Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin's music video theory.

music videos ignore common narrative as they are essentially advertisements for the artist and song. As consumers we make up our own meaning of a song in our minds: a music video doesn't need a narrative.

conventions.

• Relationship between lyrics and visuals which illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics

Illustrate Lyrics - Lego House by Ed Sheeran, In this Rupert Grint (Ron Wesley) picks up Lego pieces and builds a literal Lego house

Amplify Lyrics - This is used typically to emphasise the emotion of the song, for example it is used in all of Adele's songs as she sings about broken relationships, the emotion here is shown by the expression on her face and the setting and costume.

Disjuncture Lyrics - This is similar to Illustrate but instead of relating to the lyrics it contrasts them, for example in Jessie J's music video for Price Tag where she is dancing in front of a money tree, whilst singing 'it ain't about the money'.

• Thought Beats allow the viewer to 'see the sound' (the relationship between the music and the visuals, which illustrate, amplify or contradict the music) movements are usually made on beat.

• Genre related style & iconography present this is what would be expected to be seen in the videos for example the classic teen sensation boy band would have to have their shirts of at some point in the video if not open.

• Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist: the creation of a star image to promote a recognisable brand image. 

• Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.

Male artists often feature female onterrages to portray the male gorge. videos often sexualuise the artist and cause fetishistic connections for the male audience.

• International references to other media texts may be present especially in humorous videos for example All Time Low's video for 'I feel like dancing' which mocks the process made to make a music video and how companies sign artists in order of making money and not for the music. in this video we see the band re-creating the videos from classic videos like katy perry's Teenage dream along side Lady Gaga and many other artists.