Music Video Timeline History

50s/60s 
Artists such as Bob Dylan and The Beatles had videos themselves performing played on TV. these were very basic music videos as it was just them playing.


70s 
In 1975 Queen released the music video for Bohemian Rhapsody. This was very significant at the time as the video cost around £3,500 to produce and was unlike any other video at the time. 
Roll "Its influence cannot be overstated, practically inventing the music video seven years before MTV went on the air.
The music video was also beneficial for artists like Weird Al Yankovic as he could also parody videos instead of just songs, therefore adding more humour into his work.

80s 
The 80s saw Michael Jacksons' "Thriller" the first ever music video to have a film director directing it and professional choreography. Also, Madonnas' music videos started focusing on performance and coordination as well.
MTV was launched in 1981 making music videos inevitably essential for artists and bands and popularising music videos forever.
However, MTV became very corporate as it banned Queen's "I Want To Break Free". This discouraged artistic freedom from musicians. 


90s
MTV still going strong through the 90s and dominating the music scene, making it harder for new upcoming artists since they would need a music video as well as a song to be distributed. Music videos became more popularised during the 90s with Nirvana's Unplugged album and Green Day's "Basket Case", "Longview" etc. These videos would be played constantly throughout the day when they came out.


2000s 
2005 Was when YouTube was released. Bands and Artists soon realised this was the most suitable place to have their videos as it was accessible to everyone and free to upload anything, and money would come in from ad revenue.
New technology gave people extreme freedom and new techniques that could be used to make music videos more interesting and impressive. For example, The White Stripes' music videos use green screen techniques and editing to their advantage creating meticulous videos.
YouTube and the internet also meant music videos could reach a mass audience on an incredibly large scale, such as Gangnam Style which has had over two billion views.