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I Want My MTV...

It's funny what occurs to you when you're lying in bed on a Sunday morning. I was idly thinking about how bloody good the Innes Book of Records was when I realised; isn't Neil Innes arguably one of the pioneers of music video?

It's funny what occurs to you when you're lying in bed on a Sunday morning. I was idly thinking about how bloody good the Innes Book of Records was when I realised; isn't Neil Innes arguably one of the pioneers of music video?

The case for the prosecution, m'lud; 'Slaves of Freedom' from the second series of Rutland Weekend Television (1976), courtesy of YouTube. Obviously, there's a fine line between a staged performance and an actual music video, but the idea seems to be in embryonic form in RWT, and is expanded on in the Innes Book of Records (1979), with MTV being first on the air in 1981.

Of course, I'm not claiming that Neil Innes has a direct claim on MTV's profits. But I do find the evolution of music video interesting, and I'm always pleased to provide another reason why Neil Innes should be worshipped like a god...

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What about the Beatles? After a few years of constant touring, in lieu of actually perfoming on shows, they'd send films of them performing songs (like "Strawberry Fields Forever", things like that). Of course, again, there's the question of whether it's a staged performance or a music video, but some of these had creative elements that were rather music video-like...

By Arlene Rimmer BSc, SSc
February 11, 2007 @ 11:30 am

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>Of course, again, there's the question of whether it's a staged performance or a music video

They DID have at least a few films that could qualify as music videos, though. That is to say they weren't performance videos, but films of the band cut to the song...Paperback Writer was one of them (I remember a special on this a few years ago on VH1) but I can't remember the others. I'm sure Austin can.

The Who also had a bunch of music videos...the Happy Jack one is included on The Kids Are Alright (no performance here...it's just the band acting like goofy safecrackers with the song dubbed overtop), and the rest have been released on a separate DVD.

It's an interesting subject...I can't imagine nobody's written anything substantial about the evolution of music videos. If they haven't, it's about time.

By Philip J Reed, VSc
February 11, 2007 @ 3:13 pm

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I think the Beatles could probably claim they were first to really start to use videos as promos, although good old Wikipedia cites examples as far back as the 1920s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video

I've never seen a book around about the history of music video, although there was a good documentary on Channel 4 about 8 years ago. I guess a book wouldn't quite do justice to the medium, but that's never stopped anyone writing about either TV of music...

By Tanya Jones
February 12, 2007 @ 7:48 am

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