The Development of Indie Rock A look into the history of Indie Rock and Music Video’s Kiera Bridges

The Development of Music Videos

1920-1930 Blues singer Bessie Smith is one of the first artist to have a music video with 1929’s st. louis blues, a black and white video that features the artist and the developing storyline around the artist’s song. The music video phenomenon started in the 1930 era with some of the earliest video’s being the Spooney melodies from warner bros called “Cryin for Carolines” by singing organist Milton Charles, the music video centered round animation that link in with the lyrics as well as shots of the musician himself singing along to his song. Warner brothers cartoons developing in the 1930’s era often featured live action performances from musicians and similarly cartoons would often feature music along with their cartoon animation such as Merrie Melodies and especially Disney's Fantasia.

1930-1960 1930-1950’s hollywood musicals are part of the development of music videos as music videos of the next ear used this as a source of inspiration; a good example of this is Madonna’s “Material Girls” was closely modeled after “Diamonds are a Girls Best Friends” performed by Marilyn Monroe from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. In the late 50’s music video’s really picked up with the invention of Scorpitone a visual jukebox from france that encouraged many French musicians to create short films to go with their music, this then spread globally and countries such as italy and the USA created their own visual juke boxes called cinebox and colour sonic.

1970-1980 From the mid 1970’s to the 1980’s music television then development becoming the main source for music videos, with shows such as MTV and Top of the Pop, music videos became a pivotal element within the music industry, having a number of conventional features that have remained since the 1920’s.

1990-Present Day From the 1990’s music videos started to develop further and then became a form of short film, with most music videos featuring story lines featured along side the artist either with the involved in the storyline or their performance is shown alongside actors who perform the story; this has become a convention in music video’s within most if not all genres of music, this is a convention that has been carried across from the early music videos in the 19320’s and onwards.

The Development Of Indie Rock Music

1980’s Originated in the 1980’s from the USA and the UK, Indie rock is a sub genre stemming from the alternative rock genre, the music within this genre often known to feature lyrics about their emotions or subjects with limited appeal to large audiences. The term Indie derived from “Independent” describing the low budget and size of the labels who produce the music. Indie Rock first began forming in the style of alternative punk rock with bands such as Sonic Youth and The Smiths who drew inspiration from the guitar melodies of 60’s rock and developed their own style and genre called Jangle pop. The groups anti-mainstream style and attitude then began forming the platform for alternative rock and then develop into Indie Rock.

1990’s The development of Indie rock came in the 1990’s with alternative bands such as Alice In Chains and Nirvana entering the main stream music scene, other bands such as Blur and Oasis also became mainstream during this period meaning the term “Alternative” lost its original meaning, instead address groups who were considered alternative but maintained their independent status were branded within the genre of “Indie Rock”.

2000-The Present Day From the 2000’s to the current day, Indie rock has continued to generate interest making the music enter into the mainstream music scene; this then poses the question, “Can Indie Rock still e considered independent with their mainstream influence?”.

The Development Of Indie Rock Music Video’s

1980’s As the the indie rock genre began development in the 80’s, bands such as Depeche mode started to use a film style when featuring in a music video. Their music video for the “meaning of Love” in the 1980’s features the band playing music and singing along to the music as well as also showing the storyline develop simultaneously. There were also some close up shots of each and member, their instruments and the lead singers face as he sung, the music video also featured children to represent the innocent nature of love, they also showed the children growing up to how the development of the relationship and how as they get older their relationship changes and becomes more mature.

1990’s In the 1990’s the band Rage Against the Machine created a music video for their song Bulls on Parade, in this music video they show the band performing live, they also have close ups of each band member and their instruments, they also feature black ad white videos of riots and historical events and these images played along with the lyrics of the song represent the violent and masculine nature of war and the US military, there is also the use of the colour red to symbolizes how the military are like bulls.

2000-The Present Day In 2003 the band Kings of leon create a music video for their song Wasted time, this featured the band playing instruments and close ups of each member and their instruments, there is also a secondary storyline that is edited parallel with the ads performance. The storyline features women in an outdoor gig or concert and they are dancing, the video is very jumpy and pieced together in an odd fashion so as to disorientated the audience which represents the use of drugs, the lyrics also translate the feeling of freedom and the idea of being able to do whatever they want.

Conclusion Therefore, in most if not all indie rock music videos they often use the same style of film even through time and feature a storyline running along with the song that relates to the song lyrics, this is something that has become a convention of music videos in general and the issues and use of symbolizes within the videos are representative of the indie rock genre and how within this genre the music is often based on topics that don't appeal to a large audience.