History

There is a close relationship between music tracks and visual materials can be traced back to 50 years earlier with the experiments of Oscar Fischinger in Germany in the 1920s and in the USA in the 1930s,notably with his abstract synchronisations, or visual interpretations, such as Komposition in Blau (1935) and later his work on the Disney film, Fantasia (1935)
Short films made to showcase the artist emerged in the relatively early days of sound film making. Films of up to eight minutes in duration were used to display the talents of singers from Billie Holiday Crosby, some in cinema screenings as part of full programme of newsreel, cartoon and main feature but mainly as reels on the forerunner of the video jukebox, the Panarom.
The Panarom weighed about two tons and contained a 20- inch screen with back projection. Used in juke joints and bars it showed a wide variety of music in its heyday. The short films were often more daring sexually, and even politically, than the features of the day as they were less likely to be checked by the censor. The machine contained a reel of eight shorts, which were set to play in sequence; thousands of these 16mm films, known as 'soundies', were produced in the heyday of the panarom from 1939-46, but the technology fell from favour and died out quickly after the war.
Television coverage of pop music attempted to capturn the new teenage audience from American Bandstand in the USA in the 1950s through Ready Steady Go and Top of the Pops in the mid- 1960s in the UK. Other major British acts of the 1960s such as the Rolling Stones, the kinks and the who also promos.
In the 1970s 'serious rock' gained slots on TV such as The Old Grey Whistle Test (1971) and many films emerged which which made use of pop and rock artists.
By 1984, MTV channel was established as central to the music business and instituted its own verison of the Oscars, the video Music Awards, with a whole set of categories from the best video and best direction to most experimental, best choreography and best special effects. By the mid- 1980s, MTV, now owned by Viacom (a major media conglomerate, but one without significant interests in a record company), had diversified with the establishment of the more album- oriented channel, VH1, for the older audience. The launch of the European verison of MTV in 1987 led to a swift acceleration in subscribers, eager to get the same benefits as their American counterparts.
We had a lesson on the History, because this will help us in our essays and in the exam.