History Music Videos

"Vogue" is a song by American singer-songwriter Madonna from her soundtrack album I'm Breathless (Music from and Inspired by the film Dick Tracy) and was released on March 20, 1990, by Sire Records. Madonna was inspired by vogue dancers and choreographers Jose and Luis Xtravaganza from the Harlem "House Ball" community, the origin of the dance Vogue, and they introduced "Vogueing" to her at the New York City club "Sound Factory". Jose Xtravaganza is featured in the Historic Art Documentary How Do I Look, directed by Wolfgang Busch. The song also appears on the 1990 greatest hits compilation The Immaculate Collection and Madonna's third greatest hits album, Celebration. The genre is dance-pop and house.

A theory which i have studied is Michael Shore (1984) he states
' Recycled Styles...surfaces with out substances...simulated experience...information overload...image and style scavengers...ambivalence...decadence...immedicate graficaiton...vanity and the moment...image assults and outre folks...the death of content...anesthetization of violence through chic...adolescent male fanasises...speed,power, girls,and wealth...album art come to turgid life...classical sotry telling motifts'

This theory connects to the music video Vogue as it is all dancing perforance and from Sven Carlsson (1999) this falls into the group of not telling a narrative therefore is abstract and conceptial concluding to making the audience feel a specific mood and feeling. The video is represented to seem that its set in the 1940's when it's currently filming in the 90's. It is all about image and the look ' image and style scavengers' . Madonna is vain and is self referencing and referencing to other famous 1940's actors and people. Therefore this is a video of 'surface with out substance' there is no ideology behind it. Showing high fashion and posing 'recycled styles' she portrades Marylyn Monroe’s style.

Music Videos

Before music videos occurred to be a popular media text in the 1960’s music was seen in short films and movies then went on to now in 2013 to have music channels filled with music videos. Websites such as www.Youtube.com  where you can search a music video of your choice.

Bob Dylan- Subterranean Homesick Blues (Released March 8th 1965)                                                                                                

This music video is a great example of how music videos have changed over time. This music video is done in just one shot and the lyrics are shown on large pieces of paper and the artist changing the paper. Now there would conventional be many shots, have more of performance or narrative and the artist would be miming the lyrics. It also shows how television has developed as it’s done in black and white as now you have a choice for to be in colour , black and white or other many developed editing special effects. 

Comparing this to:-

Beyoncé- Countdown (Released October 4th 2011)

Example of Developing Stages through the 1900.

In 1926, with the arrival of "talkies" many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts (produced by Warner Bros.) featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by "following the bouncing ball", which is similar to a modern karaoke machine.

 Early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons the early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and especially Fantasia, which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films. Live action musical shorts, featuring such popular performers as Cab Calloway, were also distributed to theaters.

Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period.

Later, in the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film Lookout Sister. These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video.

From the 1960’s promotional clips and others started to appear. In 1964, The Beatles starred in their first feature film A Hard Day's Night, directed by Richard Lester. Shot in black-and-white and presented as a mock documentary, it interspersed comedic and dialogue sequences with musical ones.

1974- 1980 was the beginning of music television then 1981- 1991 music videos went main stream In 1981, the U.S. video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed the Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing.

In 1988, the MTV show Yo! MTV Raps debuted; the show helped to bring hip hop music to a mass audience for the first time.

1992- 2004 was the arrival and rise of directors in November 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium