40 Years Musicvideos

It all started with Queen back then. When "Bohemian Rhapsody" flickered across television screens around the world in 1975, a revolution began: the genre of the music video was born and began a triumph that led to the founding of MTV six years later. Soon there was no longer a hit without video, the creativity of video directors exploded and the promo clips of the early days became small feature films or breathtaking experiments with never-before-seen special effects. "40 Years of Music Videos" explains how the videos were made, shows the tricks of the makers and tells incredible stories of successes and scandals.

For the 40th anniversary of the music video, the documentation spans an arc from the forerunners of the video to the milestones of the eighties such as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" or Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer", from Madonna's provocations of the nineties to Lady Gaga's eccentric clips from the two-thousanders, from  material battles like "Wild Boys" by Duran Duran to the computer-animated clips of the comic band Gorillaz and ends with the internet hypes of recent times - from "Gangnam Style" to Miley Cyrus to Pharrell Williams' "Happy".

Video directors, contemporary witnesses and experts have their say, as do prominent presenters and VJs who have experienced the development of music television first-hand. Among them are Anastasia Zampounidis, Collien Ulmen-Fernandes, Steve Blame, Markus Kavka, Nilz Bokelberg, Ingolf Lück, Jan Köppen, Jo Groebel, Uwe Flade, Peter Schilling, Joey Kelly, Giovanni Zarrella, Claudia Roth, Simon Gosejohann and Rudi Dolezal.

"40 Years of Music Videos" takes viewers on an exciting and informative journey through the most thrilling, original, (insanely) funny, touching, elaborate and scandalous video clips ever shot.

"40 Years of Music Videos" - is a four-part music documentary produced by Maxi Media for RTL