In 1985, the Dire Straits sang about their desire to be on MTV, watching the channel from a working class person’s point of view. MTV has dominated society and promoted countless number of bands over time, creating the rock star generation and pushing the music business toward commercial success. Music television is a prominent part of modern society, as every hit song has an accompanying music video, and these videos are becoming more and more productive. Before music videos were such an important part of society, television was at the forefront of creating a movement to put musicians on the small screen. The invention and popularization of the television has significantly changed and advanced music in many ways, from the development of music videos to the promotion of artists in advertising. Early rock and roll acts such as Elvis Presley and the Beatles appeared on television, creating a massive surge in audience and music fans, which led to the commercial development of the music industry via television.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, music that was popular on the radio consisted of jazz, swing, gospel, and blues (US History). When rock and roll music came out, young people were obsessed with the catchy hooks and guitar-driven rhythms that the genre produced, creating a generation of people who wanted to stand out. Once television was invented, people had money to purchase these sets and would watch regular programming. Rock and roll music merged the two worlds of radio and television, and allowed music to become widespread. The more popular rock and roll began with the young, prosperous generation, the more necessary it became to show these musicians on national television to gain audience numbers and ratings. Prime-time talk shows originally served as the method of introducing musical acts to the world, often providing the outlet for European acts to reach American audiences (Allan 4). The Beatles made their American debut on the Ed Sullivan show, which would send them into music history as one of the most popular bands of all time. Elvis Presley also appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show during the height of the rock and roll boom, and “the show’s ratings soared” (US History). People could physically see Elvis on television, pulling off the gyrating dance moves that made him famous, and people began to fall in love with him. Before television, people could only purchase the record and listen to it, picturing the artist in their head (Kinder 4). With television, people could watch their favourite rock stars and see the real image of what they were doing. This showcased a changing ideal system and allowed musicians to become more recognizable, giving them increased popularity and allowing them to spread to more audiences around the world. Artists began to achieve commercial success in new ways that had never been an opportunity before. This also developed into the idolization culture that many rock stars began to dominate. Without television, rock stars like Mick Jagger and Elvis would have never become the sex icons, as they would have not been able to gain the visual audience that they did.
The first music video that was shown on television was produced in the 1980’s and aired on MTV. Channels like MTV began to revolutionize the music industry, as they showed television programming based on music to a mainstream audience (Kinder 2). They gained increasing popularity and allowed popular music to spread to wide audiences on a global scale, surpassing the prominence of the talk show for this purpose (Allan 4). In fact, MTV has taken over so prominently that “few prime-time shows, like Ed Sullivan’s or The Hollywood Palace, remain to introduce today’s Beatles or Buffalo Springfield to North American TV audiences” (Allan 4). These music-based channels such as MTV and CMT showcase music videos and create an entertainment industry based on them, with a variety of types of shows that were based around the theme of music. There were shows that played music videos, shows that followed musicians around and interviewed them, and shows that discussed music news. Music videos became so prominent in the last part of the twentieth century that many of them were short films in themselves. They became elaborate productions where big-name directors, costume designers, and set creators were employed. For example, Michael Jackson’s music video for “Thriller” was 14 minutes long and was essentially a very short horror film (Kinder 2). It was even directed by a horror film director who had done the classic film An American Werewolf in London (Kinder 2). To this day, “Thriller” is one of the most well-known and commonly emulated music videos of all time, and is “the best-selling video in history” (Kinder 2). As MTV became more popular, it began to commercialize music for profitable purposes (Kinder 5). This lead to the modern twenty-first century advertising generation that revolves around marketing and branding.
Today, the television is an important tool in promoting musicians and artists of all genres. Musicians are featured in the soundtracks of movies and television shows, and are featured in commercials in order to promote and sell different products. Nowadays, it is hard to distinguish commercials from music videos because they all feature advertising and product placement in subtle and obvious ways. Brands are specifically featured in different aspects of music videos because they pay the artist a lot of money to use their specific product, showing the audiences that this musician uses that product. Music videos themselves are promoted and sponsored by different companies and are intended to showcase different products available for sale, from clothing to alcohol, cars and jewellery. The commercialization of MTV beginning in the 1980’s has allowed television to transform music and exploit as many profits as possible from musicians and artists, creating a commercial business out of music. People idolize musicians of all types as heroes and role models, and they become spokespeople in this way. Television has allowed the music business to become the conglomerate it is today, and it all started because of some prime-time talk shows that gave bands and musicians a chance to be seen on live television for the first time.
Works Cited
“America Rocks and Rolls.” U.S. History. U.S. History, n.d. Web. 3 May 2016.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/53d.asp
Allan, Blaine. “Musical Cinema, Music Video, Music Television.” Film Quarterly 43.3 (1990):
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Kinder, Marsha. “Music Video and the Spectator: Television, Ideology and Dream.” Film
Quarterly 38.1 (1984): 2-15.
