Key history of music videos

In 1926, "Talkies" (sound films) were introduced, which was a massive breakthrough in the music and film industry. This followed with many short musical films. Then in the 1940s, soundies were introduced, these were 3 minute short musical films. Another big move forward for music and films. After this, more and more short films came out and provided a different approach to watching films.

A man called Tony Bennett claims to have created "...the first music video" when he was filmed walking along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London in 1956, with the resulting clip being set to his recording of the song "". The clip was sent to UK and US television stations and aired on shows including Dick Clark's Americas Bandstand.
The oldest example of a promotional music video with similarities to more abstract, modern videos seems to be "Dáme si do bytu" ("Let's get to the apartment") created in 1958 and directed by Ladislav Rychman.

Tony Bennett

In 1965, the Beatles began making promotional clips for distribution and broadcast in other countries so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances. Their first batch of promo videos recorded in late 1965 and they were fairly straight forward mimed-in-studio performance pieces and meant to blend in fairly seamlessly with television shows like Top of the Pops and Hullabaloo. By the time The Beatles stopped touring in late 1966, their promotional films, like their recordings, had become highly sophisticated. In early 1967 they took the promotional film format to a new level. They used techniques borrowed from underground and avant garde film, including reversed film and slow motion, dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles and colour filtering added in post-production.

The Beatles appearing on top of the pops

Music television then came into the mix in the mid 1970s. The Australian TV shows countdown and sounds, both of which premiered in 1974, were significant in developing the music video genre in Australia and other countries, and in establishing the importance of music video clips as a means of promoting both emerging acts and new releases by established acts. Michael Jackson's thriller was released in 1983, it was 14 minutes long and ended up being the most successful, iconic and inspirational music video ever. In 2005, YouTube was launched. This then has allowed the viewing and uploading of music videos much more efficient and easy to use.

Micahel Jackson - Thriller

PSY- Gangnam style

In 2012, Gangnam style was released on YouTube and that ended up being the most viewed music video so far with over 2 billion views. Linking to music videos is lyric videos, so after the after artist reveals their music video, they then release a lyric video that presents the lyrics of their video on the screen at the time of when the music is being played so that they can learn the lyrics to the song.