A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. These videos are typically shown on music television and on streaming video sites like YouTube, or more rarely shown theatrically.

They can be commercially issued on home video, either as video albums or video singles. The format has been described by various terms including “illustrated song”, “filmed insert”, “promotional (promo) film”, “promotional clip”, “promotional video”, “song video”, “song clip”, “film clip”, “video clip”, or simply “video”.

While musical short films were popular as soon as recorded sound was introduced to theatrical film screenings in the 1920s, promotional music videos started becoming popular into the 1960s and the music video rose to prominence in the 1980s when American TV channel MTV based its format around the medium.

Music videos use a wide range of styles and contemporary video-making techniques, including animation, live-action, documentary, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film. Combining these styles and techniques has become more popular due to the variety for the audience.

Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song’s lyrics, while others take a more thematic approach. Other music videos may not have any concept, being only a filmed version of the song’s live concert performance.