Pop Promos: The History

In 1981, MTV started broadcasting in the USA, beginning the all important music video phenomenon. Since then, music videos (pop promos) are just as important as the song and give the artist the freedom to visually represent themselves. The first music video played on MTV was The Buggles' Video Killed The Radio Star and since then, the trend has bloomed powerfully. Nowadays, a single is rarely released without a corresponding visual representation of the song.

As time went on, the importance of music videos increased drastically and have improved the careers of large handfuls of artists. Fans now feel connected with artists, artists have the freedom to portray themselves in a new way and music executives have the power to market their artists in an entirely different manner, utilising marketing techniques to the fullest. Arguable, Madonna was the start of the biggest marketing ploy which is now the biggest selling point of any artist in the industry; sex appeal. Music videos among female artists, particularly in pop, are made for the male gaze - artists wear very little clothes, act provocatively and songs are often about, or insinuating sexual subjects. Sex sells.

The popularity of music videos, from here, came to be what it is today but animportant factor to this shouldn't be forgotten: the directors. These specialist directors and visual artists became incredibly important, with MTV even listing them with credits following videos. Though the importance of these directors is unarguable, and the directors themselves confess to the significance of music videos, often, they see their job as a progression to directing feature length films and use these pop promos as merely a step towards this goal. An example of this, Spike Jonze, who has worked with Ludacris, The Beastie Boys, Weezer and Björk, has now moved on to films such as Adaptation and Where The Wild Things Are.

Since the turn of the millennium, MTV have changed and strayed from their roots as the home of the music video. Their main focus seems to be pop culture now, showing popular Reality TV such as The Hills and Cribs. Since then, other music video channels such as MTV Hits, Kerrang, The Box and TMF have claimed the thrown, entirely dedicated to music videos, both new and old.

Living in a digital age, the rise of online music videos and promotion has seen an indescribable increase. Youtube has seen a surge of music promotions with artists and labels creating official pages, uploading music videos and seeing a huge response from fans. This is the first time music videos have been really available on request and has had a community sense with fans commenting and "liking" a video. Within the year, all music videos have been controlled by the company 'Vevo' and are of a higher quality with much more hype.