First Pop Video

[vernonk]

What was the first pop video?

[pixie373]

Well, Queen on ITV have just claimed to have invented the pop video with Bohemian Rhapsody and backed up by Google. But I imagine there are other claims.

[Buenchico]

Tony Bennett (Stranger in Paradise, 1956) has a claim:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video

[Calibax]

First on MTV was (appropriately) "Video Killed the Radio Star"

[andy-hughes]

Film clips of musicians have been around since the 1960's, but it is generally acknowledged that Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was the first custom-designed video to be used in their absence on Top Of The Pops.

The band were on tour, so couldn't make the recording of the show, so the video was specifically shot to use instead, and I understand that is the first time that film was shot specifically for promotional use on television which makes it the first actual pop video.

[andy-hughes]

I cross-posted with pixie, but it seems we are in agreement.

Buenchico - film clips used on TV are not 'videos' in the accepted sense of the word, so they don't count.

[Buenchico]

>>>film clips used on TV are not 'videos' in the accepted sense

While Elvis Presley's 'Jailhouse Rock' was indeed a film clip, Tony Bennett's 'Stranger in Paradise' wasn't. It was a short film made solely to promote the song which (if you can ignore the technicality that it was shot onto movie stock rather than onto videotape) would seem to qualify it as a 'pop video' (unless, of course, you also want to argue that the word 'pop' wasn't even in the English language in 1956!)

[vernonk]

The Beatles made a video for Strawberry Fields which well predates Queen

[sandyRoe]

Yes it was. We'd often have pop and a packet of crisps on a Friday night as we sat on the steps of the pub waiting for our parents to come out at closing time.

[andy-hughes]

Buenchicho - "It was a short film made solely to promote the song ..."

Exactly - it was a piece of film.

The BR video was shot using camera techniques and editing designed to make it appeal to a TV audience, it was not a straight piece of film, which is why the BH video is the first custom-made pop video.

[Buenchico]

Point taken, Sandy, although I wasn't allowed to call it 'pop'; my mother considered it to be a word only used by 'common' people ;-)