Andrew Goodwin’s Theory

Owen Howard

How to analyse Music Videos

Andrew Goodwin identifies 5 key aspects of music videos that we the audience should look out for, which are:• Thought beats – Seeing the sound • Narrative and Performance • The Star Image • Relation of Visuals to Song • Technical Aspects of Music Videos

Thought Beats – Seeing the sound

• First Step – We must look at the music itself, taking into account the structure of the song for example, chorus/verses

• Second Step – Now we should listen for the voice of the song. The artists voice is extremely unique and can form identification or trademarks that work well with the star image. Roland Barthes theory of the Grain of voice can be related to this. He sees the singing voice as an expressive instrument and therefore able to make associations of its own.

• Final Step - Goodwin also points out the artists mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories where the artist is the storyteller, making the music video a two communication device, with the video telling us a story as well as the audience listening to the music as a song.

Narrative and Performance

Andrew Goodwin believed that it was important for an artist to be involved in the music video by performing or acting out a role as the main character or singer.• This helps the song look and feel more realistic because the artist is involved in all

aspects of the song rather than just the singing the song itself, as well as being on the album cover.

• This also gives the audience a strong and special connection with the artist as well as a good understanding of the song.

• A good example of this is the song ‘Bad Blood’ by ‘Taylor Swift’ Taylor Swift is the main actor in the music video as well as the artist (singer) of the song. This helps the video become well-known and well populated because, audiences will be able to recognise the main actor in the song as the singer of the song. This therefore engages audiences and excited them as it looks more realistic.

The Star Image

Andrew Goodwin referred to the star image as a very vital aspect of a music video, they make the music video look more appealing to the audience by bringing a unique style to the video in the way he/she is portrayed.• This links to ‘narrative and performance’ as the video uses the artist as the

singer as well as the main actor. However, the star image uses different aspects such as mise-en-scene, camera angles and characters to represent the artist as centre of attention

• This helps to promote the artist itself in public as well as gaining a positive reputation for the music video.

As we are not producing a song, just a music video, we will find it hard to apply the star image to our music video however, we will try to make sure that there is one main actor in our music video who is also the main singer, this way the audience will be able to identify who the artist is in our video.

Relation of Visuals to Song

Andrew Goodwin believed that a music video can promote a song through the way it analysis the lyrics.There are three ways visuals are used to promote a song:• Illustrate - music videos use certain images & shots to

illustrate/explain the meaning of lyrics to their song and the genre. • Disjuncture - Is this situation , the meaning of the song is

completely ignored in the music video.• Amplify - Repeatability, this is when the images and camera shots

are manipulated and shown repeatedly throughout the music video and is drummed into our vision

Goodwin’s theory is shown in nearly every song as characters do exactly what the song says.

Technical Aspects of Music Videos

Andrew says that the technical aspect helps to hold the music video together through the use of Mise-en-Scene, Special effects, sound and editing .• These aspects have to be technical otherwise the music video will not achieve

very good publicity. Music videos are relaxed, exiting and enjoyable however, without the use of mise-en-scene music videos will not attract the same audience as the song does. Also, special affects helps to engage audiences and excites them as they watch it because it is something they don’t hear or see whilst listening to the song. The sound is the most important because it has to match the song otherwise it is unrealistic, and as a result it will not be popular in the charts and will gain negative publicity. As well as the editing, which varies in speed to match the correct genre of the song. These technical aspects hold the music video together and help promote it to music industries where music videos become well populated.