At 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981, MTV launched with The Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star,' a not-so-subtle announcement that the music video era had arrived, reshaping contemporary music and pop culture forever.
Nearly 45 years later, that same Buggles one-hit wonder played on MTV again, but this time the symbolism was less clear. It marked the final broadcast of the network's 24-hour, music-only channels. Parent company Paramount decided to shutter the music channels, including MTV 80s, MTV 90s, and Club MTV, from January 1 this year in a cost-cutting move that reflected an inexorable audience migration to YouTube and social media.
Instead, MTV now focuses on scripted and reality content, such as Awkward, Catfish, The Jersey Shore, and The Challenge.
It is tempting to see the demise of the once all-powerful MTV, a critical tastemaker in the music industry, as evidence that we are witnessing the death throes of the music video as a cultural artefact. It was a cultural phenomenon that peaked in the 1980s and 1990s and gave us so many unforgettable moments.
Cher, in a leather thong, straddling a gun turret on the USS Missouri while belting out 'If I Could Turn Back Time.' A-ha's clip for 'Take On Me' with its groundbreaking combination of animation and live-action. Michael Jackson and Madonna pushed the form higher with each music video, delivering iconic moments such as 'Billie Jean,' 'Thriller,' and 'Beat It' for MJ, and 'Material Girl,' 'Like a Prayer,' and 'Vogue' for Madge.
Britney Spears and countless boy bands kept the music video momentum going in the 1990s, while record labels threw buckets of money at acts such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam to turn grunge into a commodity for TV audiences. It was not just mega-artists getting in on the action; lesser-known acts attained ubiquity through music videos, from Blind Melon's 'No Rain' to Deee-Lite's 'Groove Is in the Heart,' which became staples of the format.
More recently, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus captured the zeitgeist with music videos, the latter riding on a wrecking ball to do it, while OK Go caught attention with highly choreographed treadmill routines.
University of Technology Sydney Associate Professor Liz Giuffre says rumours of the music video's demise are greatly exaggerated. 'Rage is still going strong and will turn 40 soon,' Dr Giuffre points out. The evergreen ABC music video show is now the longest-running program of its kind in the world, having debuted in 1987. Dr Giuffre believes this proves the continued health of the music video as an artform. 'It is very healthy, absolutely,' she says. 'Long may Rage reign, but I do genuinely believe that Rage's presence in Australia has really made us unique internationally. Rage is a place where you absolutely can have a band who have been together for five minutes played next to a band that has been together for 50 years, and where else in the world can you do that? Now, it might be at two o'clock on a Saturday morning, but who cares.'
To properly identify where music videos are right now in pop culture, you need to understand where the concept came from, which goes much further back than the Buggles. Before video killed the radio star, it had a fair crack at knocking off the phonograph and silent movie star. The oldest known example of video combining with music is the Dickson Experimental Sound Film, created in 1895 in Thomas Edison's lab. It depicts two men dancing alongside a violinist, with audio recorded separately on a wax cylinder. The dance moves did not go as viral as Beyonce's 'Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),' but that may be because the wax cylinder went missing and was not reunited with the footage until 1998.
Musical short films in the 1920s were some of the earliest efforts by Hollywood to move beyond the silent era, until, in 1959, Jiles Perry Richardson, better known as the Big Bopper, coined the term 'music video.' The Big Bopper had released some of the earliest rock 'n' roll videos a year earlier, but the world was robbed of his talent when he died in a plane crash in 1959, along with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. As an aside, the clip for Weezer's 1994 hit 'Buddy Holly,' a Happy Days-inspired work, is considered one of the greatest music videos of the past 40 years.
It should come as no surprise that the Beatles changed the game when it came to combining audio and visual. The Fab Four reached fans via feature films and dozens of promotional clips, establishing a formula many bands of the late 1960s and 1970s emulated. If the Beatles established the formula, Queen made it a mandatory component of marketing a band's music with the release of the music video for 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in 1975. With Top of the Pops in the UK and Countdown in Australia creating a huge market for this content, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' did more than just promote the song; it created a template for how fans interacted with the music. The arrival of MTV merely supercharged a trend that had already taken hold.
As music videos became the dominant cultural component of the recording industry, increasing attention was paid to who was making them. Consider some of the directors who got their start making music videos. Legendary blockbuster director Michael Bay made a name for himself directing Meat Loaf's 'I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)' and helming clips for Lionel Richie, Aerosmith, Vanilla Ice, and Tina Turner. The Daniels, who won the Best Picture Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once, got on Hollywood's radar for directing DJ Snake and Lil Jon's hit 'Turn Down for What.' David Fincher, director of The Social Network, is behind the music videos for Madonna hits 'Express Yourself' and 'Vogue,' while also making Aerosmith's cinematic 'Janie's Got a Gun.' Before making the hit Michael Jackson biopic, Antoine Fuqua gave us the clip for Coolio's 'Gangsta's Paradise.' And has any filmmaker enjoyed more acclaim for shooting music videos than Spike Jonze? The director of hit movies such as Her and Being John Malkovich gave us the Fatboy Slim clip for 'Weapon of Choice,' featuring an unforgettable dance sequence by Christopher Walken; Björk's 'It's Oh So Quiet'; the Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage'; and Weezer's 'Buddy Holly.'
Dr Giuffre says making music videos can be pivotal to a career in the screen industry. 'It is very important,' she confirms. 'In a lot of ways, it is sometimes the first steps for people, it is the first go at doing something, and the beauty of a music video is there is a lot of freedom.'
Australian bands have certainly been no slouches when it comes to producing music videos, such as AC/DC on the back of a flatbed truck driving around Melbourne for 'It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll).' If countless Kylie clips represent the glossy end of the spectrum, You Am I's 'Berlin Chair' proves that a good idea can produce a memorable music video on the cheap.
Nostalgia would have us believe the glory days of the music video are behind us, but the reality is the form has simply evolved to feed the endless hunger of the internet and streaming platforms. Spotify's push into video content means artists are encouraged to deliver visuals as well as music, and acts are under more pressure than ever to produce content that will engage audiences on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Now, instead of making one music video, artists must create a vast quantity of associated content that can be rolled out on social media.
Which is not to say the traditional music video has gone away. If anything, it has become even more important. 'There is more opportunity now than ever to be audio-visual,' Dr Giuffre agrees. 'The big artists are still putting a lot of work into that stuff, and the big record companies still have money to do that. You could argue that they are doing more of it, with artists like Billie Eilish, those huge international artists, not just making videos, they are making concert films that go straight to Netflix or Amazon.'
For those looking for evidence of the continued health of the music video, google the clip for 'Storm' by GENR8ION feat. Yung Lean. Then check out Doechii's 'Denial Is a River,' 'Headphones On' by Addison Rae, Sabrina Carpenter's 'Taste,' and 'Drop Dead' by Olivia Rodrigo. Will any of those become as iconic as Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' or inspire endless dancefloor moments like Beyonce's 'Single Ladies'? Probably not. Because, the fact is, the music video is dead. Long live the music video.
