First video? Probably as impossible as determining the first photograph. Although it may be possible to distinguish the “very, very first music video” that was held out as being just that (a video, that is).
The first video that I (personally) remember seeing came on after the late, late movie sometime in the early 70’s. My sisters and I had just finished watching a scary movie about demonic possession (is there another kind?), and a conceptual music video for the song “Brother Louie” came on…you remember: “She was black as the night, Louie was whiter than white…”
After it was over, my older sister said, “Wow, that was cool…we’ll never see anything like that again!”
I’ve heard a number of theories on this.
One of them credits J.P. Richardson (AKA the Big Bopper) with the first music video of his recording of “Chantilly Lace” for a TV show in 1958 and even coined the term “music video” in an interview in 1959.
However I remember a panel of RTF experts got together several years back to argue over this very issue. They came up with a number of criteria that they required for candidates to be classified as music videos. I can’t remember all of them, but here are a few that I do remember:
- It can’t be a cut from a film, musical production, or TV show.
- It must be self contained.
- It must be more than the musicians playing their instruments, singing, and dancing.
- It must tell a story, of sorts.
- It must showcase the merger between the two media, music and video.
There were some other criteria, but I can’t recall them off the top of my head…
This panel of experts, there were about a dozen of them came to the concensus that the first example to meet all their criteria was…
Hold on to your hat…
“Last Train To Clarksville” by the Monkees in 1966.
If you want my opinion, they were being too harsh with their criteria and the Big Bopper should get the credit, especially since he apparently first coined the term. Plus he supposedly had plans to produce a number of music videos just before his untimely demise. However, I have not seen the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace”, so I might not classify it as a music video either… I have seen “Last Train To Clarksville”, however and would definitely say that it does meet my criteria for a music video… whatever that’s worth…