Extension of Outlets

Music plays an important part in life of people from all the corners of the globe, with music finding popularity from around the 1920's. It has been said that music is used as inspiration for many people across the world. Most importantly it allows the artist to express feelings and thoughts through the lyrics, melody and tempo.

Early History

An outlet for the music videos at the beginning was a device called a scopitone (a jukebox) a.k.a a soundie. A scopitone played film footage alongside. Originally intended for the people in café’s. The scopitone was used in café’s to attract the attention of young people meeting up with friends and its main purpose was to entertain them. They weren’t considered to be useful in bars or pubs because the main attraction was that they where for the youth, and typically pubs and bars where seen to be a very adult place. The youth have been the targets since the soundie.

1960’s & 1970’s

The use of videos during the 60’s was purely artistic. The artistic videos had an unclear meaning to them so they were seen as a purely experimental development.

The Beatles were known for creating feature films as well as music videos; some would say that The Beatles had started a trend for artistic videos.

Videos submitted alongside music tracks helped bands and television producers when the band in question went on tour. Top Of The Pops (TOTP) [a television programme specifically for the music charts] would play a music video in the place of a band they went on tour. Occasionally, TOTP would have a choice between the music video submitted by the band or they the option to use a pre-recorded performance that was recorded before the show or from another location.

1980’s & 1990’s

During the 1980’s video was much cheaper than film so it was rising in popularity with filmmakers. This rise in popularity for production had meant that there had to be a newer and better outlet to cope with the expansion of the available videos.

During the 1990’s a creation made by American T.V Producers had started the golden era of the music video. This channel was called MTV (Music Television) and was used to air the popular videos that had appeared in the charts at the time.

Music channels became more and more popular, adjusting what they showed during peak times including American reality programmes. During the naughty’s more and more satellite channel providers set aside and created more channels for music.