MUSIC VIDEO THEORY

5 KEY CONCEPTS

• Andrew Goodwin states there are five key concepts of a music video that audience look out for: •  Through beats – seeing the sound in your head

• Narrative and performance

•  Star image

•  Relation of visuals to the song

•  Technical aspects of the music

THROUGH BEATS – SEEING THE SOUND IN YOUR HEAD

• There are three steps in order to ‘see’ the sound in your head: •  First step: look into the music and interpret it looking at the chorus

and verses

•  Second step: listen to the voice within the song as every artists’ voice is unique and can be identified from the rest of the artists within that genre.

•  Third step: understand and analysis the story the artist is telling within their songs.

NARRATIVE AND PERFORMANCE

•  Goodwin says that we tend to make up our own idea of the messages being sent in a song from a basic understanding of what it may actually be about

•  Music videos should be of the same standard every time and narrative and performance work together in order to keep the audience interested and not bored of a music video.

•  When the artist acts as the actor/singer as well as the participant in the music video, this makes the video more authentic and original.

•  Goodwin believes that miming is still the most popular feature in music videos today however it is in the artists’ best interest to make it look as real as possible to the audience.

STAR IMAGE

•  Star image is a vital aspect of music videos. Artists want to look unique in order to stay current and for audiences to remember them.

•  This star image develops overtime and plays a big role in the production process of music videos.

KEY FEATURES

Andrew Goodwin has also identified a number of key features in music videos. They are: -  A relationship between the lyrics and visuals -  A relationship between the music and visuals -  Genre-related style and iconography present -  Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist -  Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to

females -  Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.

- Goodwin says that music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist. Relationships are built between these in the video, and the close ups of the artists gives them the representation and publicity they require. Voyeurism is used to increase the video’s attractiveness, particularly to males , whilst intertextuality is often employed in humorous videos. - Many of these features are present in all music videos, depending on the genre of the song and the aim of the record company/artist. - Listening to the lyrics of a song and watching the video can get you two complete interpretation of the song.

KEITH NEGUS’ THEORY OF MUSIC VIDEOS

Negus challenges the connection between popular music and youth culture. He argues that popular music is listened to and performed by an ageing demographic. He also takes issue with the view that popular music is inherently rebellious. Punk rock finally challenged, deconstructed and exposed the mythologies of rock at the very moment when the original teenagers and youth of the rock generation were beginning to hear things in a different way; songs of generational liberation and social concern were starting to be used to advertise wine coolers, executive cars and personal insurance.