St. Louis Blues is a 1929 American two-reel short film staring Bessie Smith. It is deemed to be one of the first ever music videos to be made. It is the only known film of Bessie Smith and the soundtrack of it is her only recording not controlled by Columbia Records. This film massively promoted Bessie Smith soon after her hit single came out in 1925.
 |
| Bessie Smith |
St Louis Blues Film
1950's
In 1956, the 'Love Me Tender' film was released by 20th Century Fox which was named after Elvis Presley's song directed by Robert D. Webb. This films starred Richard Egan, Debra Paget and Elvis Presley in his acting debut. The single 'Love Me Tender' by Elvis was released two months before the film came out and already hit number 1 in the charts. When the film came out, the single again rose back to number 1 due to the popularity of the film and the soundtrack itself.
 |
| Love Me Tender Movie Poster |
This song in the film is played at the end scene. Because it is at the end scene, this is the most memorable movie scene for the audience. the lyrics of the song illustrate the visuals in this scene as it is about falling in love and not letting go of what you have. Therefore, in the end scene we see four people walk off into the distance with one couple holding hands.
Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley
1970's
In 1969, 'I want you back' was Jackson 5's first hit single for the band and was the only single used in their first album they released. The music video incorporated a lot of dance routines and singing and dancing at the same time and this meant other artist began to do the same within their music videos. There were many shots of the artist themselves which inevitably gave them a 'star profile' image.
1980's
Rod Stewart's single 'She wont dance with me' was one of the first singles to be presented on MTV in the US. The video below is the original video that was on the MTV show. With Rod Stewart being a British Rock singer, to be shown on TV in the US on the biggest music channel now was admirable.
1990's
Below is the video Eminem produced with the hit single ' My Name is'. Not only were the lippy lyrics massive in the UK at the time, when the video was released, the hits of the single rose by thousands due to masses of people being shocked by Eminem being a mental patient in the video. Not only this, but the collaboration for this song was with Dre, he was the doctor for Eminem in the music video.
How important are music videos today?
Some people say there’s a decline in music video quality since both the significant sums of money and MTV moved away from the genre, but music videos as an art form are as important now as they’ve ever been. They’re part of our visual language — a significant part of the culture of our consumption of music, art and entertainment. YouTube is the second biggest search engine over Google and the largest streaming music service worldwide, so discovering new music videos is easy. Music on the Internet is consumed and forgotten about daily, if not hourly. So from a record label point of view, an artist needs something bigger than an MP3 to get noticed. They need strong creative visuals to give them a substantial competitive advantage over their fellow artists who are all trying to do the same thing; to grab the audiences attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment