Air on the G string

The first music video was not "Video Killed the Radio Star" in 1981.
In 1915, Thomas Edison produced The Voice of the Violin directed by Ben Turbett. It featured "Air on the G string" which of course was to be synchronously played on an Edison phonograph (a Diamond Disc system) wherever the film was being shown. The audio for the film was only available on an Edison 'Diamond Disc'. This film advertised the 10 inch shiny disc containing the music. Thus, this film is a music video in every aspect. The work has fallen out of copyright, and can be seen here BTW, the audio for that video is not representative of the original when played from a Diamond Disc. For the original showings, Edison would have musicians hidden in the darkened theater. Intermittently the musicians would play while the Diamond Disc player was silenced. When asked afterwords, no one in the audience was ever able to identify where the real musicians had played instead of the Diamond Disc. They were not made of vinyl. Some of them were also in stereo. However, at $250 per system and $4.25 per disc, this was a high fidelity luxury that that the average customer could not afford. That would be about $4855.95 per system and about $1221.99 per disc in today's economy. Double that for stereo discs. Also, Diamond Discs only held 5 minutes of audio. Check out XE.com to see these numbers in your own currency. Pay 3 467 571₤ for a CD!? There may have even been films before Voice of the Violin where a piece of music was a featured star of the film in the hopes of increasing sales of the music.