Andrew Goodwin’s Music Video Theory Emma, Fin, Harry

Key Principles 1. Links between music and visuals. 2. Links between lyrics and visuals 3. Genre characteristics 4. Intertextual references 5. Notions of looking 6. Voyeurism 7. Demands of the record label 8. Performance based, Narrative based and Concept based music videos

Performance videos A performance video will depict the performance of the song, either by videoing the band/artist preforming the song in a staged situation, like in Nirvana’s Team Spirit, or in a context that involves elements of narrative videos, where the music video has a story that revolves around the main character (played by the main artist) who preforms the song. This is commonly used for pop songs as this enables the video to easily use star imagery which, as pop songs usually have been created by a celebrity artist, means the songs music video should gain a larger audience as fans will want to see the video.

Narrative videos This form of music video is probably the most common of all three. Narrative videos are music videos that have a story, they are most common because most songs have a story and therefore would want to reflect it in the songs video. They can be used by most genres of music as it is more dependent on what the song is about than the type of song. Narrative videos will usually have a connection between the visuals and the lyrics than the visuals and the music, this is because the video will already relate to the lyrics, especially if the video is reflecting a story being told by the lyrics. A good example of a narrative music video is Breezeblocks by Alt-j, as it uses connections between the lyrics and the visuals and does not incorporate performance or concept elements. Performance and narrative videos can be used together and are done so fairly commonly, especially in the genre of pop.

Concept videos Concept based videos are videos that follow a single topic or idea within their imagery, they do not have to have an association with the lyrics although some do, for example, Fitzpleasure by Alt-j. Concept videos are the least common type of the three types of music videos as it is not looked for by audiences as much as narrative or performance videos, and because the song has to be accommodating, songs with stories usually use narratives and songs by famous people usually use performace videos. Concept elements are usually individual and do not usually use narrative or performance elements.

Link between music and visuals There is a link between the music (beat, rhythm, etc) and the visuals (what is happening in the music video). The link between the music and the visuals is not always as prominent as the link between lyrics and visuals, it is more commonly present in pop or rock videos as the link draws attention to the beat and flow of the song. It isn’t used in more mellow genres of music to the same extent as there isn’t a as prominent beat which the video needs to exaggerate, whereas pop videos might want to use a dance that picks up on aspects of the music to encourage the audience to dance. In genres that don’t have much of a beat, and by definition would be less of a dance song, they might want to use the music video to focus on a narrative or concept. Having a link between the music and visuals is more to do with performance videos, as they can show shots of band members playing their musical instruments, or because performance videos are commonly pop songs.

Link between lyrics and visuals A good example of the way music videos use a link between the lyrics and the visuals is in performance videos where the singer of the song sings to the music, this is common as it is useful for star imagery, where you can get the possibly famous singer in the video to boost its popularity as fans would want to see the singer. This link between the lyrics and visuals is most common in pop videos as pop (popular) are usually made by celebrity artists so this link means they can easily use star imagery. There are other subtle links in music videos that link to the lyrics, this is more common in narrative or concept videos, where the thing stated, talked about or brought up by the lyrics is then incorporated into the story or concept of the video. For example, in breezeblocks by Alt-j, on “hold her down with soggy clothes in breezeblocks”, there is a shot of a woman who has been drowned in a bath and a breezeblock on her chest.

Voyeurism & notions of looking Most commonly referred to as the male or female gaze, voyeurism is when the audience gains pleasure from watching the subjects of the video, often because there is a sexual undertone. This is more common with female characters where the camera lingering on them when they are in a scene or scenario of a sexual nature, or by showing provocative visual imagery in association to females. In relation to a music video this could involve female side characters being objectified through their costume or through the lyrics in the music. This is present with males as the subjects, the female gaze, however this is to a far lesser extent.

Intertextual references Intertextual references is when the music video is influenced by other cultural influences. They are often symbols to represent ideas to the audience, including product placement etc. The record label in which the artist is signed to, tends to have certain demands. They often include the need of lots of close-up of the artist and the artist will have a visual style which will then appear across their work.