1920's - Many musical short films were produced throughout this period, and a lot of early animated films made by the likes of Walt Disney, especially Fantasia, were built around music.
1929 - Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a short film called St. Louis Blues, which featured a dramatized performance of the song of the same name.
1930's-1950's - Musicals are a huge influence on music videos, and several well-known music videos have imitated several classic Hollywood musicals, for example Madonna's video for 'Material Girl' was closely modelled on 'Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend' from the film 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'.
Late 1950's - The scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France, and many French artists such as Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Brel and Jacques Dutronc produced short films to accompany their songs.
1964 - The Beatles starred in a feature film, 'A Hard Day's Night', which was presented as a mockumentary and combined dialogue and musical sequences. The musical sequences then formed templates for music videos, and The Monkees subsequently used the same idea for their hit TV series.
Other bands and artists made use of video clips throughout the 60's including Bob Dylan, The Who and The Rolling Stones.
1981 - MTV launched in the US, and the video for 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles became the first video to be aired on the channel. From then on, the music video became a popular marketing method for bands and artists, particularly the likes of Duran Duran and Madonna.
1983 - The video for Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' was released, and became one of the most successful and iconic music videos of all time. It also helped African American artists gain exposure through MTV.
1985 - Dire Straits' video for 'Money For Nothing' made pioneering use of computer animation, and the year after Peter Gabriel used animation techniques made by Aardman Animation for the video for his song 'Sledgehammer'.
1995 - Michael and Janet Jackson were involved in the most expensive music video of all time: the video for 'Scream' cost $7 million to produce.
2005 - The year that Youtube was launched. The most viewed video on the site so far is PSY's video for 'Gangnam Style', and is the only video to have received over 1 billion views.
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