Innovations and Evolutions ( Music Video)

                                   The Evolution and Innovations 

                                          of the (Music Video)

 

The Evolution 

Music videos are a vesical that expands the understanding of a body of music through a visual experience further submerging the viewer into the world and the plights of the song. I grew up not ever watching music videos, I only discovered them when I got access to YouTube when I was a teenager. I would spend hours watching them. I loved how diverse they could be, one could be a simple heartfelt acoustic video and another could feel like a thrilling cinematic masterpiece. Music videos add so much to music it creates another artistic way for the artists to express themselves and further express the message of the music. The earliest beginnings of music videos have taken place fairly recently, starting in America in the 1950s. The first music video in the format we recognize is from 1957 it’s a promotional video for the tv western Have a Gun-Will Travel. Will Travel's song “Ballad of a Paladin” was played over cut up scenes from the show lasting two minutes. This is of course very different from the music videos of today with it being in black and white and extremely low quality but it was the first of its kind. Moving through the decade more and more music videos started cropping up, mostly being one long take of the live performance with some minor editing set on film. As technology progressed so did the quality and quantity of the videos. In the 60s artists became more experimental creating music videos with storytelling and symbolism often presenting them as art films. The 70s brought a lot more visual effects with fade outs, experimental lighting and overlays. A great example of the style of that era is David Bowie's “Space Oddity” music video. Many people consider the 80s to be the true beginning of  the age of the music video. The rise of MTV cemented the music video as a cultural touchstone, it became industry standard to promote an artist through a music video. Things like CGI and cutting edge editing techniques helped create some of the most iconic music videos like Micheal Jackson’s “Thriller” or Madonna’s “Like a prayer”. Building on the momentum from the 80s, the 90s and 2000s saw an explosion of musical diversity in music videos as well as more technical innovations furthering the quality. The birth of the internet and social media spread music videos across the world giving people more access to the artist and their work. Now in the modern era of music videos technology has allowed artists' visions to come to life through green screen, motion capture and insanely high quality cameras. Music videos have evolved alongside technology from black and white with virtually no editing to now huge bombastic concepts that express exactly what the artist feels the music embodies.  

“Strawberry Fields Forever”

The UK band The Beatles are the most well known band in the world, their work has influenced every aspect of modern music through their experimental pop rock sound. Another genre they completely revolutionized was the concept of the music video. The Beatles were among the first to create what was known at the time as promotional films, which were short films that were set to songs. When they stopped performing in 1966 they started making short films to promote their music by sending the film out to tv stations for them to play. They did this for their song "Paperback” and most notably their song “Strawberry Fields Forever”. “Strawberry Fields Forever” was originally a stand alone song released in 1967 but was later released in the album U.S Magical Mystery Tour from the Beatles album. The short film/music video was very experimental for its time, it had interesting camera angles, odd editing techniques and had surreal trippy visuals. The methodical slow winding melody of the song matches perfectly with the dreamlike visuals of the video. The lyrics also further emphasize the visuals with the lyrics “cause I’m going to strawberry fields, nothing is real”. The song has parts where there is a rewind effect playing in the background, this is further emphasized visually with many shots playing in reverse

 

“Manchild”

The modern music video I chose is the music video to “Manchild”, a song released in 2025 by Sabrina Carpenter. Sabrina Carpenter is an American pop artist that released her seventh album “Man’s Best Friend”, “Manchild” is the lead single off the album. The music video was directed by Venía Heymann and Gal Muggia, a directing duo from Israel. They are known for their absurdist surrealistic music videos and commercials. The work they do often involves very advanced vfx and extremely imaginative content. The music video personifies their work perfectly with the concept of the video set in a 80s western style where the main character is travelling through an absurd world. The video really captures the essence of the song with the visuals matching the lyrics of men being ludicrously dumb. The lyrics “Hey men” are matched in the video where she is waving at pigs further enforcing the song’s concept. The dynamics of the song also are enhanced by the video. During the final chorus of the song the song starts to pick up more and become louder this is further highlighted by the video having more and more cuts and becoming more and more outrageous with the visuals

 

 

Comparison 

The two music videos surprisingly share a lot of similar qualities despite being seven decades apart. They both share a surrealist concept of a storyline along with both using out of place and weird effects. Both have excellent lighting choices whether that be heightened saturation or use of only one colour. The main difference lies in how “Manchild” uses such enhanced technology like motion capture and “Strawberry Fields Forever” is limited by its time, further showing how far music videos have progressed. 

 

Personal Thoughts 

Music videos are such a huge part of the industry now they help promote artists and add in discovering new ones. The songs I chose aren’t really ones I listen to often. I find myself coming back to those music videos simply because I find sometimes music videos more intriguing than the songs. The concept of the music video will always be exciting to me because it captures the essence of a song and turns it into a whole new art form. I love imagining what a music video for a song might be and seeing that come to life is always going to enthrall me 

Bomzer, Ryan. “The Evolution of Music Videos - A Brief History”. Carved Culture , 13 Mar. 2025, .carvedculture.com/blogs/articles/the-evolution-of-music-videos-brief-history?srsltid=AfmBOor2R-5la03ZcuFRU12WqEI9ZGL3nBEns83vI8_8ZvivsGSdjxBA

Canote, Terence. “How The Beatles Kinda Did (And Kinda Didn’t) Invent Music Videos”. The Retro Set, 15 Feb. 2014, theretroset.com/?p=4131