It was in the 1960's that experimentation with promotional short films began, since this was the time that major bands such as "The Beatles", "The Animals" and "The Rolling Stones" wanted to create videos that meant people could view them performing without attending live shows.
In 1967 in February "The Beatles" took 2 days to film one the first ever real music videos in a surrey field to promote there new single "strawberry Fields" this video was hugely successful, making other artists worldwide want to create similar works of their own. Bands become more widespread in fame and the music videos helped get their music out into the world; created a bigger fanbase.
As I stated in my previous entry, Music video's really came into prominence during the 1980s, when MTV decided to base their format around them and during this time period, these works were known as "illustrated songs" or "film clips".
This is the video that The Animals recorded of the song "House Of The Rising Sun" which was recorded on 18th of May in 1964.
The main purpose of a music video created is to sell products, most often the song featured during the video. However, other products can be marketed by a music video, this could be the soundtrack for a film, album which the band has just released, merchandise such as T-shirts, accessories, hoodies etc and even upcoming tours.
Music videos help gain promotion for the bands current singles and helps them stay in the 'public-eye' for longer periods of time, allowing advertisement for released albums or other works by the artists which will increase sales and result in profit from the original recording-price of the music.
Music videos can advertise other products, perhaps ones that sponsor the bands upcoming tours or if the band are being paid to promote a particular item. For instance, if a brand of coffee or clothing need promoting then they can sponser the band to allow the product to appear in the music video - viewers will then see it and be encourages to buy it, especially if the fans feels it relates them to the band.
For example, the lead vocalist of the band 'Bring Me The Horizon' owns his own clothing company, and they often advertise it during their MV's.
This is their music video 'Visions', in this the band are wearing several pieces of Drop Dead brand clothing from their store:
http://store.iheartdropdead.com/
It used to be the case that the videos created would be shown on specialist, well renowned shows such as 'Top Of The Pops' which was a show aired on the BBC from 1964 up until 2006, however this was prior to the new digital stage, since now fans who want to see the latest of their bands new singles can simply access them at video hosting sites, like Youtube or Vevo. (http://www.youtube.com and http://www.vevo.com/) or viewed via portable media devices like mobile phones and Apple's iTouch devices.
Although this allowed the sites to receive more internet traffic and publisization, it was problematic for the music industry since viewers listening to it online for free were less inclined to buy a physical copy of the songs, and although intitally Record Labels would try and prevent this, attempting to prosecute Youtube for copyright infringement, but they eventually found this to be time-consuming and often futile. Some Record Labels deciding to set up their own accounts so that they could monitor the Videos under controlled conditions and offered links to band's other social networking pages.
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