When did most bands start making music videos?

[Digital_Man]

I just saw a video for "Fly by night" by Rush which looks like it was probably made at the time the song(and album)were released. I know there were videos for Genesis' "a trick of the tail" also. So obviously there were videos well before MTV but how many bands were doing it and when did it become the thing to do or was it just a promotional type of thing and they weren't seen by most of those outside the music industry?

[rcarlberg]

Beatles more-or-less started it with "Help" and "Hard Days Night" if you ask me.

[zravkapt]

Bowie released three videos for his 1979 Lodger album. Supposedly that was unheard of in those days but became standard during the MTV era.

[señormoment]

Maybe the music video was born out of the fact that artists making and/or appearing in movies had proven to be lucrative since the late '60's. In a way, it was already the thing to do when the format sprang forth from somebody's forehead. Producing a video being much less cumbersome and expensive than making a 'Tommy' movie.

[Zeuhlmate]

Zappa had a lumpy gravy project that almosty made it.
+ 200 motels

[pb2015]

Seems like a fair number of British bands started making videos around 1976/77. Tull and ELO are other examples. In America I think it was not common before MTV, except concert videos for shows like Kirshner's Rock Concert or Midnight Special.

[Jerjo]

I remember the Stones and Queen both doing vids in the mid 70s but yeah, I think the Beatles films kicked it off. And then there were the Monkees, which ran two music segments per episode.

[Socrates]

Floyd did videos of their early singles, so there must have been opportunities to show them. I don't know to what extent other bands did that at the time, though.

[JJ88]

It is claimed Tony Bennett's 'Stranger In Paradise' was the first promo film, actually shot in London, but I have never seen this clip myself and don't know if it even still exists.

People often overlook the early 60s jukebox machine Scopitone/Cinebox pop promos, which are highly stylised, camp and kitsch but very obvious precursors to the modern-day video.

The Rolling Stones' ones often tended to have different vocal takes...these should be on DVD! These and The Beatles' ones would have been shown on things like Top Of The Pops in the UK and similar shows that these groups could no longer be bothered travelling across the world to appear on.

The all-time peak of promo videos for me are the 1979/80 David Bowie ones with David Mallet. Only ones that ever come close as far as I'm concerned are Peter Gabriel's.

[Progbear]

People often overlook the early 60s jukebox machine Scopitone/Cinebox pop promos, which are highly stylised, camp and kitsch but very obvious precursors to the modern-day video.

The “Soundies” of the 1940s pre-date even those. Not to mention some of Max Fleischer’s early cartoons, which intercut some live footage of real musicians such as Cab Calloway, an impossibly young Ethel Merman, etc.

Back on the subject of Scopitones, if you’ve never seen Joi Lansing’s “Web of Love,” prepare for a laugh riot:



There’s also this, which was used as the basis for a Saturday Night Live skit:

[Digital_Man]

I read somewhere that the band Devo were pioneers in music videos in the early to mid 70's. However, there was obviously videos before them. Maybe they just perfected it or did stuff beyond the normal singing to music stuff though. Not sure.

[GuitarGeek]

Bowie released three videos for his 1979 Lodger album. Supposedly that was unheard of in those days but became standard during the MTV era.

Queen made three videos for News Of The World in 77: We Will Rock You, Spread Your Wings, and We Are The Champions. They also did three videos for Jazz in 78: Don't Stop Me Now, Bicycle Race (not very good, though), and for Fat Bottom Girls. I think there two videos each for A Night At The Opera (Bohemian Rhapsody and You're My Best Friend) and A Day At The Races (Tie Your Mother Down and Somebody To Love).

What might have been "unheard of" with the Bowie clips from Lodger was the actual content of them. Instead of merely miming the song in front of a camera (as he did, with say, Heroes for instance, and as indeed was done with most videos pre-MTV), he took things up a notch (though he certainly wasn't the first to do a conceptual video). Boys Keep Swinging had the notorious chorus of three Bowies singing backup, all of them dressed in drag (and there's the famous shot of him smearing the lipstick across his face during Adrian Belew's incendiary guitar solo). DJ was largely him miming the song, but in an exploding radio studio, intercut with various other bits of weirdness. And Look Back In ANger was conceptual weirdness full stop.

We had a discussion about this topic awhile back, and I remember posting this long drawn history of what might be considered "the first music video". If one wanted to be a smart ass, one could point to any given musical, and say it's a just a bunch of music videos linked together by dialog sequences. For awhile, MTV was airing a number of clips from various rock n roll movies of the 50's on their Closet Classics show. I remember them showing a clip of Richie Valens singing Ooh My Head from one of Alan Freed's movies, and they also regularly showed the scene in Jailhouse Rock (I think that's the right movie) where Elvis sings You're So Square (Baby I Don't Care) at a pool party. I think they also showed the Can't Buy Me Love scene from A Hard Day's Night, as well.


And if you go back to the 30's and 40's, you had Spike Jones, you had the Disney Silly Symphony shorts and the Warner Brothers Merry Melodies, there's a lot of examples there that you could call "music videos". And I know I've seen footage of jazz musicians performing before the cameras, in what appear to be short films.

[Garyhead]

What about Cab Calloway movie shorts. I also remember the tune Caledonia.......

[pb2015]

I read somewhere that the band Devo were pioneers in music videos in the early to mid 70's. However, there was obviously videos before them. Maybe they just perfected it or did stuff beyond the normal singing to music stuff though. Not sure.

They were not the first, but they experimented and had one of the most interesting visual presentations of American bands in the late 70's, as well as some cool early MTV videos. In a similar but weirder style, the Residents also did videos going back to the mid 70's.

[The Dark Elf]

Tull did a whole film bit for A Passion Play in 1973, but if we are talking about rock in general, you have to go back to The Beatles, or even Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues from 1965's Don't Look Back documentary.

[Progbear]

And if you go back to the 30's and 40's, you had Spike Jones, you had the Disney Silly Symphony shorts and the Warner Brothers Merry Melodies, there's a lot of examples there that you could call "music videos". And I know I've seen footage of jazz musicians performing before the cameras, in what appear to be short films.

What about Cab Calloway movie shorts. I also remember the tune Caledonia.......

Uhmmmm....

The “Soundies” of the 1940s pre-date even those. Not to mention some of Max Fleischer’s early cartoons, which intercut some live footage of real musicians such as Cab Calloway, an impossibly young Ethel Merman, etc.

Funny, that did sound an awful lot like me! Proof that nobody reads these before posting!

[yoyiceu]

The Beatles' Magical Mistery Tour TV film would be an early example, if you don't share the theory that Hard Day's Night and Help were in fact elaborate rock videos. If so, then what about Rock Around the Clock or some Elvis films?
But as for short films made exclusively to showcase a new single and nos just showing the band miming to the song, there were quite a lot in the mid sixties already.

[Svetonio]

In Serbia (former Yugoslavia), the first vids - made for television - were originated in 1966.










Of course, they are awful, but there were a lot of them already in 1966 and they were shown regularly on television every night.

[Trane]

When did most bands start making music videos?

I'd say most started making them videoclips when they saw MTV helped selling records by the 100 of 1000's;

[zravkapt]

halped sellinfg rscords

You really need spellcheck

[GuitarGeek]

You really need spellcheck

Give 'em a break! You try typing in a second language, especiallly one as ass backwards as English!

At least he has an excuse. My problem is I'm apparently incapable of proofreading!

[GuitarGeek]

When did most bands start making music videos?

I'd say most started making them videoclips when they saw MTV halped sellinfg rscords by the 100 of 1000's;

There was also the realization that doing videos meant you wouldn't have to suffer through a barrage of dumb questions from Mike Douglas, Dinah Shore, etc.

(True story: Tom Petty once claimed he made his first video so he could get out of having to do The Mike Douglas Show)

[yoyiceu]

When did most bands start making music videos?

I'd say most started making them videoclips when they saw MTV halped sellinfg rscords by the 100 of 1000's;

Agree. It happened when MTV became a phenomenon and the way a band looked and its style became just as important -if not more- than how it sounded. Early eighties. But music videos had been a staple of rock-pop since the sixties.

[Dave (in MA)]

I can recall in the early and mid 70s being disappointed when a favorite artist that was announced as appearing on Don Kirschner or Midnight Special, so I'd stay up late and they'd play a video instead of showing a live performance.

[moecurlythanu]

The idea of watching music videos must seem very strange to kids today. As far as I know, Empty V doesn't even air music videos these days. I wonder if bands even make them anymore, as a rule?