Andrew Goodwin's Theory of Music Videos

Goodwin suggested that there are five key apsects of music videos in which the audience look out for: Thought beats (seeing the sound), narrative and performance, the star image, relation of visuals to the song and the technical aspects of music videos.

First of all, thought beats. There are three steps to which the audience see the sound in their head. First step is to look at the music itself, taking into account the structure of the song for example: chorus and verse. Then next step is the voice of the song, where the artist's voice is unique and forms identification that works well with the star's image.

Roland Barthes theory on the grain of voice, can be used to explain this. He states that the singing voice is an expressive instrument in its own element and is able to make associations of its own. Third step, Goodwin portrays the artist's mode of address. What this means it that songs can be seen as stories, where the artist acts as the narrative. This makes the music video a two way communication device, the audience is the listener and the artist is telling the story.

The narrative and performance. Songs don't tend to tell the audience the full story... this is so that the audience can make up they're own interpretations. Goodwin explains that commonly used narrative should be ignored because it is important in their role of advertising. If all songs used the same narrative, it would have no effect on the audience. Music videos should have repeatability, this is done by narrative and performance working together. This is what makes the audience keep their attention when watching a music video. The artist plays two roles which are the narrator and participant, this increases authenticity. Never the less it is the lip sync and other mimed actions which are the focus points of music videos. Therefore the audience need to be able to believe the music video is real.

Next is star image. The star is the vital aspect of all music videos. Therefore many considerations should be made when choosing the star's image such as: looks, personality.

Meta narrative is like a timeline showing the progressive development of the star over time. Which is very important in the music video production process.

Relations of visuals to the song. There are three ways that music videos work to promote a song: illustrate, amplify and disjuncture. Firstly illustration is using a set of images to display the meanings of lyrics and genres. Iconography could be worked around here to symbolise meanings. This is the most commonly used method. Secondly amplification is where meanings and effects are manipulated repeatedly which is transferred to the audience's perception as they watch. This method is similar to repeatability. Lastly disjuncture, which is the complete ignorance of the meanings of the song. This method can be seen is some music videos which use completely different visuals to the song.

Finally technical aspects in music videos are what brings it together. Using camerawork, movement, angle, mise en scene, editing, sound and special effects. For example for sound when the beat of the music cuts to go with the visuals or lyrics, which makes the audience more entertained.

-Myung Kwon-