars - in 1971.
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#6 |
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The first video played on MTV was Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star but Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody is generally credited as being the first real music video.
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#7 |
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Here you go: Timeline from Wikipedia Quote:
1941: A new invention hits clubs and bars in the USA: The Panoram Soundie is a jukebox that plays short videoclips along with the music.
1956: Hollywood discovers the genre of music-centered films. A wave of rock'n'roll films begins (Rock Around the Clock, Don't Knock the Rock, Shake, Rattle and Rock, Rock Pretty Baby, The Girl Can't Help It, and the famous Elvis Presley movies). Some of these films integrate musical performances into a story, others are simply revues. 1960: In France a re-invention of the Soundie, the Scopitone, gains limited success. 1961: Ricky Nelson's Travelin' Man video is shown on television. 1962: British Television invents a new form of music television. Shows like Top Of The Pops, Ready! Steady! Go! and Oh, Boy start as band vehicles and become huge hits. 1964: The US-Television market adapts the format. Hullabaloo is one of the first US shows of this kind, followed by Shindig! (NBC) and American Bandstand; The Beatles star in A Hard Day's Night 1965: Bob Dylan films Subterranean Homesick Blues as a segment for D. A. Pennebaker's film, Dont Look Back, with two alternate takes. 1966: The first conceptual promos are aired, for the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" and "Rain". Early in 1967, even more ambitious videos are released for "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever". 1968: The Rolling Stones collaborate with Jean-Luc Godard on Sympathy for the Devil 1970: The record industry discovers these TV-Shows as a great opportunity to promote their artists. They focus on producing short "Promos", early music videos which started to replace the live performance of the artist on the TV-stage. Also, the Atlanta-produced Now Explosion starts a 26-week run in syndication. 1973: The first of forty-six different Schoolhouse Rock music videos begin airing during Saturday morning cartoons on ABC. 1974: ABBA pioneer the use of "Promos" with their clips, directed by Lasse Hallström. These contain innovative effects, camera angles, and a less static look than is the norm at the time. The band continue using such videos throughout the 1970s. 1975: "Bohemian Rhapsody", a groundbreaking video released by Queen, marks the beginning of the video era and sets the language for the modern music video. The video is considered one of the first to use advanced visual effects. "Tommy", the film adaptation of The Who's rock opera is released. 1979: Devo releases "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise", which is the first music video to include computer animation, as well as traditional animation. Another 1979 video with computer animation is "Computer Games", by New Zealand band MiSex. 1980: "Ashes to Ashes", considered a groundbreaking video, is released by David Bowie. 1981: MTV, the first 24-hour satellite music channel, launches in August. Initially few cable TV operators carry it, but it rapidly becomes a major hit and cultural icon. "Shock Treatment" is released in theatres. 1981: Michael Nesmith wins the first ever music video Grammy, for Elephant Parts. Pink Floyd The Wall is released in theatres. 1983: Night Tracks debuts on Superstation WTBS (later known as TBS) with up to 14 hours of music videos each weekend by 1985. This allows nearly all U.S. households with Cable TV to view music videos regularly, as MTV still isn't widely available at this point in time compared to WTBS. 1983: Friday Night Videos debuts on the NBC television network, allowing nearly all U.S. households to view music videos regularly. Michael Jackson's Billie Jean video is released on TV, and for the first time a black artist's video is featured in heavy rotation on MTV with the video for his Beat It hit single. 1984: Laura Branigan's video for her hit song "Self Control" is refused airplay by MTV, who demand certain cuts be made to remove content they find objectionable. 1984: Prince releases Purple Rain, , but its soundtrack is nominated for an Oscar a cheesy and lowed-rated movie. But it is successful, selling 15 million copies. 1984: Michael Jackson's short film Thriller is released, changing the concept of music videos forever. The Making of Thriller home video is also released in 1984. It is the first ever video about the making of a music video and it becomes the best selling VHS to date. MTV presents its first Video Music Awards, hosted by Dan Aykroyd and Bette Midler. The Grammys award Best Short Form Music Video, as well as Best Long Form Music Video. 1985: a-ha find instant stardom with their hit song "Take On Me", significantly due to heavy rotation play of the song's video, which features a combination of live action and rotoscoping animation. The groundbreaking video wins several awards and is consistently rated as one of the best for decades to come. 1985: Madonna's video for her hit single "Material Girl" is released. It is largely based on Marilyn Monroe's performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes A huge storm of interest explodes for the video. The video is considered one of the most memorable and always comes up in "The Best Videos" lists. 1986: "Sledgehammer", the groundbreaking video from Peter Gabriel, furthers the revival of animation in music video, utilizing stop-motion photography and winning several awards. 1989: MTV renames its "Video Vanguard Award" the "Michael Jackson Vanguard Award" in honor of the pop star's contributions to the art of music video. 1989: Madonna's controversial video for "Like a Prayer" is released. 1990: MTV bans Madonna's Justify My Love video. It is released as a video single, the first of its kind. 1991: Nirvana release the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video, catapulting Kurt Cobain - and the grunge genre - into the American and Worldwide mainstream. First use of the now-familiar morphing special effect in a music video, with Michael Jackson's "Black or White" (directed by John Landis), from his album Dangerous. 1992: MTV begins to credit music video directors. 1995: Release of the most expensive music video ever "Scream", from Michael Jackson's HIStory album, a duet with his sister Janet. 1996: Pop-up Video is first aired on VH1. 1996: M2 is launched as a 24-hour music video channel, as MTV has largely replaced videos with other content. 1999: M2 is renamed to MTV2. Making the Video, a series chronicling the production of a music video, premieres on MTV. 2002: MTV Hits is launched, as MTV2 is gradually showing fewer music videos (now virtually non-existent on MTV2). 2005: Grandaddy fan Stewart Smith releases unofficial "Jed's Other Poem" music video online along with the source code that created it. It is the first open source music video and is later sanctioned by Grandaddy's label, V2 Records. 2007: Musicbox (URL: musicbox.sonybmg.com) is launched by Sony BMG. This online portal signifies the first free streaming effort owned and operated by a major label. 2008: The first 3D video ever is made by Dave Meyers and Missy Elliott for her single Ching-a-Ling |
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#8 |
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I'd say the Beatles in 66, with the promo for 'Rain'...
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#9 |
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Back in the 70s, I remember David Cassidy's video promo for Daydreamer. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is always cited, and is the most well known as it was shown every week on good old Top of the Pops when it was number 1. Abba also made some memorable videos for their songs back in the 70s. Knowing Me Knowing You was one of my favourites.
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#10 |
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I remember in the early days of video drinking in a Paisley watering hole ( yeh, I know I lived dangerously ) and ZZ Top - Legs was constantly played on the "video jukebox"....I wonder why
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#11 |
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Quote:
Back in the 70s, I remember David Cassidy's video promo for Daydreamer. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is always cited, and is the most well known as it was shown every week on good old Top of the Pops when it was number 1. Abba also made some memorable videos for their songs back in the 70s. Knowing Me Knowing You was one of my favourites.
It soon took off. You had to scour magazines in those days to get snippets of information and to see them on a piece of film was tv gold. That Sledgehammer video always sticks in my mind but that was much later. |
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#12 |
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Another early contender, the Kinks 'Dead end street' 1966.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=i0WPC-N3UYE Oasis used this vid as an influence for their 'The Importance of Being Idle' Vid. |
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#13 |
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Quote:
Another early contender, the Kinks 'Dead end street' 1966.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=i0WPC-N3UYE Oasis used this vid as an influence for their 'The Importance of Being Idle' Vid. |
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#14 |
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Wasn't Blondie's "Eat To The Beat" the first video album to be released ?
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#15 |
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Quote:
I immediately thought of this one when I saw the thread title. Why does Queen get the credit?
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#16 |
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Dire Straits - money for nothing is the one I remember as being the first music video that I saw.
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#17 |
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#18 |
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what about all the films that promoted artists?
I think there needs to be a distinction from film and a distinct promotional video you get back to Dianna Durbin and maybe even some jazz band as soon as 'talkies' started - Al Jolson? Mario Lanza? I thought BR was the first specific promotional clip, but I'm open to correction |
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#19 |
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Quote:
what about all the films that promoted artists?
I think there needs to be a distinction from film and a distinct promotional video you get back to Dianna Durbin and maybe even some jazz band as soon as 'talkies' started - Al Jolson? Mario Lanza? I thought BR was the first specific promotional clip, but I'm open to correction Good point about the Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. But would this be termed more as a film when the artists were unable to make an appearance on TOTP? I just feel it goes back to before Ultravox with Vienna. |
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#20 |
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Strangely enough I've never heard Vienna cited as the first proper music video.
I've always thought Bo Rhap was the first step towards modern music videos and that Video Killed the Radio Star was the earliest modern music video. |
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#21 |
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I know what you mean. The reason I started this thread off in the first place was, that over the years I have been sick to death of hearing that Vienna by Ultravox was the one that kicked off the whole music video in the first place. I still think it was The Buggles with Video Killed The Radio Star.
Good point about the Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. But would this be termed more as a film when the artists were unable to make an appearance on TOTP? I just feel it goes back to before Ultravox with Vienna. ![]() The clue is in the words of the title. Well it's not even a clue is it? It's even more literal than that. You suggest that Bohemian Rhapsody was just a film made by Queen to be used on TOTP if they couldn't manage to turn up? Do you seriously think they're going to go to that kind of trouble putting in the time and effort of making a video like that just in case they couldn't make TOTP? ![]() By the same token you could say that 'Video Killed the Radio Star' was 'just a film' that got used on MTV. What is a video if not a film? I was a kid in the seventies. They showed videos all the time on TOTP. You make it sound as though TOTP somehow doesn't count. It was a showcase that made careers. I always watched because I liked to watch the videos that came on. Videos were obviously made to promote the songs of the acts. There were plenty of videos around. Just have a look on youtube there's absolutely loads of videos from songs from the seventies. |
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#22 |
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Quote:
Strangely enough I've never heard Vienna cited as the first proper music video.
I've always thought Bo Rhap was the first step towards modern music videos and that Video Killed the Radio Star was the earliest modern music video. I've seen The Beatles 'Strawberry Fields Forever' video which shows the film slowed down and reversed with them jumping backwards up trees and other various weird effects. |
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#23 |
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Quote:
If The Buggles song 'Video Killed the Radio Star' was titled 'Video Killed the Radio Star', then it so clearly isn't
![]() The clue is in the words of the title. Well it's not even a clue is it? It's even more literal than that. You suggest that Bohemian Rhapsody was just a film made by Queen to be used on TOTP if they couldn't manage to turn up? Do you seriously think they're going to go to that kind of trouble putting in the time and effort of making a video like that just in case they couldn't make TOTP? ![]() By the same token you could say that 'Video Killed the Radio Star' was 'just a film' that got used on MTV. What is a video if not a film? I was a kid in the seventies. They showed videos all the time on TOTP. You make it sound as though TOTP somehow doesn't count. It was a showcase that made careers. I always watched because I liked to watch the videos that came on. Videos were obviously made to promote the songs of the acts. There were plenty of videos around. Just have a look on youtube there's absolutely loads of videos from songs from the seventies. Bohemian Rhapsody the band the song the video is pure genius. I think what I was gettting at was. The 80's was the decade of music videos and I have heard Ultravox's Vienna being hailed as the music video that kicked it all off. Where I feel in 1979 when The Buggles released "Video killed the radio star" it was that video that paved the way for the music videos of the 80's. That's just my opinion. |
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#24 |
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TOTP was great and yes back then it did indeed count. Someone posted above about The Kinks "Dead End Street" being the first pop music video back in the sixties and watching the link though I remember it at the time I see what the poster means.
Bohemian Rhapsody the band the song the video is pure genius. I think what I was gettting at was. The 80's was the decade of music videos and I have heard Ultravox's Vienna being hailed as the music video that kicked it all off. Where I feel in 1979 when The Buggles released "Video killed the radio star" it was that video that paved the way for the music videos of the 80's. That's just my opinion. But before the 80s people were already using videos to promote their record sales. It didn't just 'kick off' in the 80s, it was already established long before MTV came along. Before the 80s TOTP was a career maker and people made promos purposely designed to promote their songs and get shown on TOTP. One of the co-founders of Stiff records said that he deliberately got Madness doing videos to sell records. He said that sometimes the video was better than the song and it was the video that sold it. Madness were a huge commercial success and had already hit their peak before MTV came along. MTV could only come to exist if it was already an established common practice to make music videos. It wasn't a case of 'We'll set up a TV station that's going to sit here and wait around for a while, so you go and invent the music video'. That would be ret-conning the past. It simply couldn't happen that way. Setting up a TV station like MTV would be a pretty major operation. If there was no market already in place for them to exploit then they simply wouldn't invest so much money into it. They needed music videos to already be made as the norm for them to even dream of making a TV channel to show them. They couldn't wait around and just cross their fingers and hope that people make videos in the future if they weren't already doing so. Like I said, check out youtube. There's tons of music videos from before the 80s. Music videos were already there being made to help sell records. They didn't just 'kick off' in the 80s. This is very similar to a discussion I remember in the cult forum where somebody posted in an 'Ashes to Ashes' thread of the TV show by the same name to say that MTV started off the idea of the music video selling records. This is practically the same discussion. |
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#25 |
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I'd say Bo Rhap was the first TRUE music video, as it was properly crafted, used lots of then-cutting-edge video effects, not to mention sound effects, lighting etc, and was really the most "arty" of the videos at the time. I also THINK it was the first song featured on TOTP that ran without the artist(s) being present.
In general, I think it's the amount of work, time, effort and thought and creativity that went into BR that earns it its place in history, not to mention the fact that it was, at the time, much longer than any other songs around. |
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