It can be said that the first defining music video in the modern day was 'The Beatles- A Hard Day's Night' which was released in 1964 and was directed by Richard Lester. This video clearly shows the basic visual elements that are still used in videos to this day and inspired many pop and rock videos.
Another band that made promotional films for their songs around this time was 'The Doors'. For example their video for 'Break on Through' shows mainly live performance but features external video clips of TV footage from the Vietnam War.
It can be said the 1980's was the era of the music video. This is due to MTV showing new music videos, so more artists would create them to be featured on MTV. Also as technology developed, the videos began to display more editing techniques and narratives.
Queen's, Bohemian Rhapsody also popularized music videos as promotional videos, and this led to directors making short films for singles that were shown on programmes like ' Saturday Night Live'- just as Bohemian Rhapsody was in 1979.
Also in the 1980's artists started to use more effects and tended to add a storyline to their music videos. An example of this is Michael Jackson who was the first artist to turn his music videos into short films such as 'Billie Jean' (directed by Steve Barron). Then in 1984 Michael Jackson released his music video for 'Thriller' which was a 14 minute long video with a beginning, middle and end, making it a short film, as well as ahead of its time special effects. It can be said that this video was the main inspiration for music videos in the modern day.
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